Anthem By Ayn Rand: Literary Analysis

There's many examples as to how the Holocaust can relate to the dystopian book Anthem by Ayn Rand that are shown throughout the book; however they also have many differences. The author writes about many events that can clearly be related to the book The Night by Elie Wiesel about the Holocaust that can be supported with direct quotes. A dystopia is “a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is translated as "not-good place" and is an antonym of utopia” accourding to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dystopia. In other words, a dystopia is a society where people live often fearful lives and are dehumanized and classified just like the jews were during the Holocaust. In many dystopian books power is maintained through

fear from main groups of power. Dystopian books also tend to take place in the future of our world now. The Holocaust is known all over the world by so many people as a terrible event that murdered millions through a process of organization, dehumanization, torture, fear, and so much more. Some of these qualities relate directly to what a dystopia is and can also relate to parts of the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. That is mainly what a dystopia is and one can most likely see by now how it can be related to the Holocaust in many ways.
The book Anthem by Ayn Rand was a dystopian story about a society in the future where the citizens lived like they would’ve lived in the past.

They didn’t use electricity and the citizens weren’t given proper names when they were born instead they were given names like Liberty-3500 or Equality-7-2521. In the society they are not allowed to use the word “I” so everyone refers to themselves as a collective, or as “we”. This is because the society wants to avoid individual rights. At the beginning of the book the characters were slightly introduced with their names and their jobs. The main character, Equality-7-2521, was given the job of a street sweeper even though he was smart enough to go into the school of scholars. The society doesn’t have an actual government, but they have Councils who handle situations and assigning jobs to each citizen. During the book, Equality and some of his friends found an underground tunnel where they also found a light which they fixed. When they fixed it they brought it to the Council were the members became terrified of the light because it came from the “Unmentionable Times”, which were times that we live in now. Equality was sent to a detention facility where he escaped and ran away into the forest. In the forest he found a house from our times where he also met his friend Liberty and they lived there. In the house they found and learned about many things from our time and how much better it was. Liberty was a female who later had a child

with Equality in their house that they ran away to. Equality had dreams of bringing more citizens from his old society and rebuilding a whole city based on the Unmentionable Times. He also discovered the word “I” again and realized that humans are supposed to have individual rights and feelings. That is the overview of the book Anthem by Ayn Rand.
The book The Night by Elie Wiesel is a true story about concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel is the main character and the story is told from his perspective as he was one of the survivors from the camps. Throughout the book Elie continuously described his experiences in the Auschwitz camp and he went into extreme detail with every thought and feeling he had. He described how they were taken from their homes, forced to walk miles and miles in the blistering heat, beaten, and forced to work in camps where the conditions were unimaginably horrible. The whole book gives the reader a look into the life of a Jew during the Holocaust and it is all true events that happened so it will be better to compare to the book Anthem in a realistic way.
As one may think that the two books are very different they are actually very similar within their plots. One similarity they share is how the citizens are given certain times to do what they need to do like eat or dress, and sleep or work. One example of this would be on page 6 when the author wrote “The shadow on the sundial marks off a half-hour while we dress and
eat our breakfast in the dining hall… We go to our beds and we sleep, till the bell rings again.” This is the daily schedule of the citizens, marked by rings of bells through the city.

This is similar to the ways the Jews lived in the concentration camps. A quote from the book that can support this is on page 69 where it said “The bell announced that we were dismissed.” Both of these examples show how the books are similar and how both societies had a strict way of living with specific times for everything. Another way these two books are similar is in the ways they citizen are treated by their “leaders”. In Anthem if a citizen broke one of their strict rules, they would be punished to either the correctional facility or by death. On page 16 a quick section of texts says “We have seen one of such men burned alive in the square of the City.” and then again later on in the page “They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer.” This can easily be compared to events that Elie Wiesel wrote about in Night. For example on page 64 where it briefly says “The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs. In unison, the nooses were placed around their necks.” In both books the citizens are tortured and killed; however they are in different ways, they are still treated poorly. One more example that shows how similar these books are is how citizens are assigned what jobs they must do, and how they are given no choice in anything in

their lives. On page 5 the author writes “They called the students’ names, and when the Students stepped before them, one after another, the Council said: "Carpenter" or "Doctor" or "Cook" or "Leader." Then each Student raised their right arm and said: "The will of our brothers be done." This can relate to events in the concentration camps for example on page 49 it says “We fell into ranks of five, with the musicians. We left the camp without music but in step. We still had the march in our ears. "Left, right, left, right!"” which is when the Jews were being separated into their warehouses for work depending on their physical appearance and strength. Throughout the book, as one can see, there are many different ways the two books are similar in plots and character actions. This goes to show how the ways Jews were treated during the Holocaust can relate to the way people live in a dystopian society.
Although there are many similarities in these two books, there are also differences. One difference can be how the citizens in the book Anthem think this is how life is supposed to be, almost like they're brainwashed. They don’t think twice about how they are living except the two main characters and how they come to realize it. However, in the book Night the Jews clearly realize that the way they are living in the camps is not right or how someone is supposed to live. There isn’t a quote to directly support this example; however throughout the book Anthem the citizens don’t question the authority, they agree with it almost but they know they cannot break rules or they will be punished. In the book Night the Jews were taking right from their everyday lives to these awful conditions and treatment so they know that the way they are living in the concentration camps isn’t right. Another way they are different is the setting and time of the stories. Anthem is portrayed to be a society in past times, yet it is actually in the future where the call the time we live in now the “Unmentionable Times” throughout the book. As one can tell, the book Night is clearly about the Holocaust which took place in the mid 1900’s, which is in the past. The setting of the two books are very different. In Anthem the setting seems to be in a clean and safe city where everyone keeps to themselves. The setting of this book compared to Night is very different. In Night, the conditions the Jews lived in were awful, they slept in bunks in a room filled with hundreds of dying men, the ground were muddy and disgusting, and the clothes were sparse and not of good condition. On page 49 it even says “in the muddy barrack” while he was mentioning where they napped. A last difference between the two out of many many differences is that the two societies between the books had the citizens doing very different jobs. In Anthem the Council assigned each citizen with their jobs like they did in the Holocaust, but the difference is the jobs themselves. Some jobs they gave to citizens in Anthem were doctors, carpenters, street sweepers, leaders, or scholar. These jobs were good for the citizens, they allowed the citizens to do something they were good at and could get the most out of life with. It is dramatically different in Night where the Jews were assigned jobs in warehouses or outside with physical work. When in the warehouses the Jews would put together parts for machines of war for the Germans and outside they would move heavy material and break rock also for German benefit. For example on page 50 of Night it says “Sitting on the ground, we counted bolts, bulbs, and various small electrical parts.” while talking about the jobs in the warehouse. The difference is the jobs themselves and the reasoning and benefits behind the job. One books’ jobs gives benefit to the citizens themselves while the other gives benefit to the country and nothing else. Those are some clear differences between the two books.
As one can clearly see, these two books have their similarities and difference for many reason. The similarities between these books can show how the Holocaust is like a dystopia, it is a fearful and undesired place to live which is what a dystopia is. During the Holocaust the Jews were treated like animals with no individual rights, which is how the citizens in the book Anthem lived. Elie Wiesel wrote the book Night and gave many well described events and scenes that actually happened which helped give money quotes that could be compared to other quotes from Anthem. While reading this one can compare the direct quotes and examples used to compare and contrast the two books very well. Overall, the Holocaust can be portrayed as a dystopia when compared to a dystopian book, Anthem.