The book Anthem by Ayn Rand is about a person named Equality 7-2521. This book takes place in the future where everything is quite different. The word I does not exist and all the people, or brothers, of the world must refer to themselves as we or our instead of I and my. Everyone is equal and have names with numbers and a different prefix. Their name is written out on an iron bracelet on their hands. If a brother is different from the rest he is considered to be bad; such as being too tall or strong. They are all raised for a certain time at the Home of The Students, which is the school they attend after being taken away from their parents at a very young age.
They go to the Home of The Students until they are ready. When they are ready, they are taken before the World Council to be assigned a job, which they have for the rest of their life. The main character, Equality 7-2521 is different from everyone else. He is very smart and a good learner. This is considered to be bad in the world. One day he finds a cave and experiments in it for 3 hours a day. He invents a light bulb and considers showing it to the World Council.
When he finally decides that he will, he gets rejected and punished for thinking and being better than all his brothers. He runs away and goes to the Uncharted Forest, a forest in which no man has ever gone into and lived. The Golden One follows him, a girl he loves. Her name is actually Liberty 5000. She also loves him and gives him the name, The Unconquered. In the forest, they start a new life with his found knowledge of individualism. He learns to use the word I and finds the true meaning of ego.
Tone is nature or the pitch given by a story to express the mood or setting in a story. The tone is found in Anthem are excitement and despair. And them we saw iron rings as steps leading down a shaft in a darkness without bottom.(p. 31). Equality7-2521 and his friend International 4-8818 were exploring when they found this hole in the ground that a led a large cave underground. They both swore not to tell anyone about it, and it becomes Equality 7-2521s laboratory where he studied his interests and curiosities. We came to know that we had found the greatest power on earth(p. 53).
Equality 7-2521 was experimenting on a dead frog and its leg moved, his curiosity and its lure of new unknown knowledge lead him to do more research on why its leg moved. He uncovered a secret lay hidden from all men, electricity. We wish to speak it but we dare not speak it above a whisper(p. 38). When Equality 7-2521 first meets Liberty 5-3000, he cannot stop thinking about her. He longs for The Golden One but it is against the law to look at women. Many days passed before we could speak to the Golden One again.(p. 53). The Golden One and Equality 7-2521 like each other and they talk everyday when he passes by where she works in the field with her sisters. Equality 7-2521 has been very busy with his new discoveries and he has not spoken to her but he wishes to be with her.
Diction is the choice of words in a book used by the author or character to describe the thoughts or actions of what the author or character intends for the reader to understand. It was a great tunnel. Its walls were hard and smooth to the touch; it felt like stone, but it was not stone. On the ground there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron, it felt smooth and cold as glass(p. 32). This great tunnel, which quickly becomes Equality 7-2521s laboratory, is described here. He goes down an enormous staircase and reaches the floor to find steel tracks and cement or concrete walls. The fields are black and ploughed, and they lie like a great fan before us, with their furrows gathered in some hand beyond the sky, spreading forth from that hand, opening wide apart as they come toward us, like black pleats that sparkle with thin, green spangles (p. 38).
This giant field is where Liberty 5-3000 works everyday and it seems these enormous fields are holding her from Equality 7-2521. She sees Equality 7-2521 and he sees her and they talk everyday yearning for each other. And beyond the City there lies the plain, and beyond the plain, black upon the black sky, there lies the Uncharted Forest(p.47). The reader feels like he is on a cliff looking out far and beyond the limits of his city. And one almost feels strange yet curious as to what lies on the outer rim of seclusion and safety.
Detail in a story is crucial, because, with good detail the readers can watch a movie in their head as they read the story. Their body was straight and thin as a blade of iron. Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt. Their hair was golden as the sun; their hair flew in the wind, shining and wild, as if it defied men to restrain it(p. 39). The Golden One, Liberty 5-3000, is detailed to be a very beautiful woman. Equality 7-2521 looks at her and thinks she is very beautiful and is dismayed by the fact that men should not look at women and that she must go soon go to the Palace of Mating to be set up with a man and make babies. The transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes of blue as morning.(p. 50).
The transgressor was the one man of very rare occasion to speak the Unspeakable word which was never spoken of. The transgressor was punished by death for finding the Unspeakable word, yet as he died, ever prideful and smiling, found some undiscovered joy and fulfilling happiness unknown to the fellow brothers from the word. We found wires that lead to strange little globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than a spiders web(p. 54). Equality 7-2521 searched throughout his entire tunnel and finding everything he could, created a workplace of discovery and innovation. He had found many wires and light bulbs, giving him his ideas for his box of light.
The point of view in the story is first person; it is from which perspective a story is told. Equality 7-2521 we answered(p. 43). When he gets asked for his name by liberty 5-3000, his answer is we, even though there is one of him. This shows, the way of the world is only referring to oneself as a group; I is the unspeakable word. We have built strange things we this discovery of ours(p. 53). Equality 7-2521 refers to himself as we and thinks that way as well. He thinks of all of his discoveries while in his laboratory and how he has excelled. I think. I am. I will.(p. 94). Equality 7-2521 finds the Unspeakable word. The word is I and he weeps as he discovers its power and individualism.
Organization in a book is how the book is set up into the beginning, the middle, and the end. Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it(p. 18). The world is based on equalism and everyone is the same. It is wrong to be different at all and is considered a transgression. It was easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about(p. 67).
They punished and tortured him but he would not tell of his tunnel or marvelous creations. Equality 7-2521 was caught because he returned too late from his tunnel yet paid no heed and escaped form the detention. I have learned that my power of the sky was known to men long ago; they called it Electricity(p. 100). Equality 7-2521 and liberty 5-3000 are now called Prometheus and Gaea and live blissfully in the uncharted forest. They start their own civilization based on individualism and freedom for those who wish it after Equality 7-2521s quest for I.
The word I as well as ego is introduced into Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000s being along with their individualism and freedom. Anthem by Ayn Rand is a book on individualism. It shows the world of all equality and one persons quest for the unspeakable word. The unspeakable word is I and the main character and his wife base a new society on it. Their society is also based on a persons ego and freedom from equality. The details of this story make it very interesting to depict in ones mind. Diction in this story is important and represented by Equality 7-2521 secret tunnel, the environment, and how he wants Liberty 5-3000. Excitement and despair are strong tones in this story. Anthem is a book regarding a mans search for the societys unspeakable word as well as personal benefit to its freedom and represented individualism.
