One of the largest themes I’ve recovered from reading this novel is the idea that being soulless is a ‘good thing’. If you have a soul, well, bummer, cause that’s bad. Also, having a personality, or ideas, or an imagination is bad. This is shown when D-503 develops feelings for I-330. He develops a […]
“O” is a character that is prominent throughout the entire story of We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. O is one of the 2-dimential characters that fraternize with D-503. She was a standard character, much unlike I-330, who quickly changes D. O is the constant character, who follows all rules of the society till later in the […]
In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, one of the central events in the end of the novel is the introduction of the Great Operation, a process in which one’s imagination is removed. This operation is supposed to live the patient (or victim) in a state of bliss, having been freed from the negative emotions that one […]
When we were discussing the point yesterday in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel, We, where I-330 and D-503 are talking about the “two forces in the world,” energy and entropy, I became disgruntled. I was absolutely certain that the definitions the characters were using were incorrect, and I spent the remainder of class trying to figure out where […]
After finishing Zamyatin’s We, I found the idea of emotions presented throughout the novel to be intriguing. I-330 is the embodiment of the word emotion. She is passionate, creative, and rebellious. She refuses to conform to the strict structure of logic and reason the One State puts in place. As the story progresses, D-503 finds himself […]
One aspect of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel We that I found fascinating was the way the rational, mechanized society had eliminated empathy in the population. Although it was a society built on the concept of collectivism, the whole to serve the needs of the One, there was no concern or interest in the well-being of […]
“We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin speaks of a society (possibly in the future?) where there is complete order and structure for citizens in all aspects of their lives. This comes from mainly not having any emotions. If someone started to experience any sort of emotion they were deemed ‘ill’ and got treatment. Later on in the […]
Zamyatin’s “We” leaves a lot to be desired at the end. D-503 received the operation that takes out his imagination and he returns to “normal”. Unfortunately, in D’s world, being normal means being cold, calculating, and precise. This raises an interesting discusson about what makes us human. Is it our ability to imagine, to have a […]
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel, “We”, includes gloriously colorful descriptions. Zamyatin takes his readers on an incredibly sensuous journey by employing meaningful colors and shapes to his characters, whose personalities are curiously like the letters of their names. 0-90 is supposedly round and pink, and she is consistently described as “rosy”. I-330 is thin and yellow, like […]
While reading We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, I was reminded of some of the themes that are present in the film The Matrix. In the book, D-503 has completely accepted, or been conditioned to accept, the Table of Hours. He comments that the Table of Hours, “Transforms each one of us into a figure of steel, […]
In Yevgeny Zamyantin’s novel We D-503 is part of a regimented society based on mathematical precision and rational thought. Almost every aspect of life is organized to be preformed in an efficient manner, all doing the same thing at the same time. D-503 is content in this predictable existence, “I see myself, my room, my […]
In Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, the idea of happiness being gained at the expense of freedom is discussed. In We, the novel’s protagonist, D-503 says, “Those two (Adam and Eve) in Paradise, they were offered a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness, nothing else. Those idiots chose freedom.” This statement makes it […]
In Jack London’s Iron Heel and Yevegny Zamyatin’s We both depicts the main characters as being blissfully ignorant at the start of both novels until they meet outspoken, against the rules characters that show them a different perspective on the world around them. Mavis in the Iron Heel is shown the grave inequality of the new government in the US […]
So far, I have found We by Yevgeny Zamyatin to be an enjoyable novel. The idea that every member of this society is given a letter and number instead of a name is really interesting. While reading this book, I picture the characters looking like their letters. It is even described that I-330 is, “…slender, […]
In the current Dystopian (by our sentimental standards) Book being read “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin, the entirety of civilization abandoned the concepts of personal liberties and creativity are replaced by mathematical equations, and any sense of individuality is outlawed and rooted out. In this math-centric world,numbers pervades and holds dominance over all in poetry, work, and personal identity: […]
If there’s one thing I know about words, it’s that they’re tricky, and their definitions are tricky, too. For all of the effort by D-503 in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We to record the world logically, I can’t help but see some of the words he uses to describe things as triggers for associations–and D-503 seems to be learning […]
In light of what we’ve been reading for the class, one of the most glaring common themes that I’ve seen is the rejection of nature itself. To me, the theme not only symbolizes the potential future of man as he tries to distance himself from what’s considered “barbaric,” but also the moral, mental, and intellectual […]
The gaps between the worker class and owner/wealthy upper class in the novels and movie that we watched is getting interesting. Technology may be a factor but what’s standing is the gaps, at first Granville, and Shelly their was just an upper class doing what it wanted with science or telling the future. But now […]
Can free will really cause unhappiness? In Zamyatin’s We, free will is the reason for unhappiness. To me the idea of free will leading to unhappiness is absurd. Free will makes me happy; to know that I can pick something that I like because it is my personal choice. I know some people that do […]
In Zamyatin’s WE, there is already no more privacy and extremely little personal choice. Sure, there are a couple of people that try to defy the system, like those outside of the walls, but they’re too small in number to do much, so why completely strip the One State of their humanity? Is it because, […]
Imagination, something in this society is kind of pushed to flourish but in the One State its the enemy. D-503 does get forced under the Great operation and get his creativity sucked out of him like a straw. When I first read the last entry, and thanks Dr Ganyard for calling me out for reading […]
In regards to the theme of rebelling against the system, I actually see a lot of similarities between Zamyatin’s novel and the themes of the movie version of The Giver. In terms of the setting, the myths fed to the people, the view of nature, and the idea that rebellion is inevitable with the question surrounding it […]
While reading Yevgeny Zamaytim’s novel We, I found a couple of things a little hard to agree with. In class on Tuesday, we touched a little bit on asking how people act when they know they are being watched. In We, everything is made of glass. People are visible all of the time, except during […]
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is an interesting book to look at it makes you question what life would be like from their view. What would it be like to have no privacy or even a name? I looked at this book overall as a short love story O-90 is forbidden to have a child, then […]
Throughout the entirety of the novel things have been left ambiguous which in a way reflects the state of mind that D is in. Due to this fact I missed the point that after having a child a woman is simply killed and the child is raised by the state. When going back and rereading […]
Damn you Imagination and all of your great wondrous imaginings. I want you gone. I want the happiness, the bliss, the bubbles in my soda that only Coke makes happen. I want those bubbles in my brain, fizzing, and filling me with caffeinated Yao-wee. You know? “This is the last barricade on our way to […]
The whole idea of imagination itself not existing is actually quite depressing to even ponder. Of course, were the concept to somehow be enacted already (at least within myself), I suppose those feelings would not even come to fruition. Feelings and desires, after all, are linked with the imagination, and just as the characters in […]
One thing that stands out to me is the decision by I-330 to ‘convert’ D. In a practical sense, it makes sense: you need the person most integral (no pun intended) in your confidence in order for your plan to work. On the other hand, it would make the most sense to ‘convert’ literally anyone […]
Let’s leave the entropy for the heat death of the universe, the final moment of ultimate homeostasis. In class we were talking about happiness as contentment vs happiness as … fulfillment? glory? etc.? So, which is better? End of the semester, work loads piling up, sleep deprivation beginning; yep, freedom from any problems whatsoever sounds […]
As I read the ending of WE, I had some thoughts that could relate it to modern society. Now granted, we are not being controlled and watched by the government, well at least not to the extent that D-503 faced. Still, D-503 had an operation that eliminated his imagination and sense of feel. In a […]
I-330 is an interesting character in this story and I wanted to talk more about her in this blog post. She was a very intense influence on D and the One State as a whole, as we learned later in the story. While reading the first half of the book I-330 was the person who […]
The book WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin brings up a very interesting question: are people willing to give up their freedom and privacy for safety and security, and the answer to that is even scarier. Yes. We have seen this over and over again in distopian novels, and then reflected in real life. Sure, the world […]
While reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin I am disheartened by the glimpses of Russian society in the early 1900’s we are given. Although Zamyatin is creating a futuristic utopian he is basing it on the current Russian policies during his lifetime. In 1921 he wrote in an essay appropriately titled “Paradise”; What absolute simplicity, […]
I-330 is one of my favorite characters so far, but for a very specific reason. I don’t particularly care for her destroying the comfortable triangle that R, O, and D have established. The effect that she has on D’s psyche is strange and hints at the word ‘perverting’; in the sense that she’s perverting his […]
Since the question came up in class, I decided to do some digging into associations with the color yellow in Russia
As much as I want to finish the readings for We, something about this book makes me want to put it down and not read it. I’m not exactly sure what this is, maybe its the idea of no names, or having my life controlled so much that I can’t even pick my own partner. […]
When I was younger, there were a couple of glass houses in the town that I lived in. I used to think that they were the coolest houses ever. I asked my parents, “Why we couldn’t live in a glass house?” My parents always responded with a generic answer or they would respond because people […]
In this blog I wanted to talk about the hold that I-330 has over D. We discussed it a lot in class but I think there is so much more to this than what we discussed. While reading the book the first impression I had of I-330 was that she was around to cause trouble […]