Anthem

Daniel Lee  Book talk “//Anthem//”  The book “//Anthem//” is a dystopia fiction by Ayn Rand. As you can see the thickness of the book, it is quite thin. It has only 59 pages. Therefore you just can think this book is very easy, short and simple story. I truly agree that uses of the words in //Anthem// are not ambiguous. You might not need to use dictionary for once; however, I would say this book is full of significance like //The Grapes of Wrath//. You must read over three times to understand true meaning and significance of this book. **Before I start to talk about the book, let me begin to introduce the author**, Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand is Russian-American writer. She was born in 1905 and she saw the Russian Revolution of 1917. This event affects her to be an opponent of collectivism, facism, communism, and statism. Later she immigrated to America and became famous screenwriter in Hollywood. **Okay. Let’s start to talk about //Anthem//.** This is published in 1938. In //Anthem// the name of main character is Equality 7-2521. He belongs to one society. The society controls everything. They decide every person’s life: name, job, ability, activity, leisure and freedom. In this society, Equality 7-2521 **was regular person, because he was too smart**. The society decides his life as street sweeper’s life, but he was too smart to accept it. Therefore the teachers warned him to be stupid and the intelligence of him is a sin. So Equality 7-2521 **forced** to be street sweeper. One day, he finds one **tunnel, where is forbidden,** **but Equality decides to betray the society and invent innovation…**

The important quote in //Anthem// is “I am. I think. I will.” In this society, there are tones of laws that try to limit the action of individual. Therefore the word “I” was also forbidden word. Nobody knows about it in //Anthem//. However, when Equality escaped from society with his lover, Liberty 5-3000, Liberty 5-3000 says “We love you.”, because she does not know about “I” and she feels there is problem with it. The finding of “I” is important, because it shows the start of individual. Also Equality 7-2521 renames himself as Prometheus, who is in Greek Rome myth God took a light to people. (He discovered the light bulb to share with people, but society tries to break down.) (?)

The symbols of //Anthem// are **light and book**. Both of them gives Prometheus an idea of importance of individualism. As I tell before, bring the light to next generation like Prometheus, shows the activity of anti-communism and collective words. Also the book represents the emotions. By the feeling of emotion, people can think, love each other and have the freedom of the life. Also book teaches many words to Prometheus: I, Ego, and emotional words. (CONCLUSION?)