Question Commander-Week 5-Part 9&10

Anthem 

Question Commander

Week 5

Part 9&10

Isabel K

When Equality went into the forest, wasn’t he afraid after he heard about those who never returned?

I believe he wasn't afraid, because he had the adventurous courage of a scientist who always wants to study the unknown. Besides, he did not even want to return to his hometown, to the slavery of a collectivist state.

How were the people in the Unmentionable Times destroyed?

Link

I think they were destroyed by the kind of philosophy they accepted. They rejected reason, egoism, individualism and freedom—and they accepted mysticism, altruism, collectivism and dictatorship. The society presented in Anthem is the ultimate logical consequence and perfect embodiment of that vicious philosophy. Observe that the slogans of that philosophy are preached all around us today. 

Aside from very rare exceptions there is literally no opposition to the leaders in this society. Why is this? What ideas must the people in this society have accepted to live a life of obedience, drudgery, and fear?

I think there is no opposition to the leaders in this society because citizens were taught since little the rules of the city and what was considered evil to what was right. Men have accepted to live with the ideas that you must do what the councils tell you because it is to help your brothers, that you must do hard, tedious work because you exist for you brothers. If men were to do something wrong even if it's the littlest thing they would be sent to be corrected in the House of Corrective Detention. These ideas force them to live in a life of obedience, drudgery, and fear. This is the way they were taught and the way they were raised, so they don't know any other way.

Why did Equality laugh when he remembers that he is "Damned"

 Equality laughs when he remembers he is called 'the Damned' because he really is not. He realized that all members of his society are really the 'damned' ones. They are the ones that have to be told what to do while he runs around in the forest. Equality's brothers are the fools for letting themselves live their lives like they are. Equality has finally learned how to live by himself and that is why he had been called 'the Damned'.

In many real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, children live apart from their families. Why wold dictatorial leaders enforce this living arrangement?

I think children are apart from their parents because the dictatorial leaders don't want families to form an attachment to on another. Having no family at a young age they were able to create them to be independent and brained washed with the rules they have to follow. They will no longer no what is right from wrong because they don't know much and only focus on their tasks. That's why they were scared of Equality because he was so smart, and gave him the job of street sweeper so he wouldn't discover new things.

In your opinion, why is Equality so interested in seeing his own image at this point in the novel? What emotion is he feeling?

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I think that Equality is so interested in seeing his own image because he wants to see his "own likeness of his own person." This means that he wants to see what he is like. He wants to be an individual and almost separate from his brothers. He has never seen his face, so he must be anxious to see what he looks like. Also proving his personality of curious, Equality is curious about himself.He had never seen, or even wondered about, his own face. He has only seen the faces of his brothers, and he now wishes to know what he actually looks like in comparison to them. 

In all his years, this is the first time he has seen his face; for it was considered evil to have concern for their face or bodies. I think Equality is feeling pleased because his face and body was not like those of his brothers.