I think that utopia “We”, written by Zamyatin,  is similar to the “Brave New World” utopia. The major similarity is that both situations are similar in that the order of society is now considered to be utopian. However, after some delving into the situation and understanding the nature of the world and it’s rules and values the reader comes to understand that is a perverted utopia. It takes a great deal of patience to understand the understanding of the planet structure due to the anonymity assigned to its inhabitants. This was a different aspect in this book.  Each individual in this society is assigned a first letter and a digital number to identify them. This is the ultimate subjugation of one’s personality. This is how we are introduced and identify characters like: I-330 and D-503. We clearly see this in the diary of D-503. He explains how he and another “numbers” love by a ridged Table of Hours. A glass Green Wall keeps the city separate from any exposure to natures and covert Guardians and the Operation Department, with it’s dreaded  society “protect” from what they deem to be dangerous people. Criminals are publicly executed by the “Well Doer’s machine”.

The humanity of the people are being stripped away in this manner. This allows for the machines to have greater control and the people exist almost in a secondary manner to the overlord known as the “Benefactor”. Interestingly, the “Benefactor” is re-elected by an always unanimous vote by the population! The controlling humans inject a set of rules and regulations that define life and the “duty” of all “numbers”.  “At night numbers must sleep; it is duty, just as it is their duty to work in the daytime” (page 58) The “numbers” are also expected to stop thinking and to calculate. People lose the personal connection needed to live meaningful lives as human beings. The have been reduced to just cogs in the wheel of society. This is why there is such heavy mathematical description and many special theorem probabilities, odd numbers and Integers are cited by the author.

While I was reading this I could only be reminded by the most repressive society existing on earth today…North Korea. The “Benefactor” vs. “Dear Leader”…unanimous elections…unrelenting work days…no due process of law…it all adds up to a hellish place to live.

Upon reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatin I observed that they gave huge value and importance to logic and math. They considered this to be the essence to their society and their actions, to the point that they it is worshiped and respected and anything seen without the intervention of mathematics is seen as filthy “Hence you see how the great power of logic purifies everything it touches” (Zamyatin 22). Even a simple and natural action such as sex is controlled through numbers and math such as the Table of sexual days. On the top of page 22 we see how society controls the people and we also see the presence of the Table, which originated from the Sexual Department and they go through a whole numerical process in which they determine the sexual days. The narrator (D-503) also compares sex/pink slips to a shape, and this shape being a square. The square signified equality (such as the 4 angles being equal and the 4 sides equal in length) and tells us the reader how this can cause confusion “Take the pink coupons for example [..], to me, this is as natural as […] the square” (Zamyatin 20). By Zamyatin stating this, and making it feel as if it was a face to face conversation and stating his entries to me caused it to seem more realistic.

D-503 even mentions how math, specifically algebra has solved the issues faced by the world such as hunger. “Naturally, having conquered Hunger (algebraically)” (Zamyatin 21) shows how they consider their ability to solve major issues such as hunger as not a big deal. This once again proved how mathematics is considered above everything and is seen as progression and valued in the Once State.

There is also a vast amount of examples of standardizations throughout the One State such as everyone marching with their uniforms “thousands of numbers, in pale blue unifs” (Zamyatin 5). Even the concept of time is seen very exact “In half a minute she’ll be here, for our daily walk” (Zamyatin 5) by this Zamyatin shows how every detail is very important, down to the second and how the people follow a routine.

Another aspect which took me by surprise was how the individuals in the story are not given names, but rather numbers/letters such as D-503 whom is the builder of the Integral, or I-330. So far as I see it, it seems that there isn’t much of personal identity. Since instead of names they refer to each other by numbers or letters, which to me it makes me think that they try to make a separation and sense of self and see each other as objects. While reading this book I kept on thinking of “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, one difference that I noticed was that so far in this book not everyone knows each other “on my right, two numbers I did not know, male and female” (Zamyatin 5), yet in Huxley’s work we observed how many of the characters knew each other due to the promiscuous relationships.

After this weeks reading, I am seeing many similarities between Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The first similarity I noticed was how, both societies, One State and the World State were both organized with rules that should be followed.  Another thing that is similar is that in One State, when you want to do something that is not formally allowed, you get a pink slip, something that asks permission to do something. This reminded me of the World State because, everything was controlled and there weren’t many things the people could do besides being promiscuous and participating in orgies. Each society also values something, in the World State soma is valued and in One State math plays a major role in society and in D-503’s life. I see that they are similar in these ways.

My first impression of D-503 was that he is an outsider. He has negative feelings on participating in society. “and through the glass walls of my algebraic world, again that eyelash- something unpleasant that I must do today” (pg 34) This shows that D-503 doesn’t really want to be apart of whatever is going on. Another way that shows D-503 is different is that  “I hid behind my newspaper- it seemed to me that everyone was staring at me” (pg 35) Everyday he writes in his diary, which is what We is based off of. He meets I-330 and he follows her around and she even gets him to miss work. I think that I-330 is going to be a bad influence on D-503. So far I’m not really seeing any problems with D-503. Just that he dislikes doing anything other than math.

We are also introduced to I-330. First off, I thought that I-330 is going to be an important character because of how she acts. She can be seen as the rebel so far. She doesn’t follow all the rules she’s supposed to. She smokes and drinks alcohol which is not allowed in One State. I-330 is also very sneaky. I-330 says to D-503 “to be original is to be in some way distinct from others. Hence, to be original is to violate equality” (pg 28) This shows that I-330 doesn’t really care about the rules of One State and that she is just going to do whatever she wants.

I am confused on what these “names” or codes mean. I-330 ? O-90 ? D-503? R-13 ? I know that they are names, of characters in We but what do they stand for?

Another question I have is, what’s D-503’s deal with radical negative one? “This irrational number had grown into me like something foreign, alien, terrifying. It devoured me- it was impossible to conceive, to render harmless, because it was outside ratio” (pg 39) I think D-503 dislikes this number maybe because since its an irrational number, it keeps going on and on and its not a normal number. It’s also “unsettled” so this made me think that D-503 likes having everything set the way he feels comfortable with and that he doesn’t like knowing there’s the unknown that exists. Or maybe he dislikes this because its a math equation that he can’t figure out?

In the One State everything is logical, number related. Any problems the One State has can be solved mathematically. D-503 is a mathematician so I guess its only right that the story is told in his eyes.  It probably would have been better off told by someone else because it wouldn’t be biased but after all it is being told based on his thoughts.

“Naturally, having conquered Hunger” (21), I wonder why the ‘h’ in hunger is capitalized. While reading it was said that they no longer have to worry about hunger because mathematically they can produce enough food for everyone in the One State. “Each number has a right to any other number, as to sexual commodity (21), this reminded me of Brave New World, when they say “Everyone belongs to every one else.” The only difference between these two worlds was that in the One State you need to get permission, which are the pink slips, whereas, in the World State you don’t need permission.

In We, I don’t think it said whether the people in the One State are made or born. What I do find strange is that people in the World State were made and yet they still had an identity because they had names. One would assume being made like most things in the world have numbers attached to them for identification. Another question I had while reading is what the letter before the number stands for, like D-503 and I-330. I’m thinking maybe a ranking or job related, because D-503 and I-330 have different jobs in the One State.

“To be original is to be in some way distinct from others. Hence, to be original is to violate equality” (28).  I-330 said this quote, but yet I feel as though she doesn’t believe in this herself. She seems important to the One State because of the strings she’s able to pull. She was able to get D-503 to be at the auditorium, she was able to get him a doctor’s note for not showing up to work, and she seems to know all the right people. For some odd reason, D-503 knows all of this is wrong but he would not tell anyone what is going on. He felt different because of her, I think he felt more alive then ever before; more excited and intrigued then any math problem. He might have felt this way because he has never experienced anything like this before, although I do think his friend R-13 has experienced what it was like to be with I-330. I believe R-13 knows what his friend is going through because he knew he felt “ill” or was troubled by something, and D-503 hinted what it was and R-13 identified with it immediately.

What I want to know is why certain people are helping I-330 with all of this. The doctor for giving them the doctor’s note, the old lady that sits in the sun, why did she let them go into the house, and ‘S’ guy. When ‘S’ tells D-503 that he has an incurable case of ‘soul’, I wonder if the doctor has told this same thing to R-13. ‘S’ said “I’ll tell you in confidence- you are not the only one […] Try to remember-haven’t you noticed anything like it, very much like it, very similar in anyone else?” (91). To me the doctor could be talking about I- 330 or R-13 but why would he tell D-503 without telling him who. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry and think about with all these changes.