Equality 7-2521 In Ayn Rand's Anthem

Escaping Communism
Ayn Rand depicts a communist world in her book Anthem, where the citizens live day to day identical to the one before. Equality 7-2521, a struggling man in the society, is set apart for his strive of wanting more than what the society gives him. Rand shows that in a world carried on in such a communistic matter, it leaves some struggling and at a loss to make do with what they have and to fit in. The book, Anthem gives a grand example of how others react to one’s differences, shunning them or giving a punishment. Equality 7-2521 has a compelling ambition to learn things which then helps him escape the society.
What makes Equality 7-2521’s victory possible is his drive to know more about how things are and work. “His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man’s spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are the functions of the ego” (Rand 7). Since the society noticed

She tells him she wants to go with him and only be with him, calling herself as one since she has no knowledge of the word “I.” They leave their society behind. Once they find a home for themselves, they begin their life together. Equality continues his learning with materials they find in their newfound home, in the Uncharted Forest. After he figures out the ‘I’ word he thinks, “And when I understood this word, the book fell from my hands, and I wept, I who had never known tears.” (Rand 98). Equality realizes what he has not had, what he has been kept from. And that is when he knows that, “There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else” (Rand 101). Equality now knows what his freedom is. He understands how he can continue his new life in better ways, without the difficulty of his brothers, and with the history of men and his future