Equality Essay, Research Paper

A young man lives in a place where the word “I” does not have meaning. It is a society where there are no individuals. It is, however, a place where you strive to serve your brothers. Equality 7-2521 was taught from birth that the individual is not important. He is in a crazed society where the only form of government is collectivism. Equality, at age 21, has absolutely no freedom. He is a a strong, tall young man who stands about six feet. However, in this society, anyone who is six feet tall was considered to be evil. His dream of going to the House of Scholars is lost and he is sent to the Hose of Street Sweepers instead. Here the rules are very strict. He is not allowed to laugh or sing for any reason. These are a couple of hardships that Equality has to face so far in this mixed up society. His troubles get greater and greater until finally he does something about it. All through his life, Equality thinks he is not capable of accomplishing anything. Through time though, he discovers that he is capable of doing many things by himself and more importantly that he is an individual. When he is in the tunnel, he discovers a light. This provides him with the confidence that he is able to do things. Other experiences, such as falling in love with Liberty and seeing his reflection in the pond also help him to believe in himself as a strong individual. Equality later realizes that he has commited sins as he was growing up. He thinks by showing his invention to the House of Scholars that he would be forgiven for his wrongdoings. He hopes to show his invention to society and find a way into the House of the Scholars. He also wants to prove that being tall does not make you an evil individual. He feels that he has sinned because he was sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention when he did not reveal where he has been. He wishes to be forgiven for being sent there. Even though entering the tunnel is against the law, he feels that he is going to discover things that would improve the society that he is living in. Equality tries to get the House of Scholars to accept him for the last time. He finds out when and where they are going to meet and devises a plan. He decides to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention and go to where the meeting is being held. He arrives at the Council of Scholars and look at him in astonishment. The members are afraid at first because they do not know exactly what Equality is presenting to them. After they realize what it is that Equality is showing them, they are very insulted that a mere street sweeper was belittling their intelligence as Council members. Upon hearing that his idea is rejected, he leaps out the window and runs to the Uncharted Forest where no man survives. He finds out that Liberty has followed him into the forest. They come together and find an abandoned house. They enter it and see things that they have never seen before. They find clothes, 2 beds in one room, and one thing that shocked them the most, a mirror. After looking at the mirror, he now knows for sure that he is an individual. He now understands that the word “I” that he had learned from the manuscripts of the Unmentionable Times has meaning. He knows that he lives for himself and not for others. He realizes that he is his own self and he determines his own fate. He then changes his name to Promethus which is a Greek God who stole the light of the 600’s and gave it to man. Promethus had suffered just as Equality had, and Equality admired him very much and chose his name to be his own. Liberty also changed her name. Equality gave her the name Gaea after the Greek Goddess who was the mother of earth and all the God’s. Gaea becomes pregnant and they both decide to raise their child as an individual and to never let it experience the hardships they had faced in the crazed society of Collectivism. Equality makes it his duty to rescue the other friends he had left behind. He feels that they deserve the same freedom that he is now experiencing. He plans to “save all men and women whose spirit has not been killed within them and suffer under the yoke of brothers.” Equality wants to bring his friends to his fortress and start over a new beginning in which the dreadful word “we” will never again have meaning.