Anthem

Anthem Study Guide Questions

Chapter II
1.   Re-read the account of Liberty 5-3000 on page 38-39.   What does the reader know about her character from Equality’s descriptions?

2.   Find several examples of the ways in which this society tries to obliterate each
    individual's mind (and self!) by quashing personal choices, desires, and
    values.

3.   Read this description from page 46:
|Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder.   The heads of|
|our brothers are bowed.   The eyes of our brothers are dull, and never do they look one another in the eyes.   The shoulders of our   |
|brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight.   And a word|
|steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear.                                                         |

      a. Based on this paragraph, how does the way Equality 7-2521 acts and
        lives differ from that of the rest of the men living in this society?
b.)   Out of all the possible emotions humans feel - joy, anger, exhaustion,
                embarrassment, etc.), why is fear the one emotion people seem to
      have in this society?

4.   a.) What word is Equality struggling to recapture on page 49?
    b.) How could mentioning this one word be the only crime punishable by
          death in this society?   What might it be or mean?
    c.) Why does Equality 7-2521 still remember the Transgressor?

5.   What is the new name Equality 7-2521 gives Liberty 5-3000?   How is his act of giving her a name significant?
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Chapter III
1.   a.) What does Equality discover in this chapter?
    b)   Why is this discovery important? What does the fact that Equality
          discovered it so quickly say about his own intelligence and that of the...