In Search of Integrity: Ayn Rand’s novel “The Anthem” and J. Kerouac’s novel “On the Road”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the novel “Anthem” (1938) by Ayn Rand (Alice Rosenbaum), an American writer and philosopher from Russia. The purpose of the article is to consider the story as a manifesto of objectivism, including it in the context of philosophical and cultural searches of the 20th century caused by the crisis of the Enlightenment project. The tasks are the analysis of ways to overcome this crisis in the philosophical and artistic searches of Ayn Rand and the relationship of these searches with the concepts of “social destruction” and the philosophy of “beat generation”. The story “Anthem” is considered in the context of the concept of the philosophy of objectivism formulated by the writer and the image of “integrated man” created by her - an integral man. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the author includes the ideas of objectivity in the context of time, showing their relevance to the discussions on the Enlightenment project and the special role of these discussions in American culture of the mid-20th century, in a situation of “split”. The results of a comparative analysis of the story with one of the main works of the “beat generation” - the novel by J. Kerouac “On the Road” (1957) are presented. As a result, the difference in the ways of searching for integrity by the heroes of two texts is revealed: if the Rand’s hero integrates the emotional and rational principles, the hero of Kerouac separates them, further aggravating the conflict between them.

Keywords

• ayn rand
• objectivism
• beat generation
• enlightenment project
• jack kerouac