Ayn Rand’s novel “Anthem” explored the philosophy of objectivism in story form. Objectivism is the idea of complete individuality; where people are completely unique and they have inherent rights and freedoms. In the novel, she illustrates a world that embodies collectivism, in which man lives not for himself, but for the good of others. Everybody had an almost communist way of life; everybody was led on a straight path. There were no goals in life; no friendship. Everybody was equal and alike. For example: the main character’s name was Equality 7-2521. All of the characters in the book are named after connotations to similarity; like Union, International, or Liberty. The main character later portrayed what it means to truly be an individual and make choices in a world where it is nearly impossible to perform such tasks. This story takes place in a futuristic, dystopian society where collectivism overrules individuality completely. This world that the characters live in is eerily similar to our own.
What happens in this book parallels to what happens in teenage life. We all want to be free, from our parents, from our school, and even sometimes from our friends; but sometimes we can’t because we are stuck in place. We sometimes have to stay in line and follow who is in front of us. This happens to all of the characters in “Anthem”. They are all forced to do what they are told and they cannot do anything about it, until the main character, which is curious about what life really is, bites the bullet and tries to do something different. He makes an invention and tries to stand out and make himself be known to some of the most powerful people in the world, while he does this; he is actually risking his life. After reading a book about Greek mythology, he decides to names himself, Prometheus. His new name is the name of an ancient Greek titan who broke away from the ways of his fellow people and created man and gave them fire. This exact situation may not be very accurate to what happens in real life, but the idea of it really is. Take this for example, in a peer-pressure situation, it is very important to stand out and be you. You may lose friends, or even become less popular, but you are now an individual and people will appreciate you as that. These true facts of life portrayed within this book are very appealing to teenage readers. When confronted with this book, teenagers are engaged with a world that is very similar to their own. Also this book only has about one hundred pages, so it makes it an easy read; even for ones who do not like to read too much.
I personally enjoyed this book immensely, I would highly recommend to any of my friends. Since I am a big fan of the “post-apocalyptic” genre; I had a great time reading this book. I found that it connected to me in more ways than one, and the odd use of grammar was just genius. It was a real page turner, I must admit. Even though it was for school, I really could not wait to get to the next chapter and see what would happen next. If I read it on my own, I believe I would have finished it within a couple of hours. My first initial thought upon picking up the book was that it would be just complete childish nonsense, but as opened it up and started reading, it had very wise and powerful words that stuck and made me think. I believe this book would go in my top ten of all time.