First Place

Sunyia Hussain, Stanton College Preparatory School, Jacksonville, FL

To Prometheus the words “I” and “ego” are holy, yet one is typically told that it is wrong to be concerned with one’s self. Why does Prometheus think the ego holy? Was his life dedicated to his ego before he discovered the word for it? How and why does the society in Anthem seek to destroy a man’s ego?

All men should be happy in the world of Anthem by Ayn Rand. Nobody starves and all are equal. Yet also in this collectivist world, the past is Unmentionable and “I” is Unspeakable. There are no individuals—only “We” and “They.” Rand uses her protagonist, Prometheus, to argue for the liberation of man from men in the powerful story Anthem. Despite his society that attempts to destroy the ego with propaganda and laws, Prometheus grows to regard the individual self he has unknowingly always been dedicated to as sacred because of his discoveries about the past accomplishments of human beings.

“There is fear hanging in the air … Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak … our brothers are silent, for they dare not speak the thoughts of their minds. For all must agree with all.” The environment created by Anthem’s society permeates each single member with dread of committing the unavoidable “crime” that occurs so naturally, that of conceiving original thoughts, opinions, and ideas. It attempts to steal the very concept of personal distinctiveness from mankind so that all humans can be truly equal and alike—with no superiority or discrepancy in personality, achievement, or ability. Councils regulate every repressible aspect of a person’s life. A Council chooses every fifteen-year-old’s lifetime career and another chooses suitable mates for every adult over eighteen. Uniform labor is imposed on all to provide for the common welfare. The ideals of the community are reinforced everywhere and always, from the required plays about the goodness of work performed by groups rather than solo actors, to the pledge demanded of all children that forces them to affirm, “We are nothing. Mankind is all.” Such daily reminders of the society-declared “truth” proclaim a man’s insignificance, crushing the spirit inside each person, the ego. The only “one” recognized by Anthem’s extreme of a cooperative culture is the “GREAT—WE—ONE, INDIVISIBLE, AND FOREVER.” Not many display the bravery needed to differentiate them from the ordinary populace whose ideas were formulated on the fear of the power embedded in a single human soul. With the human spirit—the inspiration and initiative for discovery—being banned, no genius could flourish and technology regressed, leaving a world void of freedom or creativity. Computers, cars, electricity—all forms of technology ceased and gave way to collectivism. The enslavement of every person was incited by the establishment of this all-encompassing creed—"the worship of the word ‘We.’” Prometheus has lived in a world where the ego is forbidden and his unique self is diminished to only a meaningless number-name: Equality 7-2521.

From the very beginning, everything about Prometheus stands out as exceptional in his society, from his appearance to his academic ability as a child. “There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521,” he is told, and he believes it. Yet he does nothing to curb this “evil” inside him, the ego, the self-esteem he possesses but has yet to name. Anthem, as Prometheus’s journal, displays his desire to “speak to no ears but our own,” to fulfill the human need to think alone and creatively. Prometheus’s devotion to himself and to his curiosity about the world enables him to recognize the importance of a single life and to discover incredible powers of nature. The most significant evidence of his supreme allegiance to his ego is that “we, Equality 7-2521 are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.” He defers from the widespread conviction that happiness should come from being a part of the all-powerful population. To him the individual does matter and the single life within each body is a treasure. Prometheus dares to see this treasure of personality in others as well, befriending International 4-8818 because he recognizes the mutual amity between them and International’s characteristic “laughter in their eyes.” The laws of the City forbid this type of preference among mankind, yet to Prometheus, it is natural to discriminate and enjoy the company of some over others. Prometheus finds a “one” in the City other than the one “we,” The Golden One, Liberty 5-3000, a beautiful girl whose sight makes Prometheus, “not think of all our brothers, as we must, but only of one.” In falling in love with an individual, Prometheus shows he is propelled by self-interest and wants someone to love him for himself, for his ego, and in turn loves the Golden One for her unique spirit. Anthem shows us that discovery fuels the ego and the ego enables discovery. Since Prometheus is the only person in the City who has an inner inspiration to achieve and exalt himself, he is the only one who feels a need to fulfill his curiosity and learn about the forces that govern our world. He does so by stealing manuscripts and experimenting with materials from the past he uncovers through a search of the secret tunnel he writes from. Prometheus’s confidence in himself eventually leads him to accomplish greatness—he rediscovers electricity and tames it in a glass box—the invention of his ego. “We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our mind. Ours alone and only.” He feels pride in his magnificent feat; and is even more proud that he has done this alone. The light he has invented seems to be like “a crack in the wall of a prison,” symbolizing a ray of enlightenment he experiences shining through a newly-made rupture in the “prison wall”, his enslavement by society that has kept him captive thus far. This first “crack” foreshadows an even bigger opening of Prometheus’s mind, which ultimately enables his escape from the prison of the collectivist society. After the creation of the glass box, Prometheus realizes its value and in thinking of its worth, uncovers the importance of his own body. He feels the box has become a piece of him. He asks, “Are we proud of this metal, or of our hands which made it?” He, being a human being, is proud of his hands, though he has yet to discover this and yet to find a way to express the ideal that has run his life thus far—the ego.

The mysteries of the unknown, Unmentionable Times intrigue Prometheus. He gradually grows to regard the ego as something divine because of the individual-repressive society he has lived in and the discoveries he has made running counter to all he has been taught by the collectivist City. Before Prometheus gains historical evidence of the Unspeakable Word—“I”—he still has a vague idea that the Word, whatever it may be, is a godly word. At the tender age of ten, Prometheus experienced something spiritual that embedded the mystery of the Unspeakable Word in him. He witnessed the burning of a Transgressor of the collective law who had spoken the Word that is the only crime punished by death. Ironically, the Transgressor was not remorseful or regretful, but looked noble and proud—he had “the likeness of a Saint”—as if his creed was something holy, something honored. And then, through the flames, Prometheus sees “the eyes of the Transgressor had chosen us from the crowd … to send into our eyes some word … these eyes were begging us to gather that word and not to let it go from us and from the earth.” So starts Prometheus’s quest for the Unspeakable Word, which ends with his proclaimed “religion” of egoism. The Saint of the Pyre first influences Prometheus to think the individual spirit sacred. The rejection of Prometheus’s invention by the Council of Scholars also motivates Prometheus to leave his society. The refusal to accept his potentially world-changing discovery exposes the community’s ignorance to Prometheus, and he flees, escaping into the Uncharted Forest. Had he not left the City, he would not have been reunited with The Golden One, he would not have chanced upon a house left untouched from the Unmentionable Times full of artifacts, and he would have never learned the Unspeakable Word. Here, in the house, Anthem’s tone becomes climactic. Prometheus, frustrated, asks himself in his search for the Unspeakable Word, “What is the secret our heart has understood and yet will not reveal to us?” This is the last time in his journal Prometheus refers to himself as a part of “We”—from that point on he says “I,” discovering the “secret” for himself. Prometheus definitively feels the holiness of “I” when he sees it in context in an old book. Through these books, he learns of the accomplishments of human beings in history and comes to think of men as their own gods, the regulators of freedom. Before the Great Rebirth, Prometheus says of man, “He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him.” To Prometheus, individuality is liberty. He has been raised in an environment where “We” is exalted to the place of a deity. This same society enslaved him and his ego, so in rebellion, Prometheus raises the opposite of the word “We“—“I”—to the same godly position. Collectivism becomes blasphemy in Prometheus’s eyes. He sees himself as a man who will teach “men to be gods” as did the Prometheus of mythology. He seeks to reinstate the creed of individualism he believes is evident to be the truth through history and his instinct. He looks to build a new community—one where, in place of “WE”, “EGO” reigns supreme.

Anthem is truly an anthem, a praiseful song. Rand poetically praises independent thinking and criticizes mindless conformity to the group through the strong will of Prometheus, who perseveres through society’s attempts to kill his ego, his individuality, even before he became aware of a word for it. “This god, this one word: ‘I’” becomes the meaning of life for Prometheus—the self. He foresees a future where the individual will triumph, “And man will go on. Man, not men.”