Monday, November 4, 2013

We

 
   In Yevgeny Zamyatin's a major theme is human emotion and how the lack thereof effects emotion and individuality in society.  This is developed through the lack of control that individuals have over their lives, they live following a table of hours which dictates almost every moment of ones life. The society had a desire to remove all humanity from its citizens, which would ultimately lead to negative repercussions as people began to press back. This resistance to the full loss of humanity came when the citizens who had always been loyal were even hesitant to have their imaginations removed. One-state attempted to hide the fact that emotions were a natural human occurrence, and once they inevitable manifested themselves it caused a massive change int he society, and in the life of the protagonist D-503.
     
      One passage that I enjoyed, that very clearly and in a concise manner conveyed one of the most significant conflicts in the novel, was the scene in which D-503 is greatly distressed at the knowledge that I-330 was spending time with somebody else. D-503 was acting mad over what it could mean that she was with somebody else, and when he confronted the question of why it bothered him, he could not explain it, and stated, illogically, that it was because he hated her. The conflict that is represented is that life in one-state has made D-503 unable to understand his emotions, or that he even has any, toward I-330. The jealousy he feels about her, due to his infatuation, is completely misunderstood by D-503, and it drives him into believing that he has gone insane, all because of a normal human emotion. This all occurs as a result of one-state removing the knowledge of love from their world, and the refusal to acknowledge its existence, all the while, the natural human emotion still exists, and those afflicted by it, such as D-503, are left with no explanation.


      I found that the novel We stayed mostly consistent with the common idea of the dystopian society, for example a powerful central government or authority figure running the society, the removal of individuality through uniforms and identifying numbers, and a very controlled, regulated scheduled. There was one aspect that I saw which stood out to me from that of other similar novels, was that the protagonist D-503, was not the enlightened one in the society, that could see all that was wrong, in fact he was a model citizen for a long time, and even when in the course of the novel, he strayed from the laws of one-state, he did not feel liberated, but rather ashamed that he had broken the laws of the society he so willingly subscribed to. Contrary to many stories of dystopia, one of the most enlightened characters served as a stark opposite to the protagonist, I-330 broke rules, and could see the negatives of the restriction of emotions, and she at times was D-503's antagonist. I enjoyed We much more than I otherwise would have because of this unique look at this society through the eyes of somebody who truly believed that everything made sense the way it was. It was both interesting and different to read from the point of view of someone who was comforted when they could look out the walls of their glass house, and see everyone doing the same thing.