Liberty 5-3000 is a character in ''

Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...

'', a 1938

dystopian A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmenta ...

novella by

Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which s ...

that is set in a rigidly collectivistic future society that assigns formulaic names to all inhabitants. A farmer in the Home of the Peasants, Liberty 5-3000 is a "born radical" who values individuality. When she meets the narrator and main protagonist, Equality 7-2521, Liberty 5-3000 and he fall in

love at first sight Love at first sight is a personal experience and a common theme in creative works: a person or character feels an instant, extreme, and ultimately long-lasting romantic attraction for a stranger upon first seeing that stranger. It has been desc ...

. After Equality 7-2521 leaves their society, Liberty 5-3000 follows him; traveling together, the two eventually move into an abandoned home from the "Unmentionable Times" before the collectivist regime came to power and relearn the word "I". The novella ends with Liberty 5-3000 renamed "Gaea" and pregnant by Equality 7-2521 (renamed "Prometheus"). In the course of revising the manuscript for publication in 1938 (and later, the 1938

edition Edition may refer to: * Edition (book), a bibliographical term for a substantially similar set of copies * Edition (printmaking), a publishing term for a set print run * Edition (textual criticism), a particular version of a text * Edition Records ...

for republication in 1946), Rand edited scenes and

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...

involving Liberty 5-3000. Compared to the

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

, Liberty 5-3000 in the 1938 edition is less nervous. Liberty 5-3000's adoration of Equality 7-2521 in the 1938 edition is toned down in the 1946 edition. In scholarly analyses, Liberty 5-3000 has been considered both a "spiritually unconquered" character who is on par with Equality 7-2521 and a submissive

trophy wife A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband. The term is often used in a derogatory or disparaging way, implying that the wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, requires subs ...

who is ultimately passive. Liberty 5-3000's

sexual intercourse Sexual intercourse (also coitus or copulation) is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion of the Erection, erect male Human penis, penis inside the female vagina and followed by Pelvic thrust, thrusting motions for sexual pleasure ...

with Equality 7-2521 subverts the control of the collectivist regime, and her

monogamous Monogamy ( ) is a relationship of two individuals in which they form a mutual and exclusive intimate partnership. Having only one partner at any one time, whether for life or serial monogamy, contrasts with various forms of non-monogamy (e.g. ...

reproductivity is distinctive in Rand's usually love triangle–laden corpus. Liberty 5-3000 also appears in some adaptations of ''Anthem'', including a 2011

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

. In a 2013

theatrical adaptation In a theatrical adaptation, material from another artistic medium, such as a novel or a film is re-written according to the needs and requirements of the theatre and turned into a play or musical. Elision and interpolation Directors must mak ...

developed by

Jeff Britting Jeff Britting (born 1957) is an American composer, playwright, author, and producer. His credits include associate-producing the 1997 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary '' Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life'' with director Michael Paxton, for wh ...

, actress Sofia Lauwers portrayed Liberty 5-3000.

Background

In the twentieth century,

was a Russian-born American author who wrote the

novella ''

'', first published in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

in 1938. Rand sets the story in a future where a collectivistic society, led by the World Council, rules earth. This collectivistic regime came to power in an event called the "Great Rebirth"; all preceding history is glossed as the "Unmentionable Times", and the state bans discussion of such. Technology and knowledge have devolved to premodern levels, and human

life expectancy Human life expectancy is a statistical measure of the estimate of the average remaining years of life at a given age. The most commonly used measure is ''life expectancy at birth'' (LEB, or in demographic notation ''e''0, where '' ...

is around forty years. The government regulates

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

such that women and men live separately from each other, and

takes place only for the sake of

reproduction Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. There are two forms of reproduction: Asexual reproduction, asexual and Sexual ...

as part of an annual forced public activity called the "Time of Mating".. Language has been changed to eliminate the first-person singular, inhibiting the ability to conceive of individuality independent of the social collective. All inhabitants are assigned names that follow a rigid formula: a single-word political slogan, a single-digit

integer An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative in ...

, a hyphen, and a four digit integer. Set in an unnamed city, ''Anthem'' is narrated in the first person by a character named Equality 7-2521. He is a male inhabitant of this society who tries to conform despite having an individualist streak. The Council of Vocations assigns him to be a street sweeper.

Fictional biography

Liberty 5-3000 is a seventeen-year-old agricultural laborer. She works in farming fields on the outskirts of the city and lives with other women assigned to farming in the Home of the Peasants. The heroine of the novella,. Liberty 5-3000 is a "born radical", in the words of literary scholar Thomas Horan, and by the time Equality 7-2521 meets her, she already understands the value of individuality.. Literary critic

Mimi Reisel Gladstein Mimi Reisel Gladstein (born 1936) is a professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her specialties include authors such as Ayn Rand and John Steinbeck, as well as women's studies, theatre arts and 18th-century Br ...

states that Liberty 5-3000 "knows no guilt" and "project a hard, glowing, and fearless quality". The first appearance of Liberty 5-3000 is when Equality 7-2521, while sweeping a street, happens to see her

sowing Sowing is the process of planting seeds. An area that has had seeds planted in it will be described as a sowed or sown area. Plants which are usually sown Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sown, grasses and legumes are ...

in the fields. Gradually, they discreetly trade silent looks, and the two of them fall in

, recognizing confidence in each other. After meeting Liberty 5-3000, Equality 7-2521 wants to save her from being forced to participate in the Time of Mating. In their next encounter with each other, Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 tell each other that in their minds, they think about each other with invented

personal names A personal name, full name or prosoponym (from Ancient Greek ''prósōpon'' – person, and ''onoma'' –name) is the set of names by which an individual person or animal is known. When taken together as a word-group, they all relate to that on ...

(a practice their society forbids): Liberty 5-3000 mentally calls Equality 7-2521 "the Unconquered", and he thinks of her as "the Golden One". Before leaving, Liberty 5-3000 silently cups water from a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

and gives it to Equality 7-2521 by hand.. When Equality 7-2521 departs from the city, fleeing to the Uncharted Forest, Liberty 5-3000 follows him there. They have sexual intercourse with each other. While the two navigate the Uncharted Forest together, Liberty 5-3000 attempts to tell Equality 7-2521 that she loves him (saying "We love you") only to become dissatisfied with her

declaration of love A declaration of love, also known as a confession of love, is a form of expressing one's love for someone or something. It can be presented in various forms, such as love letters, speeches, or love songs. A love declaration is more often than not ...

because she cannot express herself using first-person singular

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not con ...

. Lacking natural language to communicate love as and for an individual, she must exert deliberate mental effort to express such. According to Amy Peikoff, Liberty 5-3000 "comes closest to re-forming the forbidden concept of one's own person when she attempts to express her love". Traveling together, Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 discover an abandoned house leftover from the Unmentionable Times. When Liberty 5-3000 finds a

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

inside the house, her reflection mesmerizes her, and she spends a long time admiring herself. By reading the texts in the house's library, Equality 7-2521 learns the word "I" and teaches it to Liberty 5-3000. She replies, "I love you". Equality 7-2521 names himself after the

Greek mythological Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient ...

hero

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titans, Titan. He is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking theft of fire, fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technol ...

, which Liberty 5-3000 affirms, and then he names her "Gaea", after the Greek goddess, because he says she is "to be the mother of a new kind of gods", and she accepts the name for herself. ''Anthem'' ends with Gaea

pregnant Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestation, gestates inside a woman's uterus. A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Conception (biology), Conception usually occurs ...

by Prometheus while he makes plans to "raze the cities of the enslaved", in his words, and liberate independent thinkers like him from the collectivist regime.

Textual history

Ayn Rand included Liberty 5-3000 in her early one-page

outline Outline or outlining may refer to: * Outline (list), a document summary, in hierarchical list format * Code folding, a method of hiding or collapsing code or text to see content in outline form * Outline drawing, a sketch depicting the outer edge ...

of the novella, planning to introduce her in chapter two. After writing the manuscript of ''Anthem'' in the summer of 1937, Ayn Rand edited the text, making changes between her draft and the text as it was published in 1938. Rand similarly introduced changes to the 1946 American edition by handwriting edits on a copy of the 1938 edition. In the manuscript, Liberty 5-3000's eyes are described as being "as a storm cloud"; in the 1938 edition, they are "dark and hard and glowing".. When Equality 7-2521 calls Liberty 5-3000 "our dearest one", in the manuscript Rand had Liberty 5-3000 react by laughing and becoming nervous. Rand changed this for the published 1938 edition to Liberty 5-3000's silent response instead. In the 1938 edition, when Equality 7-2521 meets Liberty 5-3000, he narrates that she has "no shame" in her eyes; Rand changed this for the 1946 edition to instead read "no guilt". Rand also changed

between Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 to tone down the reverence the 1938 edition portrayed her having for him. In the 1938 edition, Liberty 5-3000 calls Equality 7-2521 "master" thrice, and each is removed in the 1946 edition. When Liberty 5-3000 professes her love to Equality 7-2521 in the final chapter, the 1938 edition has Liberty 5-3000 say "I love thee"; Rand changed this to "I love you" in the 1946 edition. For the 1946 edition, Rand cut a scene from the 1938 edition describing Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 fashioning clothing from the skins of animals that they hunted and killed. Rand trimmed a scene in which Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 found a casket of jewels in the abandoned house from the Unmentionable Times; philosopher Robert Mayhew hypothesizes that Rand did so in order to make the scene more focused on Liberty 5-3000 enjoying her reflection in the mirror.

Interpretations

Literary critic Shoshana Milgram Knapp argues that out of all the assigned names in ''Anthem'', Liberty 5-3000's "stands out in a society that has no liberty", suiting the character as a heroine who later escapes this society. Philosophy lecturer Andrew Bernstein considers Liberty 5-3000 "as spiritually unconquered as" Equality 7-2521.. Cultural analyst

Lisa Duggan Lisa Duggan () is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Duggan was president of the American Studies Association from 2014 to 2015, presiding over the annual conference on the theme of "The Fun and the Fury: New Diale ...

summarizes that Liberty 5-3000 "is described as an ideal Randian imperial subject".. A review in the '' Jackson Sun'' criticizes the way Liberty 5-3000 acts, writing that Liberty 5-3000 " ekly . . . agrees to every suggestion made by her lord and master" and asking if ''Anthem'' implies individuality is "for men only?" According to literary scholar Thomas Horan, the ending of ''Anthem'' "reduced the once-steely Liberty 5-3000 to a frivolous trophy wife" and that at ''Anthem'''s conclusion, "her identity is equated with adornment and superficial materiality", and she is projected to "live a life of obedience to her husband". Anthropologist Susan Love Brown argues that ''Anthem'' "equates the discovery of self and reason with masculinity" and connects femininity with "passivity, and motherhood", as evident when Liberty 5-3000 "does not even pick her own name—Prometheus picks it for her". Horan argues that Liberty 5-3000's physical description in ''Anthem''—thin, sharp, and hard—recalls the novella's description of the masculine build of the narrator, Equality 7-2521. Liberty 5-3000's masculine beauty evokes a "queer undertone", Horan avers, such that " the heart of the novel’s philosophy of self-reliance is a masochistic love for masculinity". According to Knapp, Liberty 5-3000 is reminiscent of Kira Argounova, the protagonist of Rand's 1934 novel ''

We the Living ''We the Living'' is the debut novel of the Russian American novelist Ayn Rand. It is a story of life in Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, post-revolutionary Russia and was Rand's first statement against communism. Rand observes in t ...

''. Both are "strong and defiant" women with eyes described as dark or stormy who evoke "intensity and barely-controlled passion" and both leave behind their societies and lives to submissively follow the story's male protagonist. By making sexual intimacy a forced, public activity, the World Council demeans the activity and its associated feelings. Liberty 5-3000 and Equality 7-2521 coupling in the Uncharted Forest becomes "a subversive self-expression", Younes Poorghorban and Bakhtiar Sadjadi argue, that frees them from the collectivist society's physical and mental control. The story ends monogamously, with Liberty 5-3000's pregnancy marking the beginnings of a

nuclear family A nuclear family (also known as an elementary family, atomic family, or conjugal family) is a term for a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single ...

with Equality 7-2521 and Rand locating the eventual demise of ''Anthem'''s collectivist society in "faith in the traditional family model", Horan writes.. Duggan argues that Liberty 5-3000's "monogamous and reproductive . . . romance-to-maternity plotline stands alone in Rand’s original fiction", as her subsequent writings feature childless love triangles.

In adaptations

Liberty 5-3000 appears in the 2011 ''Anthem: The Graphic Novel'' (scripted by Charles Santino and illustrated by

Joe Staton Joe Staton ( born January 19, 1948) is an American comics artist and writer. He co-created the Bronze Age Huntress (Helena Wayne), as well as the third Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), Kilowog and the Omega Men for DC Comics. He was the artist o ...

) as Equality 7-2521's lover. He nicknames her the "Golden One". Reviewer Greg Baladino criticized the

's "stock characterizations" and averred that Liberty 5-3000 "has no real characteristic beyond being pretty and waiting for Equality 7-2521 to give her a direction in life". In the 2013

of ''Anthem'' developed by

and directed by Ann Ciccolella, Sofia Lauwers plays the role of Liberty 5-3000. She is a "courageous subversive", in the words of ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reviewer Ken Jaworoski, and she

falls in love Falling in love is the development of strong feelings of attachment and love, usually towards another person. The term is metaphorical, emphasizing that the process, like the physical act of falling, is sudden, uncontrollable and leaves the ...

with Equality 7-2521 (played by Matthew Lief Christian). Theater critic

Matthew Murray Matthew Murray (1765 – 20 February 1826) was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer, who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin-cylinder ''Salamanca'' in 1812. He was an innovative design ...

complimented Lauwers's performance as Liberty 5-3000, calling her "intensely committed" and "supple of both speech and manner" and lamenting that no other member of the cast "quite matches her". Jaworoski and reviewer Glenn Quentin complimented the

romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

performed between Lauwer and Christian. According to Jaworoski, the script constrained the performance, giving Lauwer "few chances for subtlety". Theater professor Samuel L. Leiter ribbed that Liberty 5-3000's "perfectly cut hair" and apparent "use of makeup belie her society's emphasis on denying all individuality" and criticized the acting, saying that although the actors are talented, they were "directed to behave in a… dehumanized way". In ''The Anthem'', a 2014 spoof

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

inspired by the novella, a rebel group is known as "the Golden Ones"..

Notes

Citations

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

"Character Analysis Liberty 5-3000 (Gaea)"
from

CliffsNotes CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides. The guides present and create literary and other works in pamphlet form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature. The company clai ...

{{Ayn Rand, state=autocollapse Ayn Rand characters Characters in American novels of the 20th century Female characters in literature Literary characters introduced in 1938