Imagine entire world driven by math. Our emotions spelling out through mathematical formulas. The time we spend governed by accurate time scale. One imagines a mechanical system guided by algorithms full of order and devoid of chaos and unmoved by emotions that’s what science fiction classic written by Yevgeny Zamyatin “We” is about. A totalitarian world which apparently has shunned the nonsensical and unreasonable ways and traditions of the ancient world.
“The State (humanitarianism) forbade in those days the murder of one person, but it did not forbid the killing of millions slowly and by inches. To kill one person, that is, to reduce the individual span of human life by fifty years, was considered criminal, but to reduce the general sum of human life by fifty million years was not considered criminal!”
Each individual is assigned a number, they have to live their life according to the rules set by “The Table”. D-503 is one such individual who is a mathematician helping the United State design the “Integral” which will help the state remove the ancient world forever. He feels happy in this world where his movements, his emotions, his sense of time, his identity are all governed by the state — and the readers also feel this system to be unique. Zamyatin has magnificently portrayed this, he draws this world slowly making the reader believe (just like a totalitarian state) that a control of humans could lead to absolute happiness (lack of desire is happiness).
“The way to rid man of criminality is to rid him of freedom”.
When his paths cross with I-330 he feels a conflict rising in his head. His reason and logic begin to collide, that’s when readers actually get to understand the slow buildup and the reality of the mathematical utopia. There’s a rebellion and soon D-503 finds himself to be part of it.
“We” is considered to be a precursor to other similar novels like George Orwell’s ‘1984’. It’s banned in Russia for a very long time but was later published. “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin is a dystopian novel which we all should read because despite its genre of science “fiction”, doesn’t feel fiction anymore.
