Anthem is the story of Equality 7-2521, as written by Ayn Rand.
He lives in a world robbed of any traces of individuality. Absolute communism has been achieved to such a great extent that the protagonist is ignorant of the existence of the pronoun "I" and hence refers to himself with a communistic "We." The novella begins with the introduction of Equality 7-2521 writing by the light of a candle in the sewers of the abandoned past. Writing, says the protagonist, is wrong, for "it is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see."
Equality 7-2521 goes on to briefly relate his growth into adulthood and introduction to a career. He lived in the Home of the Infants, and he was like all his other "brothers"...only he fought with those "brothers" and, as a result, was frequently punished by being locked in the Home's cellar. At the age of five, he left the Home of the Infants and entered the Home of the Students. There he rose to his lessons with his "brothers" and went to bed with his "brothers." Every night before retiring the Students would repeat a prayer-of-sorts before the teachers: "We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the state. Amen."
Learning came easily to Equality 7-2521, and he was punished for it; it was a "sin" to be too intelligent. At the age of fifteen he went before the Council of Vocations so that they might appoint a career for him. It was his secret, and "sinful," desire to be appointed a member of the Home of Scholars, for he loved learning. Yet the Council chose to make him a Street Sweeper.
So Equality 7-2521 becomes a Street Sweeper. Yet he rebels and eventually, when discovering the abandonded sewer, hides his discovery from his authorities. He goes so far as to sneak away to the sewer to write and to study things he has stolen from the Home of Scholars. And one day, while sweeping, he meets Liberty 5-3000, a woman from the Home of the Peasants, and falls in love with her, renaming her "Golden One."
In his secret studies Equality 7-2521 discovers an electric light left in the sewer from long ago. He learns how to operate it and takes it to present it to the World Council of Scholars with the hope that they might study it and learn how to create other lights and how to use the power in the wires of that particular light. The Scholars, however, fear the light and condemn Equality 7-2521 for having broken the laws by daring to "think that your mind held great wisdom than the minds of your brothers" and by daring to "think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets." He runs away, into the Uncharted Forest, and the Golden One follows him.
They discover an ancient and abandoned house, with a great library, and they live there. Equality 7-2521, through reading, discovers the word "I," a word which he had never imagined existed. He renames himself Prometheus, the discoverer and bearer of light. The Golden One he renames Gaea, the mother of all gods, for she is "to be the mother of a new kind of gods."
And the novella ends with Prometheus final discovery: the word "ego."
The Analysis:
The novella Anthem is set in a future where Mankind has usurped God. In Scripture, God commands that men "shall have no other Gods before me," and God is clearly recognized as the granter of life and the reason for existence. However, contrary to these teachings, the society in which Equality 7-2521 lives acknowledges "the grace of our brothers" as the reason for a man's possession of life, and states that men "live through, by and for our brothers." The changes Equality 7-2521 makes are no better, however. By the end of the novella he discovers his individuality and the word "I," and begins to, in essence, worship himself. He speaks of the god that is "I," and of the god "I" who will grant men "peace and joy and pride."
So, with all its other faults, the greatest defect of Anthem lies in the concluding moral of Humanism. There must be some sort of "god" in the life of all men, even if that deity is not the one, true God, and Rand realizes this. Communism is the god of the society about which she writes, and to her it is, rightly so, a false god. Rand rejects it more because it has failed than for any other reason, although a Christian might also reject Communism on the grounds that it is anti-biblical. In this rejection of Communism as god, however, Rand must fill the resulting "God-void" with something else. Because of her atheism she can clearly not fill it with the true God, and so she replaces the god Communism with the god Man, and in particular, Self.
In Anthem Rand falls prey to one of the motivations behind the original sin. In the Garden our First Parents disobeyed God's command to refrain from eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The two easily identifiable motivations in Adam and Eve's sin are doubt of God's word and the desire to be like God, and it is to the latter that Rand and her protagonist succumb. The god she worships is Self; like Adam and Eve, she is not content with submission to God, but instead desires to be like God. She resorts to herself, to "I," for "peace and joy and pride."
Scripture is clear. Jesus said that "no one comes unto the Father except by me," and the only alternative to coming before the Father is to be cast into Hell. Rand's conclusion that the god "I" is the only god who can grant "peace and joy and pride" is false.
In conclusion of this review, let me say that Anthem is not without its merits. It is certainly an entertaining book in its portrayal of a fully Communistic society, and the writing, while not exceptional, is certainly satisfactory. The book even has many points to offer as regards individuality, the need for such, and the importance of such. Yet one has to be cautious not to fully accept the philosophy of individualism in the novella, for to do so is to reject God.
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©2004 by Pieter J. Friedrich. Read this for reproduction conditions.
