Ayn Rand Anthem is about a young man named equality 7521 who lives in the future, a collectivist dictatorship where the word “I” is non existent so they use “we”. When Equality 7521 was a child he wanted to be a scholar but he felt like he was different than the other kids because he would learn quicker, he was smarter, and taller than the other boys at the home of students. When Equality 7521 turned 15 the council chose his profession, a street sweeper and he was pleased because that means he payed for the sins he committed, which were being different.
Equality 7-2521 begins to conduct experiments and shortly discovers electricity and builds a light bulb from the materials he stole, he builds these things and discovers new things in his hidden tunnel underground. In the meantime he meets a girl and calls her “the golden one” and speaks to her whenever he gets the chance to even though it’s wrong and they fall in love. One day Equality 7-2521 returns to the home of the street sleepers and the council asked where he has been and he refuses to tell them where he’s been so they throw him into the Palace of Corrective Detention and starts torturing him. The council lets Equality 7-2521 out a couple of weeks later.
Equality 7-2521 goes to the world council and shows them his creation of the light bulb but the World Council rejects him out of fear and anger and threatens to kill him and to get rid of his light bulb so he grabs the light bulb and flees the town. Equality goes into the forest where he discovers that he is free at last to do as he pleases. A few days later The Golden One appears because she followed Equality into the forest. After they’ve been hiking for a couple of days they found an abandoned house from the unmentionable times. Equality finds the library and consumes the information from the unmentionable times and discovers the word “I” and promised to protect his home and from there launch a new race of men who will believe in individualism and the forbidden word “ego”.
The council is the root of evil in Equality 7-2521 society because they make sure individual thinking is forbidden and they want society to not advance at all which is the main reason why they felt threatened by Equality’s creation of light bulb because he wanted to use it and bring light to the town without using candles. It was possible for Equality 7-2521 to create the light bulb and escape his society because he realizes the significance of knowledge and individualism that the rest of society has forgotten. Like when he is tortured in the palace of corrective detention for refusing to tell the council where he has been, he feels no pain, only joy because he didn’t tell them about his creation, and he realizes that his ideas is worth suffering for. For Ayn Rand a man’s value is based off the originality of their mind and is expressed through their work. Equality was able to question authority and everything he has been taught since he was born and tried to break barriers with his ideas and things he discovered from the unmentionable times. Equality’s truth, courage, and strength kept his eagerness to learn more questionable things alive.