We Writeup

     Recently, I was required to read Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, which blatantly criticizes the communist regime that the Bolshevik revolution inevitably became; aside from this however, I found myself drawing certain parallels between One State and a certain religious institution that I feel should not be ignored in light of Zamyatin's background. Scattered throughout the novel I found passages that bore an uncanny resemblance to certain Christian and biblical concepts. take for instance, the Benefactor, to whom the citizens of One State exalt and sing hymns of praise as practically every given opportunity, doesn't it seem a little reminiscent of  the God depicted in the bible and worshiped in the christian faith? this Benefactor character also gives the citizens of One State the "Table of Hours," a series of codes by which the citizens of One State must live their lives, almost like... the Ten Commandments! Furthermore, One State plans to use the Integral to "Go out and tell the good news!" a message that seems inseparably linked with Christianity. Add to this the resemblance the Guardian's Bureau bears to a clergical body, and the disturbing similarity that D-503's confessions to S in the second to last chapter bear to a scene in a confessional. Take all of that and put it in a blender with the pre-existing negative nature of the book and a metric ton of liberal interpretation and I think that you have a case for criticism of organized religion as an underlying theme. Organised religion was something that the Bolsheviks (a group Zamyatin strongly supported initially) especially disliked, so it makes some sense that Zamyatin would criticize it to some extent, even if potentially unintentionally. It is also a distinct possibility that Zamyatin drew these parallels to highlight the religious nature of government that Communism had taken on, and to further demonstrate how far the party had strayed from its Bolshevik roots.

     One of my favorite lines from We was one that i ran into fairly early on-

"The State (humaneness) forbade the killing to death any one person but didn't forbid the half-killing of millions."

This line, I found particularly humorous and ironic, because in attempting eliminate certain essential aspects of humanity from its citizens, such as emotion, One State is effectively half-killing millions of people.

Overall I personally really enjoyed We, although I don't think i could accurately place exactly why. It may have been the broad spectrum of possible interpretations, as it could have been seen as either political commentary, religious criticism, a book about a guy with woman troubles, a retelling of the fall of man, or what have you; it may have also been the ceaseless references to a whole manner of things mathematical or otherwise. Over all of these however, I think I enjoyed having an unreliable narrator the most; I thoroughly enjoyed getting D-503's perspective on this society, actually NOT having all the facts that an omniscient narrator would, and I found D-503's descent into madness highly interesting.