Essays

Anthem Essay: Completed

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Self Discovery

Throughout human history, there have been many types of societies and governments. From the medieval times of feudalism to modern democracy, a common thread has been woven through time: when a person goes against the ideals of society, government, or the general will, they tend to be rejected by the majority. During the 1930s, the lead up to WWII, there was buzz around the world for and against collective governments, such as Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Soviet Russia, in which the success of the group was placed above the individual. In 1938, author Ayn Rand published her book Anthem, which pitted a man with individualist ideas against his collectivist society. The pivotal moment of the story comes when Equality 7-2521 presents his creation (made on his own) to the Council of Scholars who, as mirrored in similar cases throughout history, reject him and his creation. The people of the Council of Scholars reject Equality because of his actions, which promote individualism and demote the sanctity of their entire collectivist world.

In the beginning, Equality struggles with his perceived sin of individuality. He says repeatedly that he is guilty of the Transgression of Preference (he had a greater liking of things in a world where everything must be the same) into adulthood, and through his vocation, as Street Sweeper he hopes he can atone for this (22). However, his curiosity of the world only grows and is amplified once he finds a tunnel from the Unmentionable Times, a time hundreds of years prior when the world was not united by the current collective society. It is in this tunnel that Equality learns and develops his creation.

His discovery and acquired knowledge from going into the tunnel resembles Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," in which people are trapped in a cave and all they know are shadows. One of these people is released and learns of life outside of the cave, and when he returns he is rejected by those who had stayed. In the closed system of the cave, the enlightened person is deemed a fool (X). On the contrary, Equality goes into a dark place to advance his knowledge, and it is when he leaves that he is rejected by society. The rejection occurs because the enlightened person is making drastic alterations to his world. For the people in the cave, all they know are the shadows, and they believe that there is nothing more to explain them, as with the collective society. The people have been taught since birth to believe in their society and know nothing else. They find it easier to accept the darkness or their ignorance than to discover the world themselves.

As people develop, their mind is shaped just as much by their biology as by how they are raised. Under Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, the collective society present in Anthem completely removes a single person's autonomy during this critical period (age 1-3). Without this development, people gain self-doubt and begin to rely on others (Z). With this said, the people in this collective society have their choices taken away from them at birth and so they have no capacity to think for themselves. Making choices for themselves and not for everyone is such a foreign idea that when a situation presents itself they accept the majority's choice over their own ideas. In the case of Equality, however, he has always been seen as different and has thought of the world differently than his brothers. Through his upbringing, he had been taught that "the Councils [government] are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all men" (22) and that anything that does not follow this way of thinking is evil. When Equality later decides to present his creation to the World Council of Scholars and face the consequences, "terror . . . struck the men of the Council . . . [They] huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another to give them courage" (70). It was stated previously that it had taken twenty men to invent the candle (one hundred years ago), so to the men of the Council, it may have also been inconceivable that a single man from the Home of the Street Sweepers had created a light with no flame. The whole basis of their society is that the group makes decisions that will better the group.