Anthem English Paper
“The sacred word: Ego.” (Rand 105) Ego is the word that makes Equality 2-2521’s morality different from the beginning to the end of the book. Imagine going from no freedom or independence at all to finally knowing the word “I”. In this society that Equality 7-2521 lived in you would be a loud to be alone at all. The morality in the beginning is that it is god to be as one and bad to an individual. By the end, Equality 7-2521 learns that it is good to be an individual and bad to be the exact same as everyone else. Individuality is the enemy. This is what the citizens in the book Anthem were born and forced to believe. The human kind that lives in this society repeats a chant to their selves. “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, one, individual, and forever.” (Rand 19) They need to remember to always be the same. There’s only one choice, and one choice only: agree. Everybody thinks the same so all you can do is agree, not disagree. The government they have states and drills in the citizens minds since they were born that being along is wrong. Their morality is different compared to how ours are today. It is illegal to write, be alone, and think thoughts their brothers do not think. It’s wrong to communicate to the opposite gender. Also you can only have sex on day out of the year with somebody you are assigned and never met. “We are nothing. Mankind is all.” (Rand 21) Compared to how we live that sounds like madness! They always have to follow what they’re told to do. It is wrong to think of themselves as one individual. Once Equality 7-2521 escapes that society and runs into the forest, he discovers new morals. Morals that he thinks he can actually follow and likes a lot better than what he was told. They were his own, and what he thought was good and bad. Equality 7-2521 reads books that he found in an abandoned house. Those books taught him that it’s good being an individual. This is when he finds out the words I, me,