Anthem is written by Ayn Rand which is thought-provoking. This is a philosophical novel with many themes in the novel. These themes include love, desire, equality, freedom and personality. These themes are shown by important characters in the novel, especially Equality 7-2521. in addition, it can be seen love and personality is very majority theme in the novel. Love is shown between Equality 7-2521 and Freedom 5-3000. Equality 7-2521 shows a personality. In addition, freedom is very important too.
Equality 7-2521 is the most important man in the novel, he opposed the law to make his own personal choices, learning knowledge and loving a woman.“ After the nuclear catastrophe, Equality 7-2521 lives in the future world. This is…show more…This is followed by their first forbidden kiss.” After Equality 7-2521 went to the unknown forest and was freed from parliament, he found that Freedom 5-3000 followed him in his footsteps. After liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 made love at the first time, they began to reject the morality which is from their old society and create their own morality by themselves. In their travelling, they find a specious house. In this house, they created a new name to show their new life. The new name for Equality 7-2521 is Prometheus, because Prometheus teaches people to be gods. The new name for Liberty 5-3000 is Gaea, because Gaea is the mother of rebirth which means Liberty 5-3000 was the mother of the new society. In this novel, love is one of the most important theme. Freedom 5-3000 and equality 7-2521 find their true love, “even though someone said? What can’t everyone think of is true?” (Anthem, p. 81). Their love led them to find and build a new home. Their love push them broken their old thinking which is like the shackles that bind them. They create new morality which is more humanitarian. In other word, because of the love, they create a new and humanitarian society.
Self-conscious is the center of the novel. The novel can be summarized as equality 7-2521 is constantly searching for self-conscious, because freedom and self are a kind of things, so he found myself when he found freedom. In the beginning, like everyone else, the education which he received from childhood was that there was no individual and only the collective. But as he grew older, he began to have other ideas because he was a very smart person and liked to think. For this reason, he began to be treated differently and being educated he own his brothers. Equality 7-2521 suddenly realizes that to be free, you must get rid of your brother, this is an important action. This is good because he can eventually become his own individual. This is also good on the other hand, because other members of his society may think like him. It is very important to be egalitarian and realize that he must get rid of his brother to be free. Equality found that freedom means you have to be alone. If you want to be free, you have to live alone.“My hands…My spirit…My sky…My forest…This Earth is mine.” During that sort of enlightenment he stops thinking of everyone else in his unknown dystopia and starts to think like he should and thinks about the things in his life concerning him (Anthem, p.93-94). Finally, he realized that he did not owe his brother and says, “I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them” (Anthem, p. 96 ).This is an important turning point when he is self-conscious. He began to think more and discovered the defects of the current society. This consciousness gave him the courage to break the low and leave his home which has been living for a long time. In the end, he finds a home that truly belongs to mankind and create their own morality.
Independent is very important in this novel too. The full text has two independent, the first one is the independent of thought and the second one is the independent of the body. At the beginning, Equality 7-2521 accepted the education of the government like everyone else. Although he had doubts, he didn’t think much. Until one day he invented the light bulb but was punished by the government. He began to question the law. At this moment, he realized his ideological freedom. He began to learn to think independently and judge right or wrong. Because of his thinking independence, he found that this society is not a normal society. It is a Utopian society, the government controls people’s thoughts and behaviors. So he fled here and achieved physical independence. Because of his two independence, he gained a sound personality and established his own home with liberty 5-3000.
Love, self-conscious and independent are very important for a person. Which means if a person find them, person will gained a sound personality and named person.
