Summary Of Anthem, By Ayn Rand

The Red Scare is considered one of American history's most confusing and fearful times. However, people don’t realize that there were two Red Scares, with the first one starting in the late 1910s when the Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin kick-started the idea of the Communist Party. Ayn Rand was just a young Russian girl during the Russian Revolution. Her unique experiences are represented in some of her novels, including the novel Anthem. Through Ayn Rand’s thoughts about the novel and her representation of the collectivist society, Anthem is an extreme possibility of the future but was not intended to represent what Rand thought the future would hold, or a reflection of her Soviet upbringing. Anthem’s representation of a collectivist …show more content…
There are no men but only the great WE, One, Indivisible and forever’”(Rand 19). This quote allows the author to explain the nature of the setting and introduce the main conflict of the story, the society's lack of personality and identity. It shows the full loss of identity because the author stresses that there are no men alone and that everything they do is for each other. The author does this because of the overwhelming struggle the main character has with this major ideal of this society. While this type of society doesn’t fully exist at this time, comparing this society to the current North Korean society can give insight into how likely this society is. According to Brookings.edu, North Korean society is so dangerous because, “North Koreans cannot leave their country, and because none of them can contest the political system, social disorder in North Korea remains largely contained, and will continue to be contained until people become aware of political alternatives to living under the Kim regime.” Every aspect portrayed in this quote is shown throughout …show more content…
She says this on page 9 of the introduction, “I wasn’t taking revenge on my background.” (Rand 9). This quote shows Rand’s character and who she is, because of the horrible times she grew up in. Without this introduction, this novel could have been received as Rand’s proclamation of her past and what she thinks will happen in the future. Even though Rand didn’t want this to be a depiction of the future, multiple aspects of the story apply to all time periods, and parts of their collectivist society that influenced Equality 7-2521 to run away were directly related to her escape from Russia without taking revenge on her journey. One major quote that helps rationalize this is when Rand writes, “Someday, we will stop and build a house, when we have gone far enough. But we do not have to hasten” (Rand 84-85). This quote represents part of her own journey to America, especially since it was a process and took time. In this quote, Equality 7-2521 talks about his journey in the Uncharted Forest and feels like he doesn’t have to rush anything anymore because he knows when the time is

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