Dominique's Interest In Chrysanthem, By Ayn Rand

Summary: In a world where I does not exist, Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 find themselves viewing one another as unique from the other men and women surrounding them. They are individually significant, even though their society greatly opposes the importance of an individual. They are forbidden from doing anything alone and are not allowed to think for themselves, Equality 7-2521 explores with the science of light and other things. Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 break many laws, even simple things such as thinking of one another and giving a name to each other. While they do not know it, they have a sense of self in a place where one is forbidden from looking at themselves as individual people with a soul different from any other. When Equality 7-2521 runs away to the forest to avoid further conflict with the law, Liberty 5-3000 follows. In the woods, instead of facing death as they had expected, they find joy and a life worth living.

Picture this. Imagine your parents and family that you love. Your dog? Cat? Then watch it all wash away as if it had never existed. In Anthem you are born technically with no parents. If you are a girl you grow up to go to the home of the peasants where you will basically farm your whole life. Men go to school and then there fate is chosen by a council of elders where in their opinion you are best “fit” to work. And to reproduce when you are of age you are sent to the “Palace of Mating” to have children.

The narrator of Anthem,7-2521 are the only ones from this community to see or know more than there brothers,which causes them to create something that nobody else can create.The council tries to stop them from overthinking or triying to be more than the rest.They told themselves that they rather die than let the council know what they have created(33-34).The way Equality 7-2521 thought they felt proud but they felt scared they never wanted to get caught by the council.Additionally,when Equality 7-2521 does decide to speak up and show the scholars what they have created.(69-70)

Anthem is a short dystopian fiction novel written by Ayn Rand. It was published 79 years in 1938 in England. The setting of the novel starts off in a dark tunnel. As we get further in the book we learn that the story takes place in an undetermined point in the future in a City that’s not specified. The main character, Equality 7-2521, narrates his thoughts to the reader throughout the whole book. He feels guilty because he’s breaking the laws by writing down his thoughts but feels it is necessary. It is forbidden for the people to have their own thoughts or do anything by themselves. A long time ago, there was something called the Great Rebirth. After that happened, society started to refer to themselves as “we” and lost the word “I”,

Character development is vitally important in Anthem. As we watch Equality 7-2521 change from a state of guilt and unhappiness to a state of pride and self-worthiness, the process creates the bulk of the story elements. One of the most important instances that show how much Equality has changed occurs in Chapter 8. At the end of this chapter, Equality bursts into laughter after thinking about what has happened. Equality laughs when he remembers that he is the damned because he feels liberated, not ruined.

The extensive amount of rules and controls of the society Prometheus lives in has lead him to insanity. Prometheus of Ayn Rand’s Anthem society’s amount of control over the community and has restricted the human capacity to a slave like being due to having no choice over what you do with your life. Contrary to the superior’s belief, Prometheus’s vision of his society would make humans able to reach their highest ability and prosperity.

When reading the novel, “Anthem”, by Ayn Rand, through a historical lense, readers can see that many aspects of anthem are written based on the events and experiences that Rand had encountered in her life. Rand based many aspects of the novel on her childhood experiences in communist Russia. Things such as “The Unmentionable Times”, the tunnel, and the escape showed how Rand felt about her experiences in Russia and after.

Ayn Rand uses the phrase, “The sleeping halls are white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds”(20,21,28) to display the wholeness of everyone where no one is different. To start with, when Equality explains about what to do when they get tempted he says, “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible, and forever.”(19). The society takes away all individualism from everyone. They want people to believe that everyone is a whole. They cannot think or express differences between one another and if they do they get punished severely. Secondly when Equality wishes to go to the House of Scholars he explains, “For men may wish nothing for themselves.”(24). No one in the society is allowed

“What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them in shame and submission? The worship of the word we.” is what Equality 7-2521 thought of on page 102. What Equality 7-2521 describes of is what Ayn Rand calls collectivism, which is production for use and that a person’s own job ignores their aims, desires, and happiness. Early in the story, Equality 7-2521 shows he has a desire to become one of the few people who are chosen to live in the House of Scholars as their job. However, the Council of Vocations decide that his job for the rest of his life should be a street sweeper. Equality 7-2125 believes that the Council of Vocations has made a mistake, however there was sinister motivation of why the

There were many things of the unknown that Equality was oblivious to and he was determined to explain his mind. He knew that, "We have come to see how great is the unexplored, and many lifetimes will not bring us to the end of our quest" (Rand 36). No matter how many lifetimes he got, it would never be enough time to know every last thing that wandered the earth. It shows that all Equality ever wanted to do buckle down on the books and study everything he possibly could to give himself a bigger picture on life. He had to study alone, away from the Street Sweeper home, in a tunnel that he found, to gain this knowledge because he could be punished if any of the superior members of the society found out.

In the book Anthem by Ayn Rand, Equality is a street sweeper. The Council of Vocations selected Equality to be a street sweeper. In school, Equality was the most intelligent student in his class. The Council of Vocations assigned Equality the job of a street sweeper due to a sinister motivation. He was chosen as a street sweeper because they were scared of what Equality could become. They were scared because Equality was very intelligent and unique from all of the others. The council selected him as a street sweeper so he would cause no damage.

In the novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, the theme of female inferiority is shown throughout the novel. Rand has been known to portray women as obedient and submissive to men in most of her novels. In Anthem Rand shows how women are inferior to men by; showing that a woman’s highest priority is to follow a man, that men can eliminate and redetermine a woman’s identity, and that women are only there to fit the needs of a man.

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.

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

Innocence ! = Ignorance? Malevolence and ignorance originate from innocence.