The book Anthem takes place in a society that could be best described as a dystopia. No individuals have any form of free will. They cannot select their careers, instead, those are picked by the government. They also have no right to ask questions concerning their past, and all of their curiosity is stripped away from them. Although the story takes place in the future, it is as if they took a step back in time when considering their education and technology. Everything was handwritten, there were no cars, and their medicine was extremely restricted.
I would not like to live in the type of society portrayed in the book. Having essentially no control over my own life and not being able to have a sense of myself as an individual, rather than a part of a whole, would likely leave me unsatisfied with the way I lived.
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The citizens living in this society have all lived the same unfulfilling life that they followed in hopes of “benefiting the society”. So it may be a possibility that once they reached the age where they were no longer allowed to work, in this case, 40, they had no reason to live anymore because they weren’t actively helping the community. Another possibility is that the labor that the people were subjected to was so intense and physically demanding that by the time they were 45, their bodies could have been in the same condition as an 80-year-old in our society.
The author, Ayn Rand, had described Equity to be quite tall and unusually smart. Which is not common among the men in the society. This hints to the reader that not only is he physically different, but the story probably has to do with how to acts differently or thinks differently than everyone else.
I believe that Equality 7-2521 was assigned the job of a street sweeper for the government to limit its influence. Being different as he his, the government believed that his presence almost challenged them, therefore giving him a job of low authority lessened the “threat”.
It can be easily observed that this novel takes place in the future due to the author's inclusion of inventions from the past that we live with today. These include cars and lights but are described as in the past and are no longer available.
Teachers today would not react the same way in which the people in Anthem reacted to Equality’s curiosity. Today it is okay to ask questions and wonder about things, especially for kids. Teachers would applaud children’s curiosity.
The society in which Anthem takes place heavily focuses on the collective good rather than the individual. Equality was able to recall that he could predict what the teachers would say before they said it, and learning was very easy for him which made him curious to learn more. His individuality, being smarter than everyone else, had been seen as a threat to society as a whole.
Equality does not agree with the teachings of society and wants to focus on himself as an individual and learn about new things. At this point, Equity is aware that what he is thinking is against the rules of society, but he also knows that his curiosity is not going to stop. His curiosity overcoming his sense of the rules is shown when he enters the tunnel to explore it when he knows that it would be against the rules.
Compared to the other members of this society, I feel like Equality 7-2521 would be the best friend to have. Somehow he is the only one who seems to question why things are the way they are and don’t want to follow every rule put in place by the government. Most of the other people in the society adhere so much to the rules that a close friendship with them is unlikely because they aren’t allowed to have personal relationships.
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