Transcript Warm-Up for Monday, Nov. 29th

Warm-Up
• Please respond to the following quote. What
is Ayn Rand saying? Prediction for Anthem?
“I worship individuals for their highest
possibilities as individuals, and I loathe
humanity, for its failure to live up to these
possibilities.”
-- Ayn Rand, preface of Anthem
Part A:
Ayn Rand-Early Life
• Born in Russia in
1905
• By the time she was
9 years old, she had
decided to make
fiction-writing her
career.
Ayn Rand-Education
• Grew up educated under Communists;
experienced firsthand “the horrors of
totalitarianism”
• America = model of what a nation of free men
could be
• Became interested in movies/
theatre and moved to
America—represented her
individualist philosophy
Ayn Rand-Adult Life
• Hard time getting works
published  controversial
material; however, eventually
published
• Established herself as a
“champion for individualism”
• Philosophy = objectivism
• Spent last years of her life
lecturing on this philosophy
• Died in 1982
“My philosophy, in essence, is the
concept of man as a heroic being,
with his own happiness as the moral
purpose of his life, with productive
achievement as his noblest activity,
and reason as his only absolute.”
-- Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand-Writing/Professional
• Sold 1st screenplay in 1932
• Did not sell 1st novel until 1936 (took 3
years to get published)
• Works of Fiction:
– The Fountainhead
– Anthem, written in 1937
– Atlas Shrugged
• Summary: Write in your
own words
Part F:
Sigmund Freud
• 1856-1939
• Austrian psychiatrist
• Psychoanalysis
Freud’s Personality Model
• Id = pleasure principle, allows for basic needs to
be met; own satisfaction; no sense of reality
• Ego = “the balancer;” based on reality principle;
meets needs of id but takes into consideration
reality of the situation; in a healthy person, ego is
the strongest
• Superego = moral part of us and develops due to
the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by
our caregivers; our conscience—dictates our
belief of right and wrong
• If id gets too strong, impulses and selfgratification take over; if superego gets too
strong, person is driven by rigid morals and is
judgmental and unbending in interactions
• Utopia: name for an ideal community or
society; word was invented by Sir
Thomas More for his 1516 book, Utopia
• Dystopia: an often futuristic society that
has been forced into a repressive and
controlled state, often under the disguise
of being utopian
– Anthem is a dystopia, meaning the world
presented in the novel is the world as it
should not be
Preview of Anthem
• Original working title of Anthem: Ego
– Ego began as a play about a collectivist society that
lost the word, “I”
• Theme of Anthem: “The meaning of man’s ego”
• Questions to ask yourself during reading:
– Who am I?
– Is it possible to stand on my own?
– If we could choose what kind of society to have, what
should we choose? Is there a perfect society?
– Do I have the right to pursue my own happiness?
– Can a society without freedom be productive?
What We Can Anticipate
“They existed only to serve the state. They were
conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They
died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to
grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.
“In all that was left of humanity there was only
one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He,
Equality 7-2521, came close to losing his life
because his knowledge was regarded as a
treacherous blasphemy…he had rediscovered the
lost and holy word—I.”