The Use of 'We' in Anthem Essay

When reading the first sentence of the book Anthem by Ayn Rand I had to stop and re-read it almost five times. By we what did she mean I thought? It took a minute for me to realize we was really I. This book made one individual seem as though it were a whole society, everyone involved in the story was taught to think as a whole and were taught to believe what they were told by the higher scholars. How could people stand to not be able to pick their own name and not think their own thoughts and want to make their own decisions? Where was their individualism? These reasons below are how I think the society accepted the ways of there world and how they didnt burst with their own personalities.

The first reason I think they accepted it was the reason that when they were young they were taught of what would happen if you thought the unthinkable thoughts or what would happen if you said the unspeakable things, basically threatened. Towards the end of the book Equality spoke of a story where someones tongue was cut out and they were burned at the stake. I think everyone in Equalitys society was so terrified of that happening to them that they just took the job they were assigned and did as they were told in any situation. They felt obligated and were told when they were younger what they were to be and the answer to any decision there was to make. I think they literally made these people think that if they made one wrong move then there would be an extreme consequence.

Also along with being scared to death of change I think another reason they accepted this horrid way of living was that the society Equality lived in had seen that certain way of living all of their life. Generation from generation everyone lived the same way and lived each day the same and that was all anyone was used to seeing or was all that they had ever heard of. I think Equalitys society did not know or think to think of any different way of living because that was all they had seen to live by from the time they were born until the day they died. They were told of the times before them, they were told of the times before everything burned but along with that they were also told that it was a horrible place to live, which in all reality to me they lived in the true torture.

Anthem by Ayn Rand really opened my eyes to my society that I live in today. We all can be Equalities in our own way. Everyone doesnt have to be like everyone else and blend in; making us look like a huge society of clones such in the story Anthem, but that you can stand out and be your own individual. It taught me not to be scared to stand up and show my creations and ideas such as Equality did with his light box of electricity. In a way I think todays people are much like the ones in the story by Ayn because we always think we need to follow the people who seem higher on the totem pole when really ourselves we just need to let our true colors show and not be a we but an I.