The book Anthem is a book about a world full of mindless people. They let the
government control their every action from birth to death. The weirdest thing is how they
actually seem to enjoy that lack of control. One young man named Equality 7-2521, however,
starts to feel there?s something wrong with his life. Unfortunately, because of his life as a
mindless drone, he is virtually unable to express how he feels. The small parts he does
understand are crowded with phrases like ?for the good of all? and ?we know we are wrong?.
Then he meets Liberty 5-3000. Since men and women only meet once a year for the Time of
Mating, they never get married. Equality becomes infatuated by her and secretly stares at her
everyday from his job as a street sweeper. He names her The Golden One, and she names him
The Unconquered. One day she talks to him. They both know this is forbidden and will get
them into trouble, so they devise a system of simple hand signals to say hello. Meanwhile,
Equality is unhappy with the Life Mandate, or job, he was given. Secretly, he develops things
like electric light that had been abolished since the Unspeakable Times. One night, he returns
late and when he is asked where he went he doesn’t answer. He is thrown into the Palace of
Corrective Detention. He?s fiercely beaten but never tells of his secret haven. He escapes from
there because there are no locks in the cells since no one has ever thought of escape before. He
runs away to the woods and hides. Later Liberty comes looking for him. While there he reads
some books found in an old house and has an epiphany. He discovers words like I, my and mine.
He also names himself Promethus and names her Gaea. They live together in an old house in the
woods and raise their child to be an individual and never know the word ?we?. Because Anthem
was a complex book, it was easy to write a style analysis.
One aspect of the book, tone, is the attitude or manner of expression in writing. The tone
of this book was both dependent and independent. ?We are one in all and all in one. There are
no men but only the great WE. one indivisible and forever.? (p.19) No quote better than this
describes how brainwashed and mindless the people are, for they think only one thought, which
is that they as a single person do not matter and can only survive as a unit of fools. ?I am. I
think. I will. My hands. My spirit. My sky…my face…this earth of mine.? This quote
describes how Equality has reclaimed his body and mind and is finally capable of thinking for
himself. I choose these two quotes because they show how much Equality has changed and
learned in the time that he discovers the light.
Another aspect of the book was diction, the connotative meaning of word choice. The
words I chose were ?we?, ?Council of Vocations? and ?Home of Scholars?. In the story ?we? is
used as a communitive pronoun representing everyone, ?Council of Vocations? was like the
government, they controlled everyone, and ?Home of the Scholars? was where the most favored
were sent for higher learning. Other examples of diction are ?Unmentionable Times? and
?Uncharted Forest?. The Unmentionable Times was how life used to be before the Great Rebirth
and the Uncharted Forest was a forbidden place that was left over from the Unmentionable
Times. The last example of word choice I found was ?The Great Rebirth?. The Great Rebirth
was when the world changed from individualism to thinking of themselves as one single unit.
This word choice shows how narrow minded and uncompromising people had become.
Detail is literal facts describing things in the novel. An example of this is the quote ?As
we undress at night in the dim light of the candles, our brother dare not speak the thought of their
minds.? (p. 47) This quote describes how all their lives they have been taught that their own
single thoughts don?t matter and shouldn’t be spoken. Another example of detail is ?They tore
our clothes from our body. They threw us down upon our knees and tied our hands to the iron
post.? (p. 64) This quote describes what would happen if one broke one of the very strict rules.
Both of these quote show how controlling the laws were during this time.
The point of view in this story is limited omniscient, which means that the author focuses
on one person, usually the main character and narrates what they do. ?And yet there is no shame
in us and no regret…in our heart there is the first peace we have known in twenty years.? (p.37)
This quote conveys Equality?s feelings after his ordeal at the Palace of Corrective Detention.
The organization in this book there were parts had where he told what had recently
happened and some foreshadowing. One example of how the author used foreshadowing is ?We
were born with a curse. It has always driven us to thoughts which are forbidden.? (p. 18) This
quote is foreshadowing how he has a thirst for knowledge and how it will get him into trouble
later on. An example of how he told what happened in the past is ?We have not written for
thirty days. For thirty days have not been here, in our tunnel. We have been caught.? (p.63) This
quote is suspenseful in the way that it makes the reader wonder what happened to him in the past
thirty days. An example of how the author begins to come to the conclusion of the book is ?I
owe nothing to my brother, nor do I gather debts from them.? (p.96) Here, the author is talking
about how he has finally come to the realization that he is his own man, belonging to nobody,
and thus bringing the book to a close. In this way, I think that the author used a good variation
of organization in the book, so it wasn?t all just chronological or all flashbacks, which made it
more interesting to read.
Because Anthem was a complex book, it was easy to write a style analysis. I felt the
book was a good example of what will happen if we let the government have too much control.
I?m not in favor of total anarchy, but if the government gets total control, this won?t seem like
such a far fetched story. It?s kind of ironic how we elected the government in the beginning to
work for us, and now we are all basically working for them. Another thing I found ironic was the
way this assignment was designed. What I mean is that it?s about a book in which every aspect
of people?s lives is controlled. In this paper, the entire paper was dictated to the sentence. It
allowed very little creative freedom, much like the lives of the people in this book. Even so, I
really enjoyed the book because the moral discouraged being like everyone else and encourages