The Benefit of Anthem for Teenagers | Teen Ink

The Benefit of Anthem for Teenagers

March 21, 2011
iank80 BRONZE,
1 article 0 photos 1 comment

Anthem, a book by Ayn Rand, is the diary of a young man who lives in a future where all individualism is lost. Everyone is alike and nobody defies the will of the dictators. Everybody is afraid of the council and they do not revolt due to peer pressure, for no one else defies the council. If one wants to do something, they will not succeed because no one else will follow his or her cause.

Smoking, drugs, shoplifting and gang violence usually involve peer pressure. Statistics state that “over 50% of teenagers have committed crimes that were influenced by peer pressure.” In Anthem, the main character, Equality 7-2521, breaks free from all the pressures of his fellow men and becomes an individual. He does this by working on his experiments and finding out about the past by reading books. From the books he finds out that everyone was an individual in the Unmentionable Times and he strives to become one too.

One thing was in his way though. Equality was held back by “the weak and dull witted”, yet he still finds a way to break free and become his own person. He was undeterred from his goals and nothing could stop him, not even the will of the dictators of Anthem’s society. I believe that if every teenager has Equality as a role model, they will not succumb to negative peer pressure and they will become individuals who think for themselves.

The author's comments:
I hope that this article will help other teenagers be an individual and not succumb to negative peer pressure.

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This article has 4 comments.


on Aug. 7 2018 at 9:57 pm
odysseybutler, Lancaster, Texas
0 articles 0 photos 1 comment
This was pretty good the only thing that I would suggest is moving the "books" part to later in the article because it would of sound better if it was switched with the first sentence of the last paragraph.

Chica1 said...
on Apr. 4 2011 at 7:55 pm
This article was done very well. Congratulations! This article should be printed!

Appleseed... said...
on Mar. 30 2011 at 4:45 pm
Good article!!!

sadman said...
on Mar. 29 2011 at 6:52 pm
This helps me a lot in my life. Thanks for the awesome article!