Anthem is a dystopian, science-fiction novella by philosopher Ayn Rand, first published in 1938. It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age as a result of what Rand saw as the evils of irrationality and collectivism and the weaknesses of socialistic thinking and economics. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all) and the concept of individuality has been eliminated (for example, the word "I" has disappeared from the language). As is common in her work, Rand draws a clear distinction between the "socialist/communal" values of equality and brotherhood and the "productive/capitalist" values of achievement and individuality. Anthem Book cover This work is copyrighted. ... Ayn Rand (IPA: , February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Russian: ), was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher,[1] known for creating a philosophy she named Objectivism and for writing the novels We the Living, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and the... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... For other uses, see Fiction (disambiguation). ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Cassell is an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group. ... A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ... A novella is a narrative work of prose fiction somewhat longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. ... Ayn Rand (IPA: , February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Russian: ), was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher,[1] known for creating a philosophy she named Objectivism and for writing the novels We the Living, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and the... The Dark Ages (or Dark Age) is a metaphor with multiple meanings and connotations. ... Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community[1] for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation. ... Socialist economics is a broad, and sometimes controversial, term. ... Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. ... Community is a set of people (or agents in a more abstract sense) with some shared element. ... Egalitarianism (derived from the French word égal, meaning equal or level) is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals from birth. ... Look up brotherhood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... Look up success in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. ...

Many of the novella's core themes, such as the struggle between individualism and collectivism, are echoed in Rand's later books, such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. In literature, a theme is a broad idea in a story, or a message or lesson conveyed by a work. ... Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... For the film, see The Fountainhead (film). ... For the film, see Atlas Shrugged (film). ...

Plot summary

Equality 7-2521, writing in a tunnel under the earth, explains his background, the society around him, and his emigration. His exclusive use of plural pronouns (we, our, they) to refer to himself and others is immediately obvious. The idea of the World council was to eliminate all individualist ideas. It was so stressed, that people were burned at the stake for saying the unspeakable word. (I) He recounts his early life. He was raised, like all children in the world of Anthem, away from his parents in the Home of the Infants, then transferred to the Home of the Students, where he began his schooling. Later, he realized that he was born with a curse: he is eager to think and question, and unwilling to give up his self for others, which violates the principles upon which Anthem's society is founded. He excelled in math and science, and dreamed of becoming a Scholar. However, the Council of Vocations assigned him to the Home of the Street Sweepers. A disused railway tunnel now converted to pedestrian and bicycle use, near Houyet, Belgium A tunnel is an underground passage. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. ... For judgements of value about collectivism and individualism, see individualism and collectivism. ...

Equality is assigned to work as a street sweeper, and accepts it willingly to repent for his transgression (his desire to learn). He works with International 4-8818 and Union 5-3992. International is exceptionally tall, a great artist (which is his transgression, as only people chosen to be artists may draw), and Equality's only friend (having a friend also being a crime because, in Anthem's society, one is not supposed to prefer one of one's brothers over the rest). Union, "they of the half-brain," suffers from epilepsy. Look up transgression in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation between nations for the benefit of all. ... A trade union or labor union is an organization of workers. ...

However, he remains curious. One day, he finds the entrance to a subway tunnel in his assigned work area and explores it, despite his colleague's protests that an action unauthorized by a Council is forbidden. Equality realizes that the tunnel is left over from the Unmentionable Times, before the creation of Anthem's society, and is curious about it. During the daily three hour-long play, he leaves the rest of the community at the theater and enters the tunnel and undertakes scientific experiments. “Mass Transit” redirects here. ... Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. ...

Working outside the City one day, by a field, Equality meets and falls in love with a woman, Liberty 5-3000, whom he names "The Golden One". Also, Liberty 5-3000 names Equality "The Unconquered." For other uses, see Liberty (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Liberty (disambiguation). ...

Continuing his scientific work, he rediscovers electricity and the lightbulb. He decides to take his inventions to the World Council of Scholars, so that they will recognize his talent and allow him to work with them. He is still motivated by a socially instilled need to aid his fellow citizens. However, his absence from the Home of the Street Sweepers is noticed, and he is arrested and then sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention, from which he easily escapes after being tortured. Electricity (from New Latin Ä“lectricus, amberlike) is a general term for a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. ... The incandescent light bulb uses a glowing wire filament heated to white-hot by electrical resistance, to generate light (a process known as thermal radiation). ...

The day after his escape, he walks in on the World Council of Scholars, and presents his finding to them. They are horrified, and reject it because it was not authorized by a Council and threatens to upset the equilibrium of their world. When they try to destroy his invention, he takes it and flees into the forest outside the City. In sociology, a system is said to be social equilibrium when there is a dynamic working balance among its interdependent parts (Davis & Newstrom, 1985). ...

After living in the forest for several days, Equality stumbles upon the Golden One, Liberty 5-3000, who has followed him from the City. They embrace, struggling to express their feelings for each other as they have no knowledge of the word "I". They find and enter a house from the Unmentionable Times in the mountains, perfectly preserved for hundreds of years by thick overgrowth. They decide to live in it.

While reading books from the house's library, Equality and Liberty discover the forbidden word "I", and understand the word's sacred value and the individuality it expresses. They give themselves new names from the books: Equality becomes Prometheus, and Liberty becomes Gaea. As the book closes, Prometheus talks about the past, wonders how men could give up their individuality, and charts a future in which they will regain it. Individualism, in general, is a term used to describe a theoretical or practical emphasis of the individual, as opposed to, and possibly at the expense of, the group. ... For other uses, see Prometheus (disambiguation). ... Gaia, also spelled as Gaea, Gaïa, or Ge, can refer to any one of the following: Gaia is a Greek and Roman goddess, also known as the Earth Mother. ...

Influences on Anthem

Rand describes an unnamed short story, which she read in the Saturday Evening Post circa 1937, that influenced her to write Anthem:^[1] There have been many publications called the Saturday Evening Post; several were/are local British newspapers. ...

It didn't have any particular theme, only the fact that some kind of war had destroyed civilization, and that there is a last survivor in the ruins of New York who rebuilds something. No particular plot. It was just an adventure story, but what interested me was the fact that it was the first time I saw a fantastic story in print--rather than the folks-next-door sort of serials. What impressed me was the fact that they would publish such a story. And I thought that if they didn't mind fantasy, I would like to try Anthem. ... So I wrote Anthem that summer of 1937.

The story in question was almost certainly Stephen Vincent Benét's "By the Waters of Babylon," which was published in the Post in 1937.^[2] Stephen Vincent Benét (July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was a United States author, poet, short story writer and novelist. ... Wikisource has the complete text of the story: By the Waters of Babylon By the Waters of Babylon is a post-apocalyptic short story by Stephen Vincent Benét first published July 31, 1937 in The Saturday Evening Post as The Place of the Gods. ... There have been many publications called the Saturday Evening Post; several were/are local British newspapers. ...

Anthem bears notable similarities to Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel We, which also influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Like Zamyatin (but unlike Orwell), Rand had some experience of the Soviet system. Yevgeny Zamyatin by Boris Kustodiev (1923) Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин sometimes translated into English as Eugene Zamyatin) (February 1, 1884 – March 10, 1937) was a Russian author, most famous for his novel We, a story of dystopian future which influenced George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxleys Brave... We (Russian: )[1] is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... This article is about the Orwell novel. ...

We was first published in 1924 in the United States in an English translation. Though it was not published in Russian until 1952 (and not in Russia until 1988), it was privately circulated in Russia in the early 1920's. It is possibile that Rand read it either in Russia or after moving to the United States, but there is no direct evidence that she did so. ^[3]

Below is a list of the similarities and differences between the two stories:

Similarities

• The narrator speaks in the first-person plural, rather than the first-person singular, i.e., "We" rather than "I", at least to begin with.
• People have numbers, rather than names. Although this particular Hive/Ultra-Communist set up has been much copied since in science fiction, it was not so common when Zamyatin was writing.
• Both novels take the form of a secret journal or diary.
• The narrator is a male who is influenced positively by a female character.
• The society raises children away from their parents.

Differences Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

• Anthem's society has more complete control over its subjects.
• Anthem is serious, and permissibly believable, whereas We is more satirical and near whimsical in nature.

Copyright status

Anthem entered the public domain in the United States at the end of 1966, due to the failure to renew its copyright after 28 years as then required by US law. The book's copyright status in other countries is dependent on their adoption and interpretation of the rule of the shorter term for this title; however, under the usual life plus 50 years rules of the Berne Convention, its copyright would remain in effect until 2033. The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties that allows signatory countries to limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to at most the copyright term a work is granted in its country... For the treaty establishing the General Postal Union, see Treaty of Bern. ... 2033 (MMXXXIII) will be common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Influence on popular culture

2112

The title track on the 1976 concept album 2112, by progressive rock band Rush, has a story that very strongly parallels Anthem (although, perhaps naturally, the protagonist of 2112 discovers a guitar instead of a light bulb). The liner notes of the album acknowledge "the genius of Ayn Rand." For the year 2112, see 22nd century. ... Rush is a Canadian rock band comprising bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. ...

Neil Peart, lyricist for Rush, said that 2112 was based on Anthem and inspired by it; though he did say that he didn't notice that they were so alike until afterwards, and so thought that it was necessary to provide a reference. Through his success as a lyricist and drummer in pop culture, Neil Peart has become one of the biggest popularizers of Rand's ideas, although that was not the purpose of 2112 or his song "Anthem" on their earlier album Fly by Night. Neil Ellwood Peart (IPA: ) OC, (born September 12, 1952 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian musician and author. ... Anthem is a song written by Canadian progressive rock trio Rush. ...

Like "Anthem", the 1971 science fiction novel A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg is set in a culture where the first person singular is forbidden - a similarity acknowledged by Silverberg himself, who however noted that the two books are otherwise very different in underlying philosophy. Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A Time of Changes is a 1971 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. ... At the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005 Robert Silverberg (January 15, 1935, Brooklyn, New York) is a prolific American author best known for writing science fiction, a multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. ...

Notes

1. ^ Peikoff's introduction to Rand (1999), p. ix, xiii. The quote is from an interview given in 1960 or 1961.
2. ^ Milgram in Mayhew (ed.) Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, pp. 120 ff.
3. ^ Milgram in Mayhew (ed.) Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, pp. 135-138

References

• Gimpelevich, Zina (1997). "‘We’ and ‘I’ in Zamyatin's We and Rand's Anthem". Germano-Slavica 10 (1): 13-23. 
• Mayhew, Robert (2005). Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7391-1031-4. 
• Rand, Ayn; Leonard Peikoff (introduction and appendix) (1999). Anthem. Plume. ISBN 0452281253. 

See also

Ayn Rand (IPA: , February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Russian: ), was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher,[1] known for creating a philosophy she named Objectivism and for writing the novels We the Living, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and the... Night of January 16 was a play written by Ayn Rand, inspired by the death of the Match King, Ivar Kreuger. ... We the Living is Ayn Rands first novel. ... For the film, see The Fountainhead (film). ... For the film, see Atlas Shrugged (film). ... For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is a 1961 book by Ayn Rand. ... The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism is a 1964 collection of essays and papers by Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden. ... Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, published in 1967, was Ayn Rands attempt to summarize the Objectivist theory of concepts, and to submit her solution to the problem of universals. ... The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature is Ayn Rands non-fiction work, a collection of essays regarding the nature of art. ... The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought is a collection of essays by Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff, and Peter Schwartz, and edited by Leonard Peikoff. ...

External links

• Website dedicated to Ayn Rand's novels
• Book outline
• The Project Gutenberg E-text of Anthem

• Anthem, free audiobook on librivox.org
• Anthem audio edition. Free mp3 downloads Narrated by Michael Scott of ThoughtAudio.com