Anthem with How to Read Literature Like a Professor Connections

          In the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, Foster states that "Irony trumps everything." (Foster 244). When one first sees the name Equality 7-2521, they probably think that the character stands for everyone to be the same and have the same privileges; however, that is not the case. It is ironic he is named that because Equality 7-2521, himself, says he is not like everyone. He says, "All men are good and wise. It is only we, Equality 7-2521, we alone who were born with a curse. For we are not like our brothers. And as we look back upon our life, we see that it has ever been thus and that it has brought us step by step to our last, supreme transgression, our crime of crimes hidden under the ground." (Rand 20). It is quite obvious that he does not consider himself equal and therefore his name is definitely ironic.

          Also in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster tells that most literature is based off of Shakespeare, Fairy Tales, Greek Mythology, or the Bible. Ayn Rand in Anthem uses mostly Greek Mythology and the Bible; however, the Greek Mythology part is obvious. When Equality 7-2521 changes his name to Prometheus since he was the man in Greek Mythology that took the light of the gods and brought it to men and taught the men to be gods. He also changes the Golden One's name to Gaea since Gaea was the mother of all the earth and the gods. That is all Greek Mythology. The allusion to the Bible is a little more indirect. When Equality 7-2521 and the Golden One live in the forest, that can be an allusion to Adam and Eve. They decide to create a new world of people and this new world will eventually inhabit all the earth, just as Adam and Eve were the creators, in a way, of our world now. Also, when Equality 7-2521 names the Golden One, Gaea, and tells her that she is "to be the mother of a new kind of gods (the new world)" (Rand 99), Rand is alluding to when Adam name Eve. It says in the Bible, "Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living." (Genesis 3:20). The evidence is clearly there. That is why Foster says, "The devil, as the old saying goes, can quote Scripture. So can writers." (Foster 48).