Ayn Rand’s Anthem takes place in a society that discourages individual thoughts and actions. The author herself was living in Europe as World War II was breaking out. Most of the people in Europe then were thought of as a whole, not as individuals. Ayn Rand felt as if she were being encouraged not to think individually, and wrote Anthem to warn people about the dangers of not being themselves. The characters in the novel are kept ignorant about any individual ideas by the rulers of their society, the Council. This prevents the people from asking questions and keeping them in the Council’s pocket. They are not allowed to say the word ‘I’, instead using the collective term ‘we’. They make their people repeat the same phrase over and over again …show more content…
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Hilda Doolittle’s The Walls Do Not Fall share similar themes as Anthem. Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future time where books are not allowed, and are to be burned by the dreaded firefighters. The main character, Guy Montag, struggles with the idea of destroying books taking away knowledge. He is so intrigued by books that he tells this to his distraught wife: “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there…” (Bradbury, p.51). The leaders in his society control their citizens by the withholding of knowledge as well. That is how Montag runs away from his town in search of more knowledge and to save his life. Hilda Doolittle also valued books and knowledge very highly, as evident in her poem The Walls Do Not Fall. The author stayed in Europe when it was being bombed to see how things unfolded. She said, “…if you do not even understand what words say, how can you expect to pass judgement on what words conceal?” (Doolittle, [8]). Ayn Rand was worried that we would forget what is really important in life. Ray Bradbury feared our books being taken away. Hilda Doolittle was afraid of us leaving books and knowledge