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    Anthem
    Anthem
    Anthem
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    Anthem

    By Ayn Rand and Sheba Blake

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    About this ebook

    Anthem is a dystopian fiction novella by Ayn Rand.
    It takes place at some unspecified future date when mankind has entered another dark age. Technological advancement is now carefully planned and the concept of individuality has been eliminated.

    Equality 7-2521, writing by candlelight in a tunnel under the earth, tells the story of his life up to that point. He exclusively uses plural pronoun(s) ("we", "our", "they") to refer to himself and others. He was raised like all children in his society, away from his parents in collective homes. Later, he realized that he was born with a "curse", that makes him learn quickly and ask many questions. He excelled at the Science of Things and dreamed of becoming a Scholar. However, a Council of Vocations assigns all people to their Life Mandate, and he was assigned to be a Street Sweeper.

    Equality 7-2521 accepts his street sweeping assignment as penance for his "Transgression of Preference" in secretly desiring to be a Scholar. He works with Union 5-3992 and International 4-8818, who is Equality's only friend (which is another Transgression of Preference). He found an entrance to a tunnel in their assigned work area. Despite International's protests that any exploration unauthorized by a Council is forbidden, Equality entered the tunnel and found that it contains metal tracks. Equality realized that the tunnel is from the Unmentionable Times of the distant past. He began sneaking away from his community to use the tunnel as a laboratory for scientific experiments. He stole paper and is using it to write his journal. He is now 21 years old.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateApr 14, 2017
    ISBN9783961890873
    Author

    Ayn Rand

    Ayn Rand (1905–1982) wrote the bestselling novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) and founded the philosophy known as objectivism. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Rand taught herself to read at the age of six and soon resolved to become a professional writer. In 1926, she left Communist Russia to pursue a screenwriting career in Hollywood, and she published her first novel ten years later. With her next book, the dystopian novella Anthem (1938), she introduced the theme that she would devote the rest of her life to pursuing: the inevitable triumph of the individual over the collective. 

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      Book preview

      Anthem - Ayn Rand

      ANTHEM

      BY

      AYN RAND

      Copyright © 2017 by Ayn Rand.

      All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

      For information contact :

      Sheba Blake Publishing

      support@shebablake.com

      http://www.shebablake.com

      Twitter: http://twitter.com/shebablake

      Instagram: http://instagram.com/shebablake

      Facebook: http://facebook.com/shebablake

      Book and Cover design by Sheba Blake Publishing

      First Edition: January 2017

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      PART ONE

      PART TWO

      PART THREE

      PART FOUR

      PART FIVE

      PART SIX

      PART SEVEN

      PART EIGHT

      PART NINE

      PART TEN

      PART ELEVEN

      PART TWELVE

      PART ONE

      It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

      But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.

      It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head.

      The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood. We stole the candle from the larder of the Home of the Street Sweepers. We shall be sentenced to ten years in the Palace of Corrective Detention if it be discovered. But this matters not. It matters only that the light is precious and we should not waste it to write when we need it for that work which is our crime. Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work. Still, we must also write, for--may the Council have mercy upon us!--we wish to speak for once to no ears but our own.

      Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said:

      There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers. But we cannot change our bones nor our body.

      We were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given us wishes which men may not wish. We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it. This is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist.

      We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike. Over the portals of the Palace of the World Council, there are words cut in the marble, which we repeat to ourselves whenever we are tempted:

      WE ARE ONE IN ALL AND ALL IN ONE. THERE ARE NO MEN BUT ONLY THE GREAT _WE_, ONE, INDIVISIBLE AND FOREVER.

      We repeat this to ourselves, but it helps us not.

      These words were cut long ago. There is green mould in the grooves of the letters and yellow streaks on the marble, which come from more years than men could count. And these words are the truth, for they are written on the Palace of the World Council, and the World Council is the body of all truth. Thus has it been ever since the Great Rebirth, and farther back than that no memory can reach.

      But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention. It is only the Old Ones who whisper about it in the evenings, in the Home of the Useless. They whisper many strange things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame. But those times were evil. And those times passed away, when men saw the Great Truth which is this: that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together.

      All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For

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