Type: Literary Analysis
Pages: 6 | Words: 1703
Reading Time: 8 Minutes

Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote the novel “We” during the last years of the Civil War, when it became already clear that the government would remain in the hands of the Bolsheviks. At this time the society was worried about the kind of future of the country and many writers and activists were trying to find an answer. Among them was Yevgeny Zamyatin who presented his own view of the problem in his dystopian novel “We”. He expressed his doubts about the possibility of building an ideal society through the interventions into the natural course of life and the tries to bring the whole life to its subordination to any theory.

Zamyatin showed the readers society of the future, which was the result of such actions where people were just cogs in a soulless machine One State deprived of freedom soul and even the name, which proclaimed the theory that the “lack of freedom” is true “happiness”, the natural state of man was that when he lost his “I” and became a small part of the impersonal all-inclusive “we”. The whole life of the citizens of the One State was strictly regulated and open to the public what had been done to ensure the effectiveness of public safety.

They had a totalitarian state, unfortunately, not far from the real-life examples that have taken place in the world. The fact is that Zamyatin was right in his forecasts: something like this was really built in the Soviet Union, which was characterized by the primacy of the state over the individual, forced collectivism and suppression of legitimate political opposition.

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We” became a warning to his contemporaries and their descendants, as a warning of impending danger of state intervention into all aspects of society, which can be ensured by strict regulation “mathematically perfect life”, the universal knock-quality and advanced technology. Unfortunately, in such society, there is nothing that would not have already foreshadowed the reality of contemporary writers. The symbolic image of a fire-breathing integral, the miracle of technical ideas and tools at the same time make the most severe oppression, and open the book. Soulless machinery with despotic power to turn a man into an appendage of the machine, took away his freedom, brought just voluntary servitude. People are indexed deprived of names and are told repeatedly that their lack of freedom is their happiness and that this happiness is the rejection of the “I” and the dissolution of the impersonal “we”. Personal life is also considered as a public duty, performed in accordance with the table of sexual days.

The protagonist D-503, on behalf of the narrator, mentions that One State society is perfectly normal, and he is a happy man. He is working on the construction of a giant space ship “Integral”, designed to subjugate the residents of neighboring planets. But there are people dissatisfied with the status quo and want to keep the procedures specified in the Unified State.

They create a plot to capture the spacecraft, which decides to use the possibility of D-503. At this time the main character meets a woman, which soon begins to experience unusual, extraordinary feeling, which it previously was unknown to him. This feeling of his the ancestors would call love. His love is a woman “a lucky number” I-330 is not just a “lucky number”; it remained common human feelings, naturalness and individuality. For D-503 it is very new, so unexpected and unknown, that he does not know how to act in such situation.

Together with his girlfriend he visits the Ancient House sees wildlife beyond the Wall. The main problem that is disclosed in the novel is the search for happiness. This quest for happiness led humanity to the form of existence, which is depicted in the novel. But this form of universal happiness is imperfect, because happiness is grown by incubator, contrary to the laws of organic development. All human life in this world is a subject to mathematical laws and schedules on the clock. The man of the world is an impersonal substance.

People here do not even have proper names they were letters with numbers like D-503, I-330, G-90, K-13. It would seem that they are satisfied with this life; they are used to it and to its orders. The author gives, in my opinion, a vivid picture of this life: the windows all over, and no one can hide from each other, there is no life and natural behavior. But behind the wall of One State there is a life at full bloom.

There are real wild people who do not want low-energy happiness. The second problem of the novel “We” is the problem of power. Zamyatin wrote a very interesting chapter on Day One Vote, the choice of the Benefactor. The most interesting thing is that people do not even think about how to choose someone else for the post of the Benefactor, except the Benefactor.

They find it funny is that the election results were not known to the ancient people in advance. For them, the benefactor is God, descended to the ground. Benefactor is the only being who is allowed to think. For him, the concept of love and cruelty are inseparable. He is harsh, unjust, and enjoys the unlimited confidence of the inhabitants of the One State.

The culmination of the novel is the talk of the main character of D-503 to Benefactor, who told him the formula for happiness: “The real algebraic love for man is certainly inhuman, and an indispensable sign of truth is cruelty”.

To permanently solve the task, the author introduces the novel in a revolutionary situation. There is an episode with part of the workers, who do not want to put up with their slavery status. These people do not become cogs not lost human shape and ready to fight Benefactor, to free people from the power of technocracy. They decide to take a spaceship, taking advantage of D-503, the builder of “Integral”. To this end, I-330 seduces him, D-503 falls, and learning about their plans, becomes startled at first, and then agrees to help them.

After a visit to the Ancient House and communion with nature, the main character’s soul is compared to a severe illness. All this leads to the fact that the D-503 falls ill with disease in one state and the diagnosis is terrible – he has a soul. In the end, the plot is suppressed, I-330 is killed in Bell, and the main character gets back the lost peace and “happiness” after surgery that removed his fantasy.

In his novel, Yevgeny Zamyatin raises a number of critical issues for humanity. The content of happiness and how to achieve it becomes a chief among them. The author believes that happiness is constructed artificially; it is incomplete and is only an illusion. On this basis, the artificial happiness is possible theoretically, but it will not be universal, as the interests of people are different, and the deeper will be interference in the fantasy life of the community from the outside, the greater will be the gap between satisfied and dissatisfied with the current situation, which usually leads to social explosion.

Thus, the public should be self-organizing, building a universal happiness unnatural not impossible, and even harmful. Another major problem addressed in the novel is the ratio of government and religion. For citizens of One State Governor Rainmaker is the god. This is typical for many totalitarian states. Theocracy was present in the Soviet Union and in Nazi Germany in a modified form.

There was a substitution of the official ideology of religion and dogma. Fusion of power and religion is a condition of the strength of the state, but it excludes any possibility of freedom in society. Thus, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel shows the future of the totalitarian state, which began its development in the twenties, as he saw it through the prism of his thoughts on the problems that agitated humanity for thousands of years, which makes this work relevant to the present day.

Unfortunately, further developments in Russia and in the world, has shown that the writer’s fears were true. Author predicted the gradual development of totalitarianism in the world. “We” is the novel that is a warning of the terrible consequences of giving up the “I”, even in the name of the most beautiful theories. Zamyatin shows how tragic and disastrous people’s lives can turn in a totalitarian state. Many scenes of the novel are reminiscent of the recent past.

Demonstration in honor of the Benefactor, semi-official, unanimous election, “keepers” who followed every step of man can serve as profs to this fact. But Yevgeny Zamyatin shows that, in a society where everything is aimed at suppressing the individual, which ignores the human “I” and becomes the sole authority of unlimited chance of rebellion.

Ability and desire to feel, love, to be free in their thoughts and actions push people to fight. But the authorities find a way: a person is removed by surgery imagination the last thing that made him lift his head proudly, to feel strong and intelligent. Yet there is hope that human dignity is not going to die at any mode. This hope expresses the woman who is encouraged to fight by her beauty.

But nobody would want the writer to give his model of the ideal society; on the contrary, he insists that there is no perfect society. Life is striving for the ideal. And when that desire is absent, the human person is beginning to die. Author of “We” is one of those great artists, who called the readers’ attention to the timeless values and do not forget about them in the context of global historical shifts of XX century.

At the time of its birth the novel was not accepted. But now it has returned like the novel that allows a new way of look at the historical events, and makes it possible to understand the role of man in them. “We” is a warning against the failure to resist.

Roman Zamyatin acquired special significance as a warning of possible distortions of beautifully presented ideas of socialism, the danger of deviation from the democratic path and abuse of human personality. Subsequent events of national and world history have shown that anxiety of the writer was not in vain.

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