We #3

Last third of the novel


Motifs:
Birds:
Due to the Green Wall being broken, the birds are able to enter the city. Consequently, people become paranoid, and stray from the usual order of things. "It looked like an enormous swarm of black aeros: barely visible quick dots at an incredible height. Nearer and nearer; hoarse, guttural sounds from above—and finally, over our heads—birds. Their sharp, black, piercing  falling triangles filled the sky. The storm flung them down, they settled on cupolas, on roofs, on poles, on balconies" (Zamyatin 218).When D-503 "returned home... the roofs were covered with black, charred pieces—birds" because of the men who were" swinging seemingly innocuous electrocutors (Zamyatin 219, 221).

This relates to the society today. The birds behind the Green Wall and animals in zoos are similar. They are both restricted in their movements in some way. When a dangerous animal gets loose from a zoo, people start to panic. To control the animal, often they will kill it if other options are not effective. By this action, there is an assumed superiority over animals. In We, The One State does not accept those lesser to them or those less civilized.


Setting:
Space:
I am intrigued as to why Zamyatin make the One State favor space so much over nature. They have many similarities like having unknown elements, and to reach them, one has to venture outside the set and standard society. There is even danger associated with space. While aboard the Integral, D-503 takes into account the danger. "The Integral plunged like a stone—down, faster, faster... and the stone was compelled to fall, to crash against the earth, to smash itself to bits" (Zamyatin 201). The One State must realize those hazards, but still takes the risk. After all, the one stated goal of the One State was to reach space and take with it the poems and other works of the people. Nature and space are so connected that Zamyatin juxtaposes the two. Once they are in space, the members of the Integral look back to the nature. "Everyone rushed out on deck and, bending over the glass railing, hurriedly gulped the unknown world below, beyond the Wall. Amber, green, blue: the autumn woods, meadows, a lake. At the edge of a tiny blue saucer, some yellow, bonelike ruins" (Zamyatin 202). Maybe the One State favors space because it is a new thing to take control of. They could have already taken what interested them from earth, and wanted more.


This connects to the culture of the era when Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote the novel. He was living in Russia when there were communist and socialist ideas going around. Many people wanted to spread the communist ideals outward from Russia into other countries. There is a connection between Russian communism and the space that is described in We. Earlier in the book, the One State tells that the Integral will carry items from that time period, and spread the knowledge and way of life to the other beings in space.

Language:

How cranes are viewed by D-503 and the One State are different. Zamyatin implements a metaphor to show this distinction, and its importance. In the article that the One State publishes, they show the necessity and the advantages of the Great Operation. "The beauty of a mechanism is in its rhythm" and "machines have no imagination. Have you ever heard of cranes restlessly turning from side to side and sighing at night, during the hours designated for rest?" (Zamyatin 179). With this quote, the One State is proving that cranes are inanimate objects, and that is a good quality. By having no imagination, it is almost like not living. This is what the One State wants the people to believe, so they will be more inclined to get the Great Operation. However, D-503 sees just the opposite. At the dock of the Integral, he focuses on the cranes. "I see the living cranes bend their long, birdlike necks, stretch their beaks, and tenderly, solicitously feed the Integral with the terrible explosive food for its motors" (Zamyatin 188). This widens the separation between D-503 and the society that he lives in. It makes the Great Operation all the more useful, since he strays very far from what the One State wants.