In the novella, Anthem, a young man escapes the prison of his own society.  Equality is name of a boy who is living in a city. In his city, the people are taught that they are all one person, and that they should never do anything that could lead to individualism.  To impose the disbelief in personalities, the citizens must refer to themselves as “we”, they grow up all the same way, and they do the jobs they are told to do. This is how most people in the story carry out their lives, but Equality can not comply to the norms of society.  Equality wants to seek higher knowledge, so he works in a tunnel underground, where he will develop and lightbulb. When he presents his light to the council with anticipation of reward, the council rejects him and says that he is a disgrace. After being humiliated in his home city, he runs away into the forest, which is where all civilization on earth stops, and never looks back.  During his process of building the light, he was also a street sweeper, which is how he met his true love, her name was Liberty. Liberty went with him into the forest, and they settled down to rebuild their own society.

While reading this novella, I was extremely confused.  For me, the beginning was very hard to understand because they were using the word “we” instead of “I”.  This really messed with my head because I could not figure out if each character was multiple people or not.  Since I was confused, I did not like the beginning of the book. Then the plot developed, and it became clear to me that the characters were just one person.  My english teacher helped me to understand that by not using the word “I”, it is a form of brainwashing. After that I understood and likes the book much more.  I also liked the story a lot, it really made me wonder if things could be like that someday. When Equality is making the light by working in the underground tunnel, I thought that the tunnel resembles what we would think of as a subway track.  I think that it must have been some wild war for all of the old buildings on earth to be destroyed, but the subway, although abandoned, still exists. I would love to know what happened to cause the new city to be built. Something bad must have been the societies on earth, or else why would they shun all industrialization, including light.  The council goes out of its way to make the story’s characters part of the collective. They want to destroy all of the individualism in society. In theory this would be a good idea, so that all people would be equal. However, in real life all it does is take away diversity. All in all i think the book told a great story, but could have used more background.

Equality in the story is fulfilling Andy Rand’s definition of a hero, in her words, “My philosophy is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute truth.”  Equality’s absolute truth is that he needs to be able to create. The very first sentence in the book is “It is a sin to write this”, page 1, Ayn Rand. Right off the bat, we know that Equality is disobeying someone, but he does not care. At one point in the story Equality is thinking about all the bad things he has done and all the bad things that he is headed into, but he says, “We know these things, but we do not care,”  He simply is okay with the fact that he has disobeyed the council. He knows what he is doing is right, and it does not matter to him what they think. He is making himself happy, and the only point of him doing this is reason. Just like Rand looks for, he is doing what he is doing because it is reasonable and logical. He is making this light for reason, and the “productive achievement” is the light. He has made electricity industrial which is extremely productive, in fact I could not live without it.  Equality is living out a life of heroism.

After reading I feel empowered.  I want to be like Equality in my life.  I want to make a difference and pursue what I think is right, but I do not know if I can actually do it.  Equality is incredibly brave, courageous, and inspiring. What in my life does and can make me like Equality?  I think that in some ways I am doing all I can to be like Equality. I am chasing after my academic goals, staying steady with lacrosse and  doing my charity. I think in some way this allows me to resemble Equality, not for defiance, but for doing what is right for your community and your personal future.  I think that I could be more like Equality; I need to stand up for things I believe in. In today’s world that could be going to marches, petitions, donations, or even just showing up to vote when you can.  To learn more about how you can get involved in a community click here. We are all on our own hero’s journey, and mine has started.  My call to action is seeing how fortunate I am compared to other people, so I need to do something that can help people.  I do not know what it my destiny is. What I do know is that I am on the right path to helping people. I think my charity work, working with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation,  is one way that I am able to say I have done more than preparation for my journey.  From doing charity I have learned that everyone is going through a struggle, and everyone needs support in one way or another.  My personal growth is obvious in the way I treat people and am always willing to help. All people can be like Equality, all people can be a hero in Rand’s eyes, some people just need a little help getting to that point in their lives.