The Protagonist D-503 in We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

1123 Words3 Pages

We, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin in 1921 as a futurist depiction of protagonist D-503 living in a dystopian society controlled during the Russian revolution of 1917. It is the story of a head engineer writing in his journal who is living under the control of the benefactor, following laws in order to have the most efficient state and infallible happiness. The citizens are not given names they are given number and every hour of each of their lives are directed by a table. Zamyatin constructs the motif of machinery in order to convey the transition of the protagonist D-503 from a dehumanised cog in the OneState’s machine to an individual the readers could relate to. By analysing the tone, motif of machinery and diction to understand the transformation the characters reflective thoughts from one of a machine like to an individualistic.

The protagonist D-503 is a loyal member of the one state. He lives his day as the lead engineer of the integral. He hopes that the benefactor will one day be able to control every minute of everyone’s lives. Zamyatin creates D-503 to be see beauty and understanding in the non-freedom society “Why is this dance beautiful? The answer: because it is non-free movement, because the whole profound point of this dance lies precisely in its absolute, aesthetic subordination, its perfect non-freedom” (Zamyatin 1921, p6) Zamyatin pairs up the words with positive connotations with words with a negative impact on a society, D-503 has a limited understanding of what living is like if you are uncontrolled of your own thoughts and emotions “from the earliest of times, is inherently characteristic of humankind, and we, in our very contemporary life, are simply more conscious …” (Zamyatin 1921, p6).
Built in a so...

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...rd to before? Incomprehensible. The only explanation: my former sickness (a soul)” (Zamyatin 1921, p203), the pure clarity and freedom to in the one sentence reiterates the individualist the character has become through thoughts and raw emotion written in a journal.
Zamyatin successfully illuminates the protagonist transition of machine like to individualist through the motif of being a machine and other different literary elements in chronological order. This idea created by Zamyatin work together in order to convey the message of living in a collectivist state and the value of what it is to be human (a soul) through the thoughts of D-503 as he goes through several stages of self-awareness. Zamyatin links these idea in order to warn the audience of believing what is told to them, to always question and know who you are and what feel with no other influences.

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