Comparison Anthem Vs. By The W

In the stories, Anthem, by Ayn Rand, and By the Waters of Babylon, by Stephen Vincent

Benet, each of the main characters posses a desire deep within themselves to discover things that they do not already know about. Equality and John both live in societies where almost all knowledge of the past has been forgotten. These communities are enveloped in superstition, which causes them to fear the unknown. The desire within Equality and

John, however, brings them past these fears and leads them to learn many new things about the “old times”.

Anthem starts off with Equality feeling as though he sinned for thinking of learning and discovering new things. He stumbled upon a tunnel one night, something that he immediately knew was from the unmentionable times. This tunnel provided a place where

Equality could experiment and think as an individual. It was here that he discovered electricity. Although he was aware that the scholars would be upset at him for disobeying the laws and performing experiments on his own, Equality was so excited about his invention that he wanted nothing more than to share it with his people. He felt that it would help their society tremendously. The scholars were angry because he challenged their ways of thinking and tried to alter the system that they had created. They talked of destroying his invention and Equality listened no more. He ran away from the city to the uncharted forest, where it was said that no man ever survived....