An Analysis Of Ayn Rand's Anthem

“It is a sin to write this” this is how Ayn Rand starts her book Anthem. In the book Equality is a

My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest...This earth is mine...” (Chapter 11 Paragraphs 1-2)

“To be free, a man must be free from his brothers.”when people hear this they may think

Anthem is a novella that portrays a depiction of a possible future for humanity. Rand, who understood the quickness of social change due to her experience in the Russian Revolution, sets up a society where advancements are suppressed. She does this to illustrate just how much society would have to regress to exist as a collective society. The first example of the suppression is the historical inventions noticed in Anthem that have been forgotten by humanity.

Ayn Rand gives us a short novel Anthem which shows us a society in which people are too afraid to be themselves. Rand wrote the novel around the base of World War II, during this time the nations had all become narrow-minded in the ways to live. The citizens were being brainwashed into sameness. Rand wanted to show the far-reaching of individuality and how it is more important for your wellbeing than living in the fear of being different. The citizens of Anthem are forced to fit the false beliefs of the worlds council. They are raised in the society to fit the needs of their ways and the things around them. The economy teaches them to do nothing but please the people of power. Rand uses Equality

The fiction novel Anthem by Ayn Rand, begins as equality takes a journey to individualism. He begins by writing how wrong he is to be writing what he is, how much of a sin it is. To be thinking as his own, and as an “I”. Ayn Rand is from Russia, which is a communist society. As Rand was growing up in this time frame, she had made the time to give herself an education which was frowned upon as she was a woman. She was not given a sense of “I” it was the normal thing for women to stand back and watch. To continue deeper into the book, Equality's eventual assessment of his writing on his own, changed from being a sin to being and individual activity, from the beginning to the end of the book.

“My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose” (Rand, 95). Anthem is written by American author Ayn Rand about Equality 7-2521 on his quest for happiness. The novel is set in an unspecified time and place in the future. Years after human civilization has gone through a deconstruction in which all knowledge was lost and a new society established with no concept of the individual. “The novel describes the efforts of the main character, Equality 7-2521, to reestablish a sense of personal identity and restore the knowledge of the past by objective scientific inquiry. In doing so, he must face many dangers and privations” (Anthem). Anthem is a dairy of the Equality

In the novel Anthem, Equality 7-2521 believed that individualism was important to the depths of a person into the soul or being. Equality concluded the “We” used in society stripped the people of their true being while destroying the individual self along the way. He states in the novel, “The word ‘We’ is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it.” (Rand 97) By divulging, this Equality is telling mankind that,“ ‘We’ instead of ‘I’ makes men lose themselves to group collectivism and pressure from peers.

Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, and playwright wrote the novella Anthem in 1937. During the time Rand was writing this novella, the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin mercilessly ruled over Russia. Also during this time, the beginnings of World War II took place. These events more than likely inspired the plot for Anthem, a dystopian fiction. Rand's projection of the totalitarianism of Anthem's society is astounding, the book itself has feeling and meaning in correlation to today's world. Anthem depicts a collectivism dictatorship world of the future as in this world there is no "I", these people are forced to follow a strict set of rules, and they are born in bulk, learning and knowing only what their higher powers want them to learn and know.

Thesis~ Ayn Rand conveys Individuality and self worth through her use of Diction, Imagery and Syntax to convey how it is important to be unique. Ayn Rand communicates individualism through her use of Diction, to convey the importance of being yourself. In “Anthem”, after Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 leave their society to be free from the conformity, they find a home from the “Unmentionable times” and naturally start to explore. Eventually Equality 7-2521 finds a book and reads it, deciding that “[He is] done with the monster of ‘We’, the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame”(59).

Today in our society having a big ego is looked down upon, and if someone has a large ego they are often seen as selfish and ignorant of everyone around them. But if someone has no ego at all they can start to lose their sense of self, because they are always focused on everyone around them and they never take time for themselves. To both care for yourself without becoming self-centered and care for others and still have a sense of self, you have to have a balance.

Anthem by Ayn Rand is a dystopian novel written in the 1930’s. The novel displays a society that confines the human mind and body. The rights humans are restricted to what the government believes is fit. The characters are ruled by collectivism and communist. Communism is the belief that the government should own everything. Collectivism is the belief of a superior group that controls society. Rand reveals the nature of the main character’s society and the values of the main character, Equality 7-2521 by writing this excerpt of the novel in the character’s perspective in an assertive tone and beginning with the rights and wrongs of their society.

Ayn Rand's Anthem shows us her view of our world united under what seems to be communist rule. For example their view of right and wrong; which Anthem portrays is a system of very strict rules which mainly make sure that everyone is involved in a collective role within the society in this system no one is considered an individual or that they can even think as an individual.

After moving from soviet Russia to the United States in 1926, Ayn Rand became a well known playwright, author, and philosopher. Rand is well-known for her philosophical system, objectivism. Objectivism stresses that happiness is the most important goal one should have. All of these ideas and philosophies are present in the novel Rand composed, Anthem. In this collectivist society the people act as robots as they carry out their lives with little emotion, limited technology, and the constant threat of punishment. The atmosphere of this novel depicts a society with very rare opposition to the leadership because the people whom it is made up of have no reason to oppose it and since they are constantly threatened with punishments.

Ayn Rand’s book Anthem was written like it was the diary of a man named Equality 7-2521, who lives in a future where people have lost all of their knowledge of individualism, to the point of not even knowing words like ‘I’ because the government took their knowledge of themselves away. The synergy of knowledge, language, literacy, and power can be shown in this book very well. The example that