There was no pain in their eyes and no
knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in them,
and pride, a pride holier than it is fit for human pride to be.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary
Equality 7-2521 meets Liberty 5-3000,
a worker in the Home of the Peasants. She is working in the fields
near the road he is sweeping when he sees her and falls in love
with her. She is physically beautiful, tall, and blonde with a hard
face and an unafraid expression. She sees him on the road, and the
next day, she comes over to the hedges where he is working. They
do not speak to each other but gesture so each recognizes the other.
He comes to name Liberty 5-3000 the Golden
One.
Several days later, Equality 7-2521 and
the Golden One speak for the first time. He tells her that she is
beautiful, and she remains stoic upon receiving the compliment.
She tells him she does not want him to be her brother, and he tells
her that he does not want her to be his sister. On the second day,
while they are looking at each other, Equality 7-2521 thinks
of the City Palace of Mating, a place where all the physically mature
men and women of the city are sent each year and assigned to have
sex with another person. Equality 7-2521 does
not understand why he thinks of the City Palace of Mating while
he is looking at the Golden One, but he does not want to see her
there. Fortunately, the Golden One is only seventeen, not old enough
to be sent to the City Palace of Mating. Nevertheless, the thought
makes Equality 7-2521 very angry, and the
Golden One sees his anger and smiles. In “the wisdom of women” she
understands more than Equality 7-2521.
At dinner, Equality 7-2521 is reprimanded
for singing out of joy. He tells the reprimanding Council Member
that he is happy and that is why he sings, and the Council Member
tells him that he should be happy since he lives among his brothers.
In the tunnel, Equality 7-2521 meditates
on the meaning of happiness and the fact that it is forbidden to
be unhappy. He concludes that his brothers are not happy because
they are afraid. Equality 7-2521 is not afraid
when he is in his tunnel, and he concludes that he wishes not to
be afraid, that he is glad to live, even though his lack of fear
arouses suspicion in his brothers. He notices Fraternity 2-5503,
who sobs and cries without explanation, and Solidarity 9-6347,
who has screaming fits in the middle of the night.
Equality 7-2521 begins to dream
of the Unmentionable Times and the Uncharted Forest, which has overgrown
the cities of that time. He begins to wonder what the Evil Ones,
those who lived in the Unmentionable Times, thought and wrote, about
whom only those in the Home of the Useless still have any memory.
He wonders about the Unspeakable Word, which used to be present
in the language of men but is not anymore. Speaking the Unspeakable
Word is the only crime punishable by death. He recalls seeing the
Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word burned alive in the town square for
speaking the Unspeakable Word, and he remembers that there was no
pain in his face, only joy. As he died, the Transgressor of the Unspeakable
Word stared at Equality 7-2521, and Equality 7-2521 thought
he looked like a saint.
Analysis
In the Golden One, Equality 7-2521 finds
a match for his physical perfection and stoic self-righteousness.
Though she later bows to Equality 7-2521 as
her master, Rand introduces the Golden One here as the pinnacle
of feminine power and wisdom. The Golden One takes Equality 7-2521’s
affection for her as a personal triumph, and she is hard and unafraid
like him. He worships her and thinks of her constantly as a goal
to be achieved and an object to be admired. Even once they meet,
their encounters are discreet, and he comes to her as an admirer,
while she in turn accepts his admiration as the natural conclusion
of her perfection. Feminists criticize Rand’s view of women, arguing
that it idealizes and dehumanizes them and ultimately subjugates
them to the will of men. Rand, however, believes that the success
of women is in their innate wisdom—an unspoken, intuitive kind of
knowledge—and in their physical beauty. As with all her characters,
Rand idealizes physical beauty, which sets her heroes apart from
her villains.
Sex and the relationship between men and women play an important
role in Rand’s works, including Anthem, in which
she presents the City Palace of Mating as the ultimate evil in sexual
relations because is allows for sex without choice. Notably, Equality 7-2521 does
not even recognize the connection between his love for the Golden
One and his physical lust, and he feels shame at the idea that he
could be forced to have sex with the Golden One or to witness her
be forced to have sex with someone else. For Rand, sex is not sex
without choice, and so there is no connection at all between the
City Palace of Mating and the pure love felt by Equality 7-2521 for
the Golden One.
