Sarah Smith Mrs.

Addington 10 H Lit 3 7 February 2011 Mind and Body Control

Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do what the council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies (Rand 22). This was said by the teachers to the students. The teachers teach the student very young that there is only we, no I just we as in all the brothers. We are one in all and all in one. There is not one man but only the great WE, one, indivisible and forever (Rand 19). This is what everyone in the society must repeat when they are tempted to break the rules. The society must have full control of everyone and they brainwash children at a young age. It is apparent at the very beginning of the book that there is a very strict law system in place because Equality says It is as if were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven (Rand 17). This quote alone shows that the dictators of the society have brainwashed the citizens into thinking one way and thinking any way other than that will be punished by law. This society has mental control over the citizens at a young age. This then leads to the physical control of them as they grow older. In the book the children are born and the immediately they are taken away from their parents. The parents never know their children and the children never know their parents. This helps in the mental control of the children

because then they have no outside loving influence upon them. Also the children do not have different role models as they grown up to emulate. This then gives the society full control over mind and body. Equality is different. He wants to be like everyone else, and at one point he tries but then fails. It is hard for Equality to be like his brothers because he is taller than everyone else and society views his height as evil. Once Equality finds the tunnel and starts to go in it every night he starts to see how different he really is. He starts to realize how lackluster everyone else is and takes pride in the fact he is different but this realization also frightens him because he realizes that one day he will be all alone. He was brought up to think that there is only WE, he does not even know the word I. The concept of no I helps the society even more in controlling its citizens. One night when Equality was working on this experiment he lost track of time and was late to bed. So he was sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention, where they lashed him because he did not tell his brothers where he was. They held him in the Palace for a long time. Finally Equality just left the Palace. The locks are old on the doors and there are not guards about. There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were ordered to be (Rand 67-68). The doors of the Palace are left open because all of Equalitys brothers would never have defied what the council ordered. Equality is not scared he just walks out and goes to the Council of Elders. He tries to show them the electricity but they reject the gift. This is symbolic of Equality trying to lead the society out of darkness but the society wishes to stay in the darkness. Equality then runs away to the Uncharted forest. He finds happiness in being his own individual but is sad that he is all alone. Once The Golden One finds him, he is happy and decides to start his own society where he gets to make the rules. This is ironic because he just escaped from society where he did not want to be trapped by rules but now his new society will have rules. In the end Equality is free from his old society

but it seems like the new society will eventually trap its citizens under a new set of laws just like the old one.