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| Author | Ayn Rand |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fiction |
| Publisher | Cassell (London) |
| Publication date | 1938 |
| Pages | 147 |
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
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.
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. 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.
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
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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]
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]
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.
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
- Anthem takes place in a regressing society; We involves the departure of a spacecraft to new worlds.
- Rand's characters win, but We's undergo medical treatment.
- 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.
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."
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.
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 acknowleged by Silverberg himself, who however noted that the two books are otherwise very different in underlying philosophy.
Notes
- ^ Peikoff's introduction to Rand (1999), p. ix, xiii. The quote is from an interview given in 1960 or 1961.
- ^ Milgram in Mayhew (ed.) Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem, pp. 120 ff.
- ^ 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
External links
- Anthem, free audiobook on librivox.org
- Anthem audio edition. Free mp3 downloads Narrated by Michael Scott of ThoughtAudio.com
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