Anthem__Summary

In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, she explores a futuristic society that is deprived of freedom and individuality. The short story revolves around a man named Equality 7-2521 and his pursuit to discover who he really is and the truth behind a long lost world. Equality 7-2521 was considered an oddball from the beginning of his birth. He was always taller, smarter, muscular, and attractive. He was despised by many of his peers and elders for being the way he is because he lives in a society where everybody has to be equal. The city that Equality 7-2521 resides in had underwent a drastic change that they refer to as the Great Rebirth, thus the reason for the lack of independence. At the age of 15 he was given the job of, Street Sweeper, where he meets his love Liberty 5-3000, and discovers an abandoned tunnel. There he makes many discoveries about electricity and light, eventually finding out how to make a light bulb. He wants to take this new invention to a convention called “the World Council of Scholars”. Along the way he gets in trouble but fortunately finds a way to show the light bulb to the scholars. The scholars find it frightening and threaten to destroy it and him along with it, so he runs away into the Uncharted Forest. It turns out his Liberty 5-3000 follows him and together they come across a house that was left from long ago. They enter without hesitation and are flabbergasted by the difference between the house and the ones they use to live in. It contains clothes that had never been seen and objects like mirrors and light bulbs that are not in their society. They call this place home and together work to rebuild what the world had forgotten.