Anthem Synopisis

[Cade]

Anthem starts off from the perspective of a man called Equality 7-2521, and is set in an dystopian society. He talks about “The great sin that he has committed”, and he talks about what has happened to their society, and how he is different than everybody else. He explains how he got his job as a street sweeper and how we got where he is now. The other great sin that he says that he has committed is that he looked on a woman with favoritism, or in other words, he loved her. The first half of the book is set as a flashback showing how he got where he is. We catch up to what is happening in the present were Equality 7-2521 has re-invented the lightbulb and wants to present the idea to the head scholars of the society. The scholars end up rejecting his idea, and he is sent to prison for his “transgression” of thinking by himself, and being alone. He breaks out of the prison and escapes into the forbidden forest. He manages to live in it, hunting and foraging into the forest. While in the forest he meets the woman who he loved; she had run away with him. Both of them wander in the forest and make a new life together. They eventually manage to find a home from before society became a collectivist society. They proceed to move into the house. Equality then reads about Greek mythology and renames himself Prometheus and his wife Gea. Eventually from reading more of the books he discovers the words I and me. This is as close to a climax as Anthem gets. Prometheus then decides to live their the rest of his life and to invite other people to come and live with him and to be a individual.