ANTHEM BY: ANY RANO (1-50)

 A youth named Equality 7-2521 writes in a journal from underground, where he is alone in an abandoned railroad tunnel. He and his friend International 4-8818 discovered the tunnel when they were working as street sweepers behind the theater near the edge of the unnamed city where they live. Equality 7-2521, ignoring International 4-8818’s objections that it is forbidden because the Council has not allowed it, goes down into the tunnel to explore. He states that the tunnel must have been built by men during the Unmentionable Times of long ago, and therefore it must be an evil place. He is drawn to the train tracks that he finds there, and when he come out from the hole, he makes International 4-8818 promise not to tell anyone about the hole. International 4-8818, an artist who is strong and funny, is very upset by this idea because it might be forbidden, but out of a sense of loyalty to Equality 7-2521, he agrees, though even the sense of loyalty that he feels upsets him because preference of one person over another is not permitted by the Council.

Equality 7-2521 describes his childhood at the Home for Infants, where he lived with all the other boys of his age, in a white room with a hundred beds and nothing else in it. At the age of five, he moved to the Home of the students, where he lived until he was fifteen. He was a troubled child because he often fought with the other boys who lived there. His teachers disliked him because he was too smart, and the authorities chastised him because he was taller than the others. He tried to be like the other children, but his curse kept him from achieving normalcy. He especially tried to be like Union 5-3992, a dull and stupid boy in his class. His curse made him curious and pushed him to ask questions, which his teachers eventually forbade.
When he turned fifteen, Equality 7-2521, like all the other boys, was assigned his task for the remainder of his life by the Council of Vocations. Equality 7-2521 wanted to be assigned to the Home of the Scholars, who develop all technology for the society, including the candle, the most recent invention, discovered a century earlier. He wanted to be a scholar more than anything, even more than being a leader. Equality 7-2521 sinned by wanting, so he was forced with a profession that he didn't value, which was a street sweeper.

Reading the first few chapters of this novel I was extremely confused but well engaged in the reading because in the back of my mind I though about decorum, which this contained a lot of. It was so intriguing to know how strange this society was and how everything is so well organized. It reminded me of  "I-Robot" with Will Smith, the robots were trained to certain things and if they disobeyed they would basically be put down and just like Equality, because he "wanted" he has was considered to be a sinner and was forced to do something he didn't want to do.