Anthem Quote

“Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted Forest against our will.”

As I had written before, the Uncharted Forest is one of my favorite parts of this book. It symbolizes so much within itself. I chose this particular wrote because it reminded me of another quote very similar to it. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag says something very similar in nature when he kills Beatty. He blames his hands for his actions, instead of taking responsibility for his them. Equality is doing the same thing. This point in the book is Equality’s weakest moment. Throughout the entire book, when he was in the subway educating himself he knew and accepted that it was no one besides himself doing what he was doing. Just pages after his weak moment he realizes what he is doing, the book’s tone took an entirely new direction. It went from uncertain to confident and assured.

I also think the word choice for the “Uncharted” forest. Another word for uncharted is unknown or unfamiliar. This is a much better word choice then forbidden. It is ironic because forbidden is just a given, so instead of being called forbidden it was called uncharted.

The Benefactor was the one character in the story of We that interested me the most. He had so much power in the society, so much control. It is as if whenever the character of the Benefactor speaks, the author speaks though him. The Benefactor was the character of wisdom in the book, the voice of reason. Although what he had to say to D-503 at the end of the book about I- 330 was not what he wanted to hear, it was still nevertheless the truth. D-503 was just a piece of the puzzle that I-330 needed to complete her big picture. He didn’t actually care about him or his feelings, and I admire how the Benefactor tells D-503 with no holding back.

However the Benefactor had offensive things to say about Christian beliefs, and these offensive things were justified because it was coming from such a strong powerful character. It is interesting to me that Zamyation built the character of the Benefactor using biblical references, but at the end of the book completely bashes Christian beliefs. For example the Benefactors hands were always described as "huge cast iron hands", which is the same way God was described in many places in the bible. When talking about the Benefactor even if it was a pronoun such as him, it was always capitalized. It is also the same way in the bible.


“Suppose they blindfolded you and force you to walk by feeling your way along, stumbling and knowing that right there, inches away, was the edge. Just one step, and all that’s left of you is a piece of flattened dead meat. Isnt that just what I am doing?” Pg 170

I like this quote because I think every once in while we all feel the way the main character is feeling at this point. Relating to the story, the main character is taking some blind risk taking that is making him constantly feel on the edge. The word choice in the second sentence makes the entire statement more powerful “a piece of flattened dead meat.” As if humans who are identified as numbers isn’t already dehumanizing, those same humans are then referred to pieces of dead meat. This quote could also easily be related to our world. The “they” in the quote could be anyone who pressures another person to do something. Although people say they don’t want others to have control and power over them, there are yet still many instances that it happens. What could drive a fourteen year old boy to come to school one day and shoot his classmates and teachers? That boy was feeling defenseless, blindfolded, like he was about to fall off of the edge. He was blindfolded for so long that the anger was uncontrollable. Although the boy and D-503 are in completely different worlds, they still felt that lost feeling described in the quote above. D-503 went against his society, which in his world is seen as horrific as the situation with the boy.



The book We introduced me to a lot of firsts. It was the first book that I read that had a character such as the Benefactor in it. The closest character in a story that I have read that I could compare the Benefactor with is God in the bible, which is probably what the author wanted. It is also the first time I read a book and did not see the ending coming. After reading Fahrenheit, the reader could assume that eventually they would go back to the city and try to recreate a better society much like one of the far past. However We did not leave the reader with much to dwell on. Those feeling of hope were quashed when I realized that they took D-503’s imagination. The ending is what ruined the book of We for me. I’m not saying I want every ending of a book that I read to end with butterflies and rainbows, but I at least want to close the book after reading the last page with every problem resolved and assume that there is hope for the society I have just read about. I also did not like that a lot of D-503’s thoughts were always cut off by “…”s. I realize that it was part of the syntax of the book and was put there for a purpose, but it made the read extremely choppy and scattered.

The Anthem was an attention getting book right from the start. The main character was inspiring, his every action was very honorable. When reading it Anthem along with the book We, I would look forward to the twenty pages of Anthem and dread the ten pages of We. Why? The little things about the book is what made it one of our best ones this year. I liked how the paragraphs were separated by spaces. It made the read go quickly, and kept much of what Rand wanted to convey to the reader organized. I love reading about different cultures. And although this is a fictional society, the different ways of the society was interesting to read about. How the men would get jobs, the smarter ones put down and the less intelligent ones ruling the society? How ironic! Also the fact that the apple of Equality’s eye was such a far reach from him, and for what reason? Reasons of the society. It was interesting that the entire book was written using the world “we” when in fact it was an individual the entire time. It was as if there were little puzzles of the book that got resolved at the end. Resolution. That is my favorite part of the book. Any question, any confused thought was resolved at the end. Equality realized what the forbidden word was, he had a woman to start a life with and a home to keep his new family safe. That sense of hope for the main character at the end of the book is what made Anthem an excellent book.

The Forest in the story of The Anthem is a symbol in the book that is important to the story but can also be related to real life. In the story, the forest may have technically been forbidden, but no one needed to say that because who would have wanted to leave their great society anyway? What is ironic is that there was no physical wall around the city that separated the people from the forest, the people in the town put up a mental wall around the city, to keep themselves inside and “safe”. The only information that they knew about the forests was that all that left never came back. They never thought about that fact that the people that left may have not wanted to come back. The forest was the unknown, and anything unknown can be scary. When I think about the forest in Anthem, it reminds me of the men that were sent into space to reach the moon. Space was the unknown and they set off to search it anyway. When equality finally found himself, the individual inside, the mental wall around the forest collapsed and he was finally able to discover what the past and how he wanted to make it the present.

Atwood obviously had her own opinions about religion that she was trying to convey throughout the book. The entire ceremony was a slap in the face to some of the rules that the bible states people should follow. The ceremony was rape. Plain and simple. She did not want it to happen, she did not desire for or long for it, it was something that was expected from her from her society. “If he were better looking would I enjoy this more?” (95) She brings up the fact that it was not rape because she signed up for it but what other choice did she have? This excuss was just another way for her to justify in her mind a ceremony that she knows is wrong. Also if she did not sign up for what she was doing she would not have been able to have children, which was a gift from God to the women of the world.
It is interesting that the entire room is described to be white. White is usually a symbol of purity and cleanliness, and what was happening in the room was quite the opposite. It is justified to be pure of sin because the Wife was present. This is obviously part of Atwood’s satire because the way she set up the situation is not how the bible intended it to be. She made sure that the childbirth scene was as painful as she could make it because she wanted to emphasize that because of woman’s sin, we now have to deal with a painful childbirth. The worst part about the women in the The Handmaids Tail is that they go through all of that work, with no baby to lighten them of the pain.

“I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.” (263)

This quote can represent every women in this book, and also portrays how corrupt their society really is. Moria had the “shame” that Offred is talking about. Moria wanted to make love not go through a ceremony. Moria wanted to be able to talk to her girlfriends, not have so many restrictions. This is the shame. If Moria had none of this shame she would have been ignorant like many of the other Handmaids. However how many shameless characters were there really in the entire book? Janine on the outside seemed to follow all of the rules without thinking twice about going against society. However there were rumors going around that it was her doctor that had gotten her pregnant. So how shameless was she? The men of the society always had Jezebel to look forward and Serena Joy wanted to get Offred pregnant so that she did not have to go though another ceremony with her. Each character is at a different level of ignorance, and the ones with the most lust in their lives seem to be the happiest. The society may not have many uprisings, however through all of the secrets and lies; it is already on its way to corruption.



The Handmaids Tail is my favorite book that we have read so far. I liked the fact that we finally read a book that was in the point of view of a woman. Sometimes it is easier to visualize the story and why the main character does certain actions and makes certain decisions simply because she is a woman. I also am interested in women’s history. And although this is far from women’s history the book dealt primarily with a society focused on keeping women safe from harm. Although the women were indeed safe, their dignity was stripped from them, which made for a good plot. Although the story had an interesting plot, some of the underlying messages that Atwood was trying to get across got very irritating. Some of the shots that she took at Christian faith was repulsive. For example, the box that wrote down the prayers made the reader think about if prayers are just words said aloud with no higher being listening, just as there was no one reading the paper prayers. A message such as that was not something a agreed with, however the overall message that one cannot mix church and state was a good message. There must be limitations to the mixing of church and state or else it will end up being a society like Gilead.