Anthem

A totalitarian society is a society in which the central government holds complete authority and controls every aspect of life in the society. The central government and its dictatorial leaders even controls personal relationships within the home to the extent of children living apart from their parent and other family members. By separating the children from the families, the totalitarian government controlled the people like a ventriloquist would control every word said and every movement made by the marionette. In numerous real and fictionalized totalitarian societies, including the one described by Ayn Rand in Anthem, dictatorial leaders implement this living arrangement because it is easier to control every aspect of the children’s lives to support the ideas of the government without any interference from the parents.

In Anthem, Ayn Rand exposes a society with the absence of individualism and the presence of an overpowering government known as the World Council of the Scholars. To oppress any thoughts of individualism, the Scholars enforce the living arrangement standards which are shared by many other totalitarian societies: “Children are born each winter, but women never see their children and children never know their parents”. The Scholars wanted to influence and control the children’s decisions instead of allowing the children’s parents do so. At the age of five, all children were taken to the home of the students where they would be schooled until the age of fifteen. Each morning in the Home of the Students, the protagonist Equality 7-2521 and the three Teachers recited, “‘We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. ...

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...tayed with their parents, they would become too emotionally attached. The Scholars felt that the children should focus on their future job and their brothers instead of themselves and their own feelings. Emotions and feelings would have been detrimental to a dictatorial society such as this.

Leaders in totalitarian societies such as the society in Ayn Rand’s Anthem dictatorial leaders force children to be separate from their parents and other family members. As a result, individualism and emotions are nearly non-existent. Education for the children is controlled by the governing body because they want to teach children to support the decisions of the government. The society completely disregards the important fact that parents are excellent influential role models for their children because the teachings of the parents may contradict the teachings of the government.