Book Report Of Anthem By Ayn Rand

Essay, Research Paper

The book Anthem was written by Ayn Rand and was first published by Signet in 1961. The book was about a boy and a girl trying to find themselves. They do not follow the rules. They do the opposite of what they are supposed to do. Eventually they discover the word I, and live happily ever after.

Anthem takes place in a city that is moving backwards instead of forwards. Everybody is born in the Home of Infants and dies in the Home of the Useless. Equality 7-2521 was not like his brothers. Equality was smarter, stronger, and healthier. At the age of five he advanced to the Home of Students, where he got scolded for learning faster than his brothers. When he was fifteen, he became a street sweeper. He swept the streets every day with his brothers. One day while he was sweeping the outskirts of town he saw a beautiful girl named Liberty 5-3000. She worked in the Home of the Peasants. Everyday he smiled at her and she smiled back. Soon after that, they started talking. One day while he was sweeping the streets he found an underground tunnel that was full of things left from the Unmentionable times. For two years, he went to the tunnel to experiment with his light. When he had the light finished, he decided to take it to the world council meeting. When he got there the council was angry and frightened. He connected the two wires and the light started to glow. They told him that he was going to be punished because of all the laws he had broke. Afraid of being punished, he ran away into the Uncharted forest. He knew nobody would come to get him in there because the people were afraid of the unknown. When he woke up the next day in the forest he walked over to the river and saw his face for the first time in the reflection in the water. The next day in the forest while Equality was walking, he heard footsteps behind him. When he turned around, he saw Liberty. They walked for many days. The farther they got from the city, the safer they felt. They found a house that was left from the Unmentionable times. Inside the house, they found mirrors, light bulbs, and a library. While reading through the books, they found the word I.

I would describe the main character, Equality 7-2521, as a hero. His victory was possible by breaking many the rules. He realized from the beginning that he was not like all the other children at the Home of Infants and at the Home of Students. Everything about him was different, he was too tall, too smart, and the way he thought was different. He was made an outcast by this collectivist society because he was different and in a collective world, everyone is supposed to be the same and think alike.

This book was intended for anybody who enjoys reading books where you have to think. Mostly older people will like this book better than younger people will. The author’s purpose for writing this book is to inform us of what it could be like in a country that has nothing. She does a good job of doing this. She tries to scare us so something like this can never happen.

This book was very convincing. This is something that could happen in the future if everything we have now is destroyed. Anthem made me think of something I don’t ever want to go through. The people in the book lived miserable lives. You could call them slaves because that’s the way they were treated. They didn’t have their freedom.

The climax of Anthem is when Equality finds the underground tunnel. This was my favorite part of the book. This is when the novel started to get good. Anthem really wasn’t good until then. The cave is a symbol of freedom because that is where he went to get away from all of his hardships. He could go there and work on his light.

I would definitely recommend this book. It took a while for this book to get interesting, but after Equality found the tunnel, it got better. It was full of excitement after that. Ayn Rand is a good author. I will definitely read more of her books in the future.