Life Experience Shapes Personal
Philosophy

William Shakespeare
– lived during a time of corruption, after King Henry
VIII split from the Catholic Church (Sir Thomas More
incident), had thousands of people executed, not to
mention his trouble with women (Catherine of
Aragon- annulled, Anne Boleyn- beheaded, Jane
Seymour- died in childbirth, Anne of Cleves- annulled,
Catherine Howard- annulled and beheaded, Catherine
Par)

No wonder Macbeth posits a message of how
greed leads to corruption
Lord of the Flies

William Golding fought in WWII and
experienced the horror of bloodshed firsthand.

No wonder his novel shows that mankind
is inherently evil
Anthem
Ayn Rand
Meet Ayn Rand
 Ayn Rand (1905-
1982)
 Born in St.
Petersburg
Russia and
educated under
the
Communists
 Experienced the
horrors of
totalitarianism
 Escaped from
Russia and
came to U.S. in
1925
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_rand
Ayn Rand Timeline
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1905- Born in St. Petersburg
1917- Witnesses first shots of Russian Revolution
1931- Becomes a U.S. citizen
1938- Anthem is published in England
1943- The Fountainhead is published
1957- Atlas Shrugged is published
1967- Makes first appearance on the “Tonight Show”
with Johnny Carson
1974- Attends White House dinner for Alan Greenspan’s
swearing-in (apparently they were dating)
1982- dies in New York City
Ayn Rand’s Philosophy:
Objectivism

Objective Reality: “Nature, to be commanded must be
obeyed”
– Reality exists as an objective absolute- facts are facts,
independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears.

Reason: “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too”
– Reason is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source
of knowledge, and his basic means of survival.

Self-interest: “Man is an end in himself”
– Man must exist for his own sake, either sacrificing himself to
others nor sacrificing others to himself; the pursuit of rational
self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral
purpose of his life.

Capitalism: “Give me liberty or give me death”
– The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism.
Anthem

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Romantic realist approach
to literature.
Romantic realism as
defined by Ayn Rand:
– portrays things and
people "as they might
and ought to be"
– deals with the
problems and values
of human existence or
the problems of real
people
The Hero According to Rand

Her novels were based upon the
projection of the Randian hero who is:
– a man whose ability and independence causes
conflict with the masses
– perseverant to achieve his values.

Rand viewed this hero as the ideal, and
the main goal of her fiction was to
showcase such heroes.
Theme of Anthem

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This novelette depicts a
world of the future, a
society so collectivized
that even the word “I”
has vanished from the
language.
Anthem’s theme: the
meaning and glory of
man’s ego.
Dystopian Literature

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Anthem fits into the “dystopian" genre
The world presented in dystopian novels is the world as
it “should not be”
Other well-known dystopian novels:
– Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
– 1984 by George Orwell

Differences
– In Brave New World and 1984, society is depicted as tyrannical
with a highly technological society
– Anthem’s society is stagnant and primitive
 Rand believed that economic progress depended upon freedom of
the mind.
Before you read…
The transition from adolescence to adulthood
involves developing a personal identity, a sense
of self. Write a paragraph that describes you,
and explains what makes you uniquely you.
Consider life experiences that have shaped your
life philosophy up to this point in your life.