The person01–03
01·Who they are
Who is Solidarity 9-6347?
Solidarity 9-6347 occupies one of the smallest speaking roles in Anthem, yet Ayn Rand positions him with precision. He is a peer of Equality 7-2521 at the Home of the Students and, crucially, one of the few boys chosen for assignment to the House of Scholars — the most coveted intellectual appointment the World State can bestow. On the surface he is a success story, proof that the collective machinery rewards those who comply most thoroughly. Yet Rand refuses to let that surface go unexamined. His name itself is an irony: Solidarity is the system's highest social virtue, and the digits that follow reduce him to a serial number, stripping away the very personhood the word "solidarity" is meant to subsume. He embodies the collectivist ideal made flesh — and what that flesh reveals is deeply unsettling.
02·Arc & motivation
What is Solidarity 9-6347's arc and motivation?
Solidarity 9-6347 has no arc in the traditional sense; that absence is precisely the point. He begins the novella as a compliant Scholar-in-waiting and ends it in the same condition, never having broken free, never having named his suffering, never having grown. His "motivation," insofar as Rand allows him one, is invisible even to himself. He has been so completely shaped by collective ideology that he cannot translate his distress into conscious thought or language. The system has not provided him goals — it has replaced them with obedience, and where a self might have grown, there is only a wound.
03·Key moments
What are Solidarity 9-6347's key moments?
The single scene that defines Solidarity 9-6347 occurs at night in the dormitory of the Home of the Students. Equality 7-2521 witnesses him screaming in his sleep — not crying out in response to anything the waking world can name, but releasing a formless terror that daylight and doctrine alike fail to dispel. Rand offers no explanation from Solidarity himself because none is available to him; he wakes, presumably, with no words for what his unconscious mind has just expressed. This nocturnal eruption is Rand's argument in miniature: the individual self cannot be legislated out of existence. Suppress it thoroughly enough and it will resurface as pure, inarticulate pain. The screaming scholar is more eloquent about the cost of collectivism than any character who openly rebels, precisely because he does not know he is making an argument at all.
The cast04–05
04·Relationships
What are Solidarity 9-6347's most important relationships?
Equality 7-2521. Solidarity functions as Equality's dark mirror. Both young men are intellectually gifted; both exist inside institutions that punish that gift. The difference is that Equality's curiosity finds an illegal outlet — his secret tunnel, his rediscovered electricity — while Solidarity's has nowhere to go. When Equality watches him scream, he draws the conclusion the reader is meant to draw: this is what compliance costs. Solidarity makes Equality's eventual escape not merely desirable but necessary.
The World Council of Scholars. As a designated Scholar, Solidarity belongs to the caste that serves as the collective's intellectual crown. His psychological ruin implicitly indicts the Council's entire project. If the system's most privileged intellectual product is a man who screams in the dark, the Council's authority rests on a foundation of hidden suffering. Rand uses him to show that no tier of the hierarchy, however elevated, is insulated from the regime's spiritual violence.
Union 5-3992. Together, Solidarity and Union 5-3992 map the full range of damage collectivism inflicts. Union represents resentful mediocrity at the lower end — a boy who cannot rise and hates those who can. Solidarity represents tormented compliance at the upper end — a boy who has risen and is destroyed by the ascent. Between them they leave no room for a success story, foreclosing any defense of the World State's meritocracy.
05·Connected characters
How is Solidarity 9-6347 connected to the other characters?
Study06–07
06·Questions
Questions readers ask about Solidarity 9-6347
Who is Solidarity 9-6347 in Anthem?
Solidarity 9-6347 is a minor but symbolically vital character in Ayn Rand's Anthem, a peer of Equality 7-2521 at the Home of the Students who is assigned to the House of Scholars, the highest intellectual rank the World State can grant. Despite this apparent success, he is portrayed as psychologically hollowed out, with his outward compliance masking deep inner suffering he cannot name or escape.
What is Solidarity 9-6347's most famous or defining scene in Anthem?
Solidarity 9-6347's defining scene occurs in the dormitory of the Home of the Students, where Equality 7-2521 witnesses him screaming in his sleep. The screaming is formless and unaddressed, as he lacks conscious language for his terror. Rand uses this nocturnal eruption to argue that the individual self cannot be abolished by ideology; suppress it completely and it resurfaces as pure, inarticulate pain.
Why does Solidarity 9-6347 scream in his sleep?
Solidarity screams because his suppressed individuality has nowhere conscious to go and erupts instead as nameless, involuntary terror. The World State has so thoroughly replaced his inner life with obedience that he cannot translate his distress into thought or words. Rand's point is that stifling the self doesn't erase it; it transforms it into suffering, and Solidarity's screams serve as evidence.
What is the significance of Solidarity 9-6347's name?
Solidarity is the collectivist regime's highest social virtue, making his name a pointed irony: the system's own label for him erases the personhood it claims to celebrate. The numerical suffix — 9-6347 — reduces him further to a serial identifier. Together, name and number perfectly capture the contradiction Rand builds into his character: celebrated as a model citizen while stripped of everything that makes a citizen real.
How does Solidarity 9-6347's relationship with Equality 7-2521 function in the novella?
Solidarity functions as Equality 7-2521's dark mirror. Both are intellectually gifted young men constrained by institutions that punish that gift. However, Equality's curiosity finds an illegal outlet — his secret tunnel and rediscovered electricity — while Solidarity's has nowhere to go. Watching Solidarity scream in the dark, Equality silently registers the cost of full compliance, making his own eventual escape feel not just desirable but morally necessary.
How does Solidarity 9-6347 compare to Union 5-3992?
Solidarity 9-6347 and Union 5-3992 map the full spectrum of damage collectivism inflicts on its members. Union represents resentful mediocrity at the lower end of the system — a boy who cannot rise and resents those who can. Solidarity represents tormented compliance at the top — a boy who has risen and is destroyed by it. Between them, Rand leaves no room for any genuine success story within the World State.
What happens to Solidarity 9-6347 by the end of Anthem?
Solidarity 9-6347 never escapes or changes; his fate is one of stasis. He begins the novella as a compliant Scholar-in-waiting and, as far as the text reveals, remains exactly that: trapped, psychologically broken, and unable to name his suffering. Rand gives him no arc by design; his immobility serves as the argument, a stark contrast to Equality 7-2521's illegal discoveries and eventual flight from the collective.
07·Essay angles
Use this in your essay
Tool · Essay angles
Silence and the self: Solidarity cannot articulate his suffering. Examine how *Anthem* uses linguistic deprivation