Summary In his research, Equality 7-2521 discovers a new force of nature. He uses this force, which he calls the “power of the sky,” to build strange new devices. He roams through the tunnel, garnering everything from this remnant of the Unmentionable Times that he can — boxes with bars […]
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Summary Sweeping the streets on the edge of town, Equality 7-2521 notices a young woman toiling in the fields. Even though it is forbidden for men to take notice of women, and women of men, he is immediately attracted to her. Her name is Liberty 5-3000, but he thinks of […]
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Summary As the story opens, Equality 7-2521 states that it is a sin to do the writing he is doing. It is a sin to do things that do not involve others, and the words he thinks and writes are for no eyes or ears but his. This is not […]
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Equality 7-2521 (Prometheus) The hero of the story. He is a man of unbending independence living in a dark age of a future totalitarian state. The state commands him to be a Street Sweeper, but he is fascinated by science and secretly performs research on his own. He discovers the […]
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Anthem is an outstanding introduction to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of human nature. The novella’s theme and central conflict — the individual versus the collective — occurs in all her novels and is an important element of her moral and political philosophy. The story of Anthem takes place in an unnamed […]
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The story of Anthem takes place in some unspecified future time and place in which freedom and individual rights have been obliterated. Collectivism — the political philosophy holding that an individual exists solely to serve the state — is dominant and has led to the establishment of a global dictatorship […]
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