D-503 is the narrator who is telling the story from first point of view. D-503 is viewed to me and probably by others to be abnormal. He is abnormal because he always alone and seem to be at places he is not suppose to be at the moment due to the Table of Hours. The Table of Hours is a schedule on how things should be hourly and who does what. Something D-503 said himself that proves that he is different from everyone who follows the rules all the time is when he said “I felt I lived apart from everyone, alone, behind soft wall that muted outside sounds. And here, behind this wall – my world”(102). That quote to me sounds like he does not feel the same emotions everyone feels in the One State. He has his own way of thinking about things on his spare time. In the quote it says that he has his own world and that is saying that he has his own way of thinking where most people might not understand him. D-503 has his own imaginary/space he lives in. He seem to be a puzzled individual who does not know what and why he is thinking about things sometimes. He is always questioning himself on wether if he is right or wrong about something happening.

In the story there are several times D-503 talks about himself being sick/ill from some disease. I am not sure if he is actually sick for real or if it is just a act. I do not know if he is saying he has a disease so that people take in consideration for his behavior. A part of the story I feel that D-503 actually has a disease is when in the text it states “obeying the doctors instruction (I sincerely, most sincerely want to get well) , I wandered for two hours along the glass deserts”(103). That quote sounds like he actually got something from the doctor to help him from his disease making it real and not made up. Other parts of the story where D-503 speak about something then suddenly talks about his sickness as if his disease got him acting the way he do. In the text where is describe this action of him bringing up his disease problem as a excuse because he is unsure on why something is happening. The story states him saying “why, then, was this gray little spot now like a cloud, turning everything darker, more leaden? Or was this again my “soul”(105). In the book soul is referred as disease. He clearly sounds like he don’t understand what is going on then figures that oh maybe it is disease that caused him to think this way.

Another abnormal behavior of D-503 is that he always seem to be dreaming. He tend to day dream and imagine about things that are actually not happening at the moment but inside his head. For example of this is when he was walking home and spotted a chair in the street that was from ancient time because it was made out of wood. The chairs that was modern of his time period was glass chairs. As he saw the chair the text states “It ran up to my bed, climbed into it, and I made love to the wooden chair. It was uncomfortable and painful”(124). The description is a little weird because it says that the chair climbed into his bed and he made love to it. How can a chair climb into his bed? This weird description can show how different D-503 is from normal people of the One State. Him also description he made love to the chair and it was uncomfortable, painful is too weird for me because isn’t love suppose to feel good.

D-503 cannot live without I-330, but 0-90 is still his. These two characters, I-330 and O-90, are total opposites, which shows what attracts D-503 towards each. His life was like any other ordinary person, regular and according to society, up until he met I-330. Now having met her his life is a complete adventure.

I feel as though before he wasn’t really living, no one in that world was because everyone does the same thing, that’s boring. His relationship with O-90 describes life of the One State, to me it’s as if they embody what a perfect “couple” would be in the One State. O-90 doesn’t seem to be a threat; she basically follows the rules to the t, although she also belongs to R-13. That part of her belonging to both confused me a little because they all know each other. As I read further along it seemed to me as though R-13 has also been in encounter with I-330. The way D-503 describes I-330 is nothing compared to how he would describe O. R-13 having been with someone like I-330, one would think he wouldn’t settle for someone so boring and plain. Being that R-13 and D-503 both share O, I wonder why R didn’t tell D-503 about him being with I-330 in detail, he vaguely told him about it, which I thought wasn’t fair to their friendship or to D-503’s “illness”.

I-330 and D-503 are better then D-503 and O. I follows the rules, D-503 can do that without her, I-330 changes the way D-503 views his society, thus changing the way he’s going about his writing. In the beginning, when D-503 has yet to meet I-330, but is still with O, he is writing for the benefit of the One State as he originally set out to do. Now that he has met I-330, his entries are no longer according to the One State, facts based, it now his feelings and sense of confusion to try to figure things out. I-330 is totally different, something he never knew existed, which is why I feel like he’s intrigued and attracted to her.

With all of these “new things” going on between I-330 and D-503, one thing that confused me was the letter O wrote to D-503 on page 106. She tells him “I cannot live without you- because I love you”(106), I thought love didn’t exist just like hunger didn’t. I’m assuming since love didn’t exist neither does jealousy, which I think is the reason O wrote the letter to D-503 because she is jealous that he’s giving all of his attention to I-330 now. I am also confused about whether or not D-503 and O had a child together, I know she asks him for this favor, and several conversations hint a little of it being true (112) but I’m still not completely sure. I hope he didn’t have a child with her because that would make me a little upset although I don’t know why it would.

Upon continuing the reading of this book I noticed how D-503 has completely changed, in the beginning we were introduced to a person which followed all the rules and appeared to be an exemplar citizen of the One State. Now upon reading these entries he has become an internally conflicted character. To me personally, I feel as if D-503 is a lunatic at times with all his confusion and all of his sudden expression of emotions and actions in these entries all because of I-330. D-503 is also know learning about a thing called “soul” something which he had not heard in years something which never existed until he went to the Ancient house with I-330. I also noticed how D-503 spent many entries just expressing his emotions and how he felt different.

He also began to have very strong emotional attachment with I-330 and he became obsessed with her “My heart, fast and light as an aero […] I knew- some joy awaited me tomorrow” (We 91). He knew he had some type of feelings for her which he did not comprehend and this was shown throughout his entries. He also began to use words which expressed an emotional attachment such as “darling” to call for I-330 which showed some personal ownership (She was his love).

Through many entries D-503 went from explaining the norms of the One State and how the society function, to his personal sensations and feelings “I am saddened to see that, instead of a harmonious and strict mathematical poem in honor of the One State, I am producing some sort of a fantastic adventure novel” (We 103). D-503 himself lets us know straight forward that he has lost track of the true purpose of keeping this journal, which purpose was to educate and bring happiness and progress to the primitive reader yet know it is all about D-503 and himself with the One State put to the side.

D-503 went from attending social activities such as the daily walks to now searching for personal time in which he can be alone. This simple act alone shows various things such as him breaking the One State’s norms while changing his values “Everyone else was in the auditoriums, as prescribed by the Table of Hours, and only I was alone.” (We 103).

Towards the final entries D-503 began to remind himself the true purpose behind keeping his journal which was to basically promote the One State values for a takeover. He began to explain a ceremony which is going to be held and more of his surroundings.

I did notice the following when D-503 was taken to the doctor’s office and the following was said “I’ll tell you in confidence-you are not the only one […] about an epidemic” (We 91). This gave a glimpse of how there were more people “suffering” of having a soul in the One State and this shows a very small crack in this civilization, and which now D-503 will take part in. I am also looking forward to see if there will be other glimpse of some issues which One State faces, yet the citizens do not know of.

In these entries, we see D-503 going through a lot of hard experiences with him discovering himself. We also see how I-330 has affected him in the seventeenth entry. She has him head over heels and has D-503 come to the ancient house to meet her. This part is where it got kind of confusing to me because of all the events happening at once. He reaches the room where they are supposed to meet but she is nowhere to be found and then he goes through a dying experience(literally), and this is where I’m not sure what exactly happened. How did he “die” after he opened the closet door is probably my biggest question in these chapters.

Whats really interesting about I-330 is that she is such a mysterious character and yet a life changing character for D-503. She makes him question the things the One state says about things such as mental illness. In the first few entries of this weeks reading, he starts to question what the soul really is and if it really exists or not. In the One State it seems that having dreams means that you are having a mental illness and it is in these dreams that D-503 questions the existent of the soul. “But the horror of it is that these invisible bodies exist, they must, they inevitably  must exist: in mathematics, their fantastic, prickly shadows-irrational formulas-pass before us as on a screen.(Yevgeny 101)” We see ask about the soul at the bottom of page 101, “Does it mean, then. that this preposterous “soul” is as real as my unif, as my boots, although i do not see them at the moment? And if the boots are not a disease, why is the “soul” a disease?” This last line is so important because it marks the start of him doubting the things he was told and taught about.

There was a small part in the seventeenth entry that really caught my attention. When he is on his way to the ancient house, he sees through the green wall, a beast. The exchange between D-503 and this beast is interesting because he questions himself after a while, what if this yellow eyed creature in his uncomputed life, is happier than the people of the world state. He doubts this later where he says, “What absurdity-that he could possibly be happier than we are!”(Yevgeny 95) but I believe that HE actually believes this but can’t admit it.

In these entries, we also see D-503’s ultimate decision, impregnating O-90 and giving her a child illegally. It seems that O-90 realized D-503’s obsessive love with I-330 and sends him a letter saying she loves him so much that she is willing to let him go to I-330’s side. In the letter she says, “I cannot live without you-because I love you. Because I see, I understand: today you don’t need anyone, anyone in the world except her, the other one, and you.. understand-just because I love you I must..”(Yevgeny 106) It also seems that he is still has lingering feelings for O-90 because after reading the letter he says, “Never again. Yes, it is better that way, she is right. But why, then, why..(Yevgeny 106)” I think he finally decides to have sex with her because the first sentence of the last paragraph in the 19th entry he says, “That was the last.”. Last as in the last time he will sleep with her and I think this is also a sign of him finally getting rid of a burden and a sign of relief that he can finally fully commit his love to I-330.

In these entries that we read, we start to see more about how d-503 is as a person. he starts to drift away from describing how the One State is to his targeted ancestors and we start to see more of his personal life. So instead of being some type of maybe journal describing the society, it is becoming more of a complex diary in which he is describing his feelings. Due to there being less information in the story and it is mores of him reflecting, the entries become harder to understand.

Much like most utopian literary works, D-503 starts to question the values he was brought up with. Quite like how Bernard does in “Brave New World”. He starts to developed for feels for I-330 and O-50. He is used to just logically taking action to things through mathematical processes. Now that he is developing these human emotions, he seems quite unsure what to do. In return he is questioning a lot of facts and practices he was brought up with.  He cannot help but feel this way. This starts causing some internal conflict.  “I am saddened to see, that instead of a harmonious and strict mathematical poem in honor of the One State, I am producing some sort of fantastic adventure novel” (Page 103) ” He feels that this new mental dilemma he is going through he starts to believe he is sick. This was foreshadowed earlier in the book when he acts sick to avoid I-330.

D-503 really can be getting sick. He is dealing with a lot of emotional stress at this point in the story. He is not used to feeling these emotions so he thinks he is getting sick. It also doesn’t help that the One State is making him try to disregard his human emotion. I think this will end up becoming a huge factor in the stability of his mental state later on. He believes that these new feelings that he is having are actually symptoms of his “illness” and he doesn’t actually believe that they are real.

The big factor that is causing D-503 to feel sick is his affection for I-330. Yet it is ironic how he seems to be normal and cheerful when he is around her and doesn’t feel sick at all. This is somewhat foreshadowed earlier in the novel. I-330 questions D-503 and asks if he is still sick. D-503 suddenly “remembers” that he is sick and goes to the medical office.

Reading the new chapters of seventeen to twenty-six we see a new side of D-503 where he is slowly realizing his own emotions for I-330. He is shown to even be unable to control his emotions and slowly let jealousy get to him so much that it shocked him self where he is shown to attack R (Zamayatin pg 144). This really was a shocker for me because up till now he is show to be calm to his emotions where the idea of “we” is more important then the individual. As much as I know he was in love with I-330 it really never occurred to me that he would actually attack him I though he would just walk away or just keep it to himself of how he felt cause we slowly started seeing the distance between the two of them.

We really are able to see how his writing is turning more into his private journal where he is confessing his actual feelings fir like how much he realizes that he loves her he’s given up the relation he has with O-90 and telling every daily detail of his day over talking about One State as a society. Though at the same time you can see the conflict he has over his emotion because he is constantly talking about the benefactor. He is questioning his values as whether loving I-330 is even driving him crazy. Then you also see him talking about the concept of soul which I would say is the debate of his emotions coming through him. She made him realize that she was no longer just a number to him but actually an individual which went against everything he believed in as the individual is look down upon in a society which “we” is the concept and everybody belonged to everyone else which is also why they have that coupon system setup.

My though on these few chapters were they were very confusing such as when he was going through the apartments and the green wall in entry seventeen. It felts as if he was talking about one thing then he jumped to another. Though I would say that the story line is getting better because he is starting to turn more human with his new developed emotions compared to when he just kept talking about One State and his math and geometry logic for comparison to everything else which did get annoying to me. To me it feels as of his world is shattering as he goes through these debates because he is really lost of what he really should believe in ” he is shown to as the question himself of many things in entry twenty-five of “But then who are ‘they’? and who am I? ‘they’, ‘we'” (Zamayatin pg 145-146). You could tell his values are changes and even his priority such as how the society was in a way everything to him to how much I-330 started to mean to him where it was all he could think about.

In these chapters, the entries have progressively become more personal and filled with uncertainty. Unlike the entries in the beginning, which were mainly filled with praise of the One State and facts about the world he lives in, they have now taken a more personal turn. Due to D-503 developing feelings, his entries now have less facts in them, as the world isn’t being seen in an objective light anymore. It is being seen through his own personal perspective, not how everyone should see the One State. “Slowly, softly, I floated down somewhere, my eyes turned dark, I died”. D-503’s entries are becoming more vague and a little harder to understand, as he begins to describe what he feels. Since he himself doesn’t understand feelings or what a soul is, describing it is unknown territory.

D-503 is now facing conflicting feelings about his life. He begins to question things he used to be certain of, and he blames all of it on the soul he was told he developed. When he was walking close to the Green Wall, and sees an animal on the other side, he begins to wonder. “what if he, this yellow eyed creature, in his disorderly , filthy mound of leaves, in his uncomputed life, is happier than we are”. Order and stability is what this society functions on. However, D-503 is now questioning the value of these traits he has lived by all his life. Because of I-330 he has made irrational decisions, which is unheard of. Rationality is valued the most. The One State puts heavy emphasis on math for a reason. There is always only one answer, and there are no unknown variables in their lives, making them question anything. D-503 however, has run into situations he doesn’t understand, and unwanted, unknown variables come up. “Yesterday, at the very moment when I thought that everything was already disentangled, that all the x’s were found, new unknown quantities appeared in my equation”. D-503 doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings, and going through them as rationally as he can helps him.

Despite D-503 repeating how sick he is throughout the entries, he keeps moving back and forth between wanting to be cured, and wanting to be left the way he has become. “Perhaps this discharge has cured me finally of my tormenting soul, and I’ve become again like all of us”. He wants to get rid of his soul so he wont feel pain anymore, but other times he just questions if its his soul that is making him feel this way, and tries to figure it out mathematically.

What frightens D-503 the most is the unknown. Before, everything was already known. There wasn’t anything to think about and no one wondered what tomorrow would bring. It had already been decided. However, after everything came crashing down, everyone began to wonder about the future. “Now and then I see…people tiptoe down the corridor, whispering, what will happen tomorrow? What will I turn into tomorrow?”. Tomorrow is inconceivable if there aren’t any values of the One State holding them down. The unknown is something no one here has ever experienced before, and it frightens them.

What started out as a very strict and studious journal, has now turned into a whirlwind of emotions and feelings. D-305 has taken a very dramatic turn from the character he is presented to us as in the beginning of the book, and now it is like I am reading a completely different story. D-305 has completely given into I-330 and by doing so has broken the mold which society had written out for him. I think this particularly represents how people would naturally react to something new and especially if it really has their attention. D-305 reacts this way because he has never experienced this before, and he doesn’t know how to think rationally about his situation due to the way he has been brought up in the society. At this point in the book, I am really seeing I-330 become the downfall to the story, everything about the current situation just doesn’t seem right to me.

” ‘Good. I promise you: after the holiday, if only…Oh, by the way, how is your Integral doing? I always forget to ask-how soon?’
‘No, what do you mean, ‘if only?’ Again? ‘If only’ what?
But she, already at the door : ‘ You’ll see yourself…’ ” (WE 134)

This quote shows how infatuated D-305 is, he focuses more on her than the actual things that she is saying. He does pick up at the end about her questioning the Integral, but doesn’t pay it as much mind as I believe he should.