Exert from anthem Essay

I recently finished the novel Anthem and entered an essay contest, and here is some of the work i entered:
Life is a precious gift to receive. “Learn like you are going to live forever, live like you are going to die tomorrow” were the words Gandhi lived by. Equality 7-2521 states that there are very few men that reach the age of 45 in the world he lives in they never got to live like there is no tomorrow. Men in that world more than likely don’t live to be 45 because of poor health conditions, lack of hope, and horrible self conditions.

In the beginning, the novel talks about the boys learned to bleed people to cure them of illness. Obviously medical technology was not up to par. If people get bled for every little illness people are going to be sickly all the time, bodies will not be strong enough to fight off ailments, and eventually people are going to die. Because the diseases are not going to be cured, viruses are going to spread like wild fires, and bacteria are going to infect people with no hesitation, civilization is going to be an ecological plague. There will be no chance to fend off foreign infectious DNA. People are going to die because there is no medical assistance to help cure them. Ailments that we of 2009 take for granted are going to wipe out people of Equality’s time. Babies would be at high risk due to no prenatal care and if by some leap of chance they survive birth will not adequately be taken care of, thus resulting in death. What happens when the bodies are no longer living? Nothing was said about proper burials of cremation processes. Dead bodies carry nasty and potentially deadly germs. Germs that could be engulfed into the human body and cause severe damage to the immune system, could be spread around like a sneeze. No one has a chance to make the age of 45 with the little health care citizens were provided.

In the end, Equality and the men of his time were rare to live to the age of 45, because of poor health conditions, lack of hope, and horrible self conditions. People had no fear of death and more than likely viewed death as an escape from the horrors of life. Can you imagine living in a world were no one cared if you were here tomorrow are not? These men did! No one wants to live like they did, and have to bear the burdens of life like a statue. Death comes to everyone but the life they lived sped up the process.