Anthem

IOne major theme in the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand is the theme of individualism. In the society within this book, the individual is erased. The leaders go as far as to rule that everyone refers to themselves as "we." With this rule in place, the people are left without any sense of who they are. Everyone is the same, leaving no room for any individual thought. The people are left as shapeless beings with the fear that if they do have any different perspectives from the rest of society, they will be rejected. However, there is a flaw in this system. Human nature allows a person to never be dominated. The inner feelings and thoughts being suppressed will always ultimately resurface due to the fact that freedom is a part of everyone. This is what happened with the main character Equality 7-2521. Equality, having his invention rejected, runs away to the forest where he begins living with his companion. The message of the individual always rising to the top is what Rand uses as a theme to better portray her novel.

I AM. I THINK. I WILL. My hands... My spirit... My sky... My forest... This earth is mine...

I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! ... For the word "we" must never be spoken, save by one's choice or as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within mand's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie. The word "we" is as a lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white adn that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it... and now I see this face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word:

"I" (97)

I chose this partial passage because I loved how powerful Eqaulity spoke here. His full liberation is so fascinating to read through. It is hard to imagine losing the word "I" in one's vocabulary. It also makes the reader realize how powerful such a word is. Just by reading what Equality is saying can see how much respect he holds for the word. He pretty much compares it to a god. In the end, I could not fit the complete passage for it is three pages long, but this short excerpt speaks volumes in itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzlcJMzay6M

I found the above video. I think as a school project, the makers were asked to create a trailer for the book. Check it out.

I enjoyed this novel. It was a fast, easy read. I enjoyed the message that Rand was portraying, and I also enjoyed her style of writing. The other factor that made me like this novel better was the fact that I did not like We. The novel also had many good quotes in it as well.

Thought I'd spice things up a bit going along with the K-Fed theme...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0rq8nRQW_o

Acrobat

In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, a society exists where woman are treated with respect but lack all freedom. Through devices like syntax, detail, and point of view (just to name a few), the song "Acrobat" by U2 shows a clear connection to lifestyle that is led by the women in the society within the story.

The lyrics in the song describe a stuggle between a woman in choosing whether to fight for her rights or to sit back and just take watch them get taken away. The song describes a girl that used to have a firery spirit. She appears to be the type of person that never let anyone tell her what to do. However something drastic happens that brings her down to the level of almost being a ghost, "...you had fire in your soul/ what happened to your face/ of melting in snow/ now it looks like this..." The girl has the inner struggle of wanting to break free but something is holding her back whether it be fear or something else. The same story line takes place within The Handmaid's Tale. Offred, the main character, goes along with what the society preaches. She never disobeys or rebels. However, it appears that internally she struggles. Memories and emotions of the past cause her to reminisce to what she considers better times. She secretly desires everything to return back to the way it used to be. But instead of thinking of ways to make a change, she instead blocks out everything with the thought of how silly the idea is. She also demonstrates this inner desire to get out by reflecting on Moira, her high spirited friend. Moira is someone Offred wishes she could be. (bastard-syntax)

Another thing that is simiar is the way men are portrayed in each. Through the repitition of the line "so don't let the bastards grind you down," one gets the sense that men are the ones forcing the girl to endure the struggle she is going through. Likewise in the story. Offred's society is one run solely by males. All of which who have established the lack of freedom for the woman.

In the end, both the song "Acrobat" and the novel The Handmaid's Tale portray an internal struggle where the women are left to make a difficult decision: sit back and watch the freedoms taken or do something to make a change for the better.

We

An interesting thing withWe is the many breaks within each record. It is rarely ever seen in novels and some people could argue that it hurts the novel when people are left to make up their own sentences. However, with We, the breaks within the pages of the story actually have a deeper meaning then simply incompleted sentences. The breaks ultimatly symbolize D-503's conflict with his want to fullfill his personal desires vs. his loyalty to OneState. The breaks are seen only when D-503 has thoughts that are considered going against what OneState preaches. These thoughts are D-503's desires. He shows emotions for I-330 which is bad. He is considered to have a soul which is bad. And he considers rebelling against certain rules which is bad. The breaks benefit the story by allowing the reader to finish D-503's thoughts. For the most part everyone is able to see where D-503 is going with the sentence and come up with similar completed sentences (as seen in a demonstration during class one day). In the end, the breaks would appear to hurt the novel but in reality they help portray the struggle that D-503 appears to exhibit.

"What's going on? A soul? Did you say, a soul? What the hell! Next thing you know we'll have cholera again" (88).

I chose this quote because I found it very humorous. I think it is funny that the leaders of OneState compare having a soul to having cholera which is a deadly disease. They pretty much make it sound that if one were to have a soul one is doomed to die. In reality, a soul is what makes up each and every person. It is what makes them their own individual. OneState cleary is trying to rid its society of individualism by convincing its people that having a soul is considered bad. Not only that, but they threaten the idea of being an outcast with it. And like any human being noone wants to be considered an outcast in a society.

I thought that the novel We was ok. I enjoyed anthem a lot better out of the two but this was bareable. I think the reason as to why I did not like the book as much might be because it was very confusing to read. The story also required the reader to think more outside the box then usual when forced to complete D-503's sentences. Overall, I did not hate the novel, but I simply just did not enjoy reading it. However, I might have enjoyed it more if I did not have Anthem to compare it to.

Farenheit 451

A major symbol of the story was hands. Hands represented both good and evil. The evil aspect was when the hands were used to burn the books. The books were the only representation of free thinking that still existed. And by burning them, individual ideas also burned out. The good aspect of the hands is that they also created things. At one point in the story, one of the men talks about his father being a sculpture and creating beatiful things and using his hands to the best of his ability. Hands also fall in the middle when it comes to killing and reading. The firemen sometimes ended up killing innocent people who were different in the society but at the same time, hands saved Montage when he killed Beatty. In this society, it is also bad to read or even pick up a book, but reading saved Montage life by making him realize the wrongs of the world he lives in. In the end, hands appear to have a mind/character of their own and end up being an extension of the owner-- feeding off the mind.I personally did not like the novel. I felt Montage's character was more of a coward and not a hero and that bothered me. Instead of Montage following his own thoughts, he listened to what others told him to do. And when their advice turned him into a criminal, he just ran away. He never once stood up for what he believed in. If Montage had been more of a leader then a follower, maybe I would have liked the novel better. The only good thing that came out of him being a coward was that he became more self aware. However this still did not persuade my opinion of the book.
I found this clip off youtube and it is a music video showing scene from the movie version of this book. I found it interesting that the way the movie portrayed the novel has a totally different perspective of what everything looked like from my own perspective. I pictured it more of a town that was always really in darkness and everything was super hightech or super fast. The house in the clip was very like todays modern houses and the firetruck did not impress me in any way shape or form. The only thing that matched with how I actually pictured it, is the scene where the firemen went inside the house to burn the books in it. The inside is the same way I pictured along with the way the events occured. If you listen to the lyrics, you'll see that they go along with the symbol of hands as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zilil5W7xxU

I'll comment of other people's posts when I figure out how.