Equality In A Totalitarian Society In Ayn Rand's Anthem

In the book “Anthem” by Ayn Rand the character Equality lives in a totalitarian society where everyone has equal rights. Everyone in the society is taught that they are equal to their brothers and sisters, that they are to think of everyone as equal and that nobody is better than others.Equality begins to change throughout the book in so that he is gaining an “ego’. Equality soon meets a woman named Liberty. Equality sees her different than the others. He begins to have feelings and begins to care for her. Equality begins to study books and work on his own when he finds a secret tunnel. Equality learns many things and creates an invention he calls a “Light Box”(light bulb). When he presents his invention to the society's council, it is seen …show more content…
In the novel “Anthem” today's society and technology as know it had been driven backwards. Their society had to use candles for lighting and their technology is kept primitive by the leaders of Anthem’s totalitarian society. An example of this is When Equality tried to present his “light box” to the council, Collective, a council member, made it sound like Equality had made it for himself, even though it was for their society. Collective said that Since Equality did not make it with the others that it was for himself. Thus keeping their society primitive, and unable to grow technologically. This meaning that Equality was thinking only for himself and how it would benefit himself. Although Equality wanted the “light box” to be for everyone, he had thought about himself as smarter and hoped he would be sent to the house of …show more content…
Many people work alone and create things on their own and almost everyone has their own ego. In “Anthem”, the society would not allow people to have their own ego’s, they were not allowed to even use the word “I”. Meaning that technology didn't advance as fast since people could only work as a group to invent things. In Anthem, Equality steals books from the House of The Scholars and begins studying on his own. This begins to make him different than the other people in the society, he is gaining an ego. Equality Learns about electricity and creates what he calls his “Light Box”. Equality hopes that when he presents his “light box” to the council that they will see him as smarter and send him to the House of the Scholars. When Equality presents, the council sees it as though it was for himself instead of for the society. Thus showing that Equality had created his own ego. This suggests that if others were to also have their own ego, they might be able to create more things and get the council to see that inventions created by individuals could improve