In Zamyatin’s bizarre and ingeniously sobering novel of “We”,1 rationality triumphs emotion as mathematics reigns as the supreme dogma of the individual’s life and mind. Of course, in this case, the term “individual” refers to the collective mass of workers known as ciphers who exist as mere figures in the long string of omnipotent code that is the dull and gray One State. Freedom is condemned as an uncouth crime while whimsical dreams and fits of inspiration are cruelly filed under the category of epileptic anomaly.… Read the rest here
Tag Archives: We
The Divinely Rational
In 1917, Nicholas II, Emperor of All Russia, was toppled, leaving in his wake a slew of provisional governments which could be likened to anarchy. In the midst of a bloody three year civil war, Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote his dystopian novel We. The work presented a futuristic society in which people were identified by letter and numbers and worked mindlessly for the betterment of the “One State.”1 The main character, D-503 recounted his descent from a respected mathematician of good standing within the state, to the accomplice of a revolutionary looking to return society to its natural state.… Read the rest here
Emotion versus Reason
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is a complex and revolutionary novel of Science fiction. D-503 is a mathematician living in the One State, journaling his daily life in order for future generations to learn about his society once the journal is put on the Integral (the spaceship D-503 is building). As a mathematician D-503 experiences the world in equations, from describing pleasing aesthetics to eventually emotions such as love with math (L=f(D): love is a function of death).… Read the rest here
The Awakening of the Soul in Society
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s science fiction dystopian novel, We, tells the story of the character D-503 in his futuristic world, the One State, where everyone runs on the same clock, where one needs permission to close the blinds in their otherwise glass rooms, where there is one God-like ruler, the Benefactor, who ironically is “elected” every year without competition. D-503’s life as an engineer and mathematician is perfectly controlled and rational, as this regime believes true happiness comes with total control and that individual freedom brings forth chaos, until the disruptive force of love and emotions compel his world upside down.… Read the rest here
Zamyatin’s We
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s Dystopian Future novel We, is one of the greatest works of science fiction. We, is remarkable for a number of reasons. The first being that it draws so much from Zamyatin’s own experiences such as his naming of the auditorium. Auditorium-112 was his cell number from his time in jail. The book is a commentary about the new socialist movements in Russia brought to the extremes in the One State. D-503 the narrator, and the main protagonist is a faithful follower of the Benefactor, or the leader of the One State.… Read the rest here
The Guard
One of the most controversial characters from Zamyatin’s “We” is, probably, the Guard, called “S”.
While reading the first half of the book, I just did’t understand what his beliefs and purposes were. He was a Guard, the basis of the State, he was a “spy”, as Guards were called in the beginning of the book, who’s work was mostly about finding individuals who turned to the “wrong” path and either help them to return back to “normal” life or to make them disappear for the good of the whole society.… Read the rest here
O-90: Can the maternal bond be broken?
We, a dystopian novel written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in the 1920s, explores the trials and tribulations of a cipher, named D-503. D-503 tells the story through journal entries (known as ‘records’), which he intends to have sent up on the Integral, a spaceship being built and scheduled to launch in the near future.
Schedules appear to dominate the ciphers: they are assigned times to walk, have sex, appear in auditoriums. It seems that nothing is done without the instruction of a higher power.… Read the rest here
We
In the book We written by Yevgeny Zamyatin, the characters lack names similar to those within our society and instead are called ciphers and labeled with a letter and number. The main character D-503, a mathematician, struggles throughout the book with his understanding of the One State society and what exists outside of the Green Wall. The One State society promotes a “mathematically perfect life” devoid of imagination or individuality. D-503 meets I-330 early on in record two, a woman who’s very physical appearance with her extremely white teeth defy the principle of uniformity within the State.… Read the rest here
We
The book We was written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in 1921 in early Soviet Russia. Zamyatin became a Bolshevik in the early 1900’s, working with the Bolsheviks throughout the years leading up to the October Revolution and being exiled multiple times by the Russian government. Zamyatin was an Old Bolshevik and he truly believed that Russian society had to change, so he supported the October Revolution and was present in St. Petersburg when it took place. However, in the years following the October Revolution, the Communist Party began to become more oppressive, primarily regarding censorship.… Read the rest here
WE
The book, WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, was about a Mathmatician who fell in love with a Women in a state which had no freedoms and life was bounded by working for the collective. In the book, people wore the same clothes, marched the same way, given similar names(D-503) and were expected to work at maximum strength.
This book struck me in several ways. The setting struck me in that it reminded me of the early years of the Soviet Union where the state had promoted the goal of working for a common goal: a state rid of exploitation and class division.… Read the rest here