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Theme: You can't let others discourage you

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Theme: You can't let others discourage you

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The theme first emerges when Equality believes he has found something that can change the world.

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This quote shows how excited Equality believes that the box could change the world and would want to present it to the house of Scholars.

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“We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know its nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it first two years ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to men was making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent the strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog’s body. We put a piece of copper and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never occurred before, a new miracle and a new power. This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our studies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we can describe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know that we had found the greatest power on earth.” (Rand, Chapter 3).

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The theme is developed through the story as Equality is tortured and interrogated because they want to know where he has been.

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“So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of Corrective Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for an iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather aprons and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought us departed, leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner of the room. The Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They gave the signal to the two strong hooded ones. They tore the clothes from our body, they threw us down upon our knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. The first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The second blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt nothing, then the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air. But we did not cry out. The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to count the blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of nothing save that grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were looking at the squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were also the squares of stone on the walls, and the squares which the lash was cutting upon our back, crossing and re-crossing itself in our flesh. Then we saw a fist before us. It knocked our chin up, and we saw the red froth of our mouth on the withered fingers, and the Judge asked: ‘Where have you been?’ But we jerked our head away, hid our face upon our tied hands, and bit our lips. The lash whistled again. We wondered who was sprinkling burning coal dust upon the floor, for we saw drops of red twinkling on the stones around us. Then we knew nothing, save two voices snarling steadily, one after the other, even though we knew they were speaking many minutes apart: ‘Where have you been where have you been where have you been where have you been?...’ And our lips moved, but the sound trickled back into our throat, and the sound was only: ‘The light... The light... The light....’” (Rand, Chapter 6)

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This quote shows how Equality has taken a beating and still has not felt discouraged and told them about the light.

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The theme is refined when Equality brings the Box to the House of Scholars.

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“‘How dared you, gutter cleaner,’ spoke Fraternity 9-3452, ‘to hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of the one and not of the many?’ ‘You shall be burned at the stake,’ said Democracy 4-6998. ‘No, they shall be lashed,” said Unanimity 7-3304, “till there is nothing left under the lashes.’ ‘No,’ said Collective 0-0009, ‘we cannot decide upon this, our brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done.’ We looked upon them and we pleaded: ‘Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do with the light?’ Collective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled. ‘So you think that you have found a new power,’ said Collective 0-0009. ‘Do all your brothers think that?’ ‘No,’ we answered. ‘What is not thought by all men cannot be true,’ said Collective 0-0009. ‘You have worked on this alone?’ asked International 1-5537. ‘Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past,’ said Solidarity 8-1164, ‘but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must.’ ‘This box is useless,’ said Alliance 6-7349.” (Rand, Chapter 7)

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“We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass. We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to the end of the world, to the end of our days.” (Rand, Chapter 7)

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These quotes show how even after being threatened and jumping out of a window Equality is not discouraged and runs to the uncharted forest to keep his box safe.

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"When we closed the current- the wire glowed! It came to life." The author used this piece of figurative language to show that the box is creating light.

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"We held our head in our hands" The author uses this quote to show Equality is shocked that the experiment worked.

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"For this Wire is a part of our body, as a vein torn from us, glowing with our blood" This quote compares Equality's blood to the wire which shows how the box is a part of him.