Finding himself.

We began as a journal to show the way of life in the One State as seen through the eyes of its most prized mathematicians, but in these few chapters, I feel as if it has become a quest for D-503 to find himself. D-503 has developed into a troubled character and it is clear to us the readers that he in unsure of himself and his feelings towards the society. Although he understands the consequences that may happen if the One State were to find out his thoughts and actions, he carries on with caution and uses this “journal” as an escape into his own mind.

We realize that in his eighteenth entry D-503 states “I was alone …. It was essentially an unnatural sight: imagine a human finger cut off the whole, from a hand -a separate human finger, running, stooped and bobbing, up and down, along the glass pavement. I was that finger. And the strangest, the most unnatural thing of all was that the finger had no desire whatever to be on the hand, to be with others [. . .]” (103) D-503 is clearly accepting the fact that he was alone, and wanted to be alone. He had no desire to be a part of this society any more. Is this because he has realized all the restrictions that were put upon the society in order to maintain happiness? Or is it because he longs to find out more about himself and the only way this will ever happen is breaking free from the One State. Either way, we now know D-503 is unhappy in a place he once spoke to highly of and would rather be separate from it; alone.

We’ve also noticed on several occasions that D-503 he sees himself as being sick/ill. I believe he wants to make himself and others think he is sick to sort of compensate for acting or thinking abnormally. He wants to believe that his feelings towards other characters like O-90 and I-330 are not real but effects of this “illness” he has. When in reality, D-503 has grown apart from the One State, mentally. “My dear, you don’t look normal, you look sick – for abnormality and sickness are but the same thing. You are ruining yourself, but no one, no one will tell you that.” (131). Here we have some evidence that this “sickness” is not real. Nothing is wrong with D-503, he is simply growing into his own person, or rather, growing out of the One States’s norm. The One State is covering up his individuality by calling it a sickness. A lie that even D-503 believes; this can be evidence of his loyalty yet to the One State, by believing what he is told with no questions asked, yet.

What I feel makes D-503 human is I-330. She is his weakness and the only way we see happiness in D-503 is when they are together or when he speaks/thinks/writes of her. The journal is meant to speak of the “grandeur” and “extolling” the beauty of the One State but instead D-503 speaks this way of I-330. An example is found when D-503 says “And I am a crystal. I dissolve in her. I feel with utmost clarity how the polished facets that delimit me in space are melting away, away – I vanish, dissolve in her lap, within her, I grow smaller and smaller and at the same time even wider, ever larger, expanding into immensity […] Darling, forgive me! I don’t know – I talk such nonsense, so foolishly. . .” (131-132) This excerpt shows the creative and heartfelt way D-503 writes about I-330, something we have yet to see him do for the One State.

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