They value nothing in the way that Equality values scientific research and the Golden One, or in the way that she values him. They love nothing so much that they are willing to creep around in a dark tunnel to perform experiments — or flee alone into a dangerous forest to seek the person they desire.
Nothing means that much to the other members of society because they have surrendered their minds to the state. Persons who do not think for themselves cannot value for themselves, and they end up with stunted emotional lives. The other members of this society are emotionless drones because their lives are empty. They have chosen to blindly follow the state, to seek no personal values, and consequently, to experience no great passion.
The Golden One repudiates such a course of action emphatically. She knows what she wants and goes after it. Society's beliefs are insufficient to shake her confidence in her own judgment, and this is what makes her a heroine.
Previous Equality Prometheus. Next International Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title. Are you sure you want to remove bookConfirmation and any corresponding bookmarks? My Preferences My Reading List. Anthem Ayn Rand. Character Analysis Liberty Gaea. He was made a Street Sweeper. Equality 's life as a Street Sweeper went on uneventfully for four years, until one day he stumbled upon a hole that led to an underground tunnel from the Unmentionable Times.
Equality has been going down to the tunnel every evening for the last two years to write and conduct experiments. He pulls this off by sneaking out during Social Recreation time, and returning before it is over. One fine day, Equality sees Liberty working in the fields and develops a crush on her. He keeps looking at her for every day after that and starts to call her the Golden One in his head. Whoops — there's another Transgression of Preference.
Equality finally talks with Liberty one afternoon. He is pleased to discover the feelings are mutual, and that she's a virgin. Equality discovers electricity alone in the tunnel. Some time later, Equality has another conversation with Liberty and reveals that he has named her the Golden One. She's named him the Unconquered.
More time passes. Equality creates an electric light. Now he just has to come out of hiding and show the fruits of his research to everyone. He decides the meeting of the World Council of Scholars in his own City the next month will be the perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, Equality gets so excited with his new invention that he loses track of time and returns to the House of the Street Sweepers too late.
He's caught. He wonders about the Unspeakable Word, which used to be present in the language of men but is not anymore. Speaking the Unspeakable Word is the only crime punishable by death. He recalls seeing the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word burned alive in the town square for speaking the Unspeakable Word, and he remembers that there was no pain in his face, only joy.
As he died, the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word stared at Equality , and Equality thought he looked like a saint. In the Golden One, Equality finds a match for his physical perfection and stoic self-righteousness. Though she later bows to Equality as her master, Rand introduces the Golden One here as the pinnacle of feminine power and wisdom.
He worships her and thinks of her constantly as a goal to be achieved and an object to be admired. Even once they meet, their encounters are discreet, and he comes to her as an admirer, while she in turn accepts his admiration as the natural conclusion of her perfection.
Rand, however, believes that the success of women is in their innate wisdom—an unspoken, intuitive kind of knowledge—and in their physical beauty. As with all her characters, Rand idealizes physical beauty, which sets her heroes apart from her villains. Notably, Equality does not even recognize the connection between his love for the Golden One and his physical lust, and he feels shame at the idea that he could be forced to have sex with the Golden One or to witness her be forced to have sex with someone else.
For Rand, sex is not sex without choice, and so there is no connection at all between the City Palace of Mating and the pure love felt by Equality for the Golden One. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Themes Motifs Symbols.
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