Anthem By Ayn Rand: Literary Analysis

Anthem by Ayn Rand tells the tale of a dystopian society in which people are to think only of others, and taught that people shouldn’t think of themselves, eliminating all personal pronouns. In this society people are not able to pick their own careers, and instead a group known as the Council of Vocations decides what a person’s career is going to be. In the novel Equality, the main protagonist is a fantastic student, who aims to learn as much as possible and wants to use his knowledge to further advance society. Equality is looking forward to finding out what his career is going to be, hoping to be a scholar to enhance his education.

When the day comes Equality is nervous, nervous to see the job he will be assigned to. When it is Equality’s turn to receive his orders he enters the room and hopes. He hopes that he will be given the career he wants. But, unfortunately he doesn’t. He instead is assigned the job of a street sweeper, but why? Was it completely random? Was this an error? No. Assigning Equality the task of a street sweeper was intentional. …show more content…
Curious he enters, what he finds is amazing. He finds remains of past times, when everything and everyone was “evil”. One of the remains found is a light bulb, while Equality is unaware of this he is fascinated. He decides to begin toying with the device to find its purpose. Eventually, he is able to create light. A marvelous feat, considering torches and candles had been used as lighting. Equality soon after begins writing in a journal, recording his observations, this is strictly forbidden, and Equality is well aware of this. One day, while in his hideout Equality sees a woman, a beautiful woman. For a while he doesn’t say anything to her, but rather watches. One day Equality has the courage to talk to this woman. He finds out her name; Liberty