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Analysis Of Anthem, By Ayn Rand

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Is dystopian fiction, unremittingly bleak, leaving no room for hope, or is it a positive warning to persuade us to speculate about the world that mankind has created.
On the surface, dystopian fiction is a bleak, depressing genre that offers ‘a detailed and destructive presentation of the very worst of social alternative’ , but in actuality it is a means of speculation that reveals to the audience the real threats in society. It extrapolates contemporary socio-political trends taken into extremes , which compels its audience to re-examine the values of their society, resulting in an optimistic tale that gives the audience hope to escape their pessimistic future. Anthem by Ayn Rand (1937) is a detailed portrait of a collectivist society overstated for the purpose of satire and storytelling. As a politically conscious writer, Rand writes to communicate to her audience her political perception into the destructive psychology of collectivism. This exposes the audience to the risks of conformity, along with providing means to avoid this dystopian imagination crystallising into reality.
Dystopias are a hyperbolic view of a familiar society’s values, and assert that total control is harmful to the individual. Anthem is a grim future Rand envisioned after experiencing first-hand the impacts of a brutal Stalinist rule . It was influenced by general socio-political trend of increasing signs of collectivism and oligarchy developing into more recent politics during the early 20th

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