Journal #1 We

Motifs- The motif of "ancient" comes up a lot when the citizen refer back to the past civilizations. The way this shaped my understanding of their society is it made them seem like they thought they were far superior to past civilizations. When we use ancient in today's society we refer to the greeks or romans, not people from 200 years ago. The idea that there society is so much further along that others almost seems to be propaganda put forth by the government to trick it's citizens into think that their society is so much better than others that to try to change it would only be regressive and not progressive. Also the lighting seems to be a motif, whether is day or night, bright or dark, and I think this reflects how the government doesn't control everything and connects to the idea that somethings are out of control. Having said that it's entirely possible that the government finds a way to control it, so may it shows how the government chooses to control some things over others

Setting- In the book they often talk about the weather that is around, for instance if it's spring or if it's windy. This affects my understanding of the society because being allowed to connect to nature must be a huge issue for the people in charge. There must be something about nature that they manipulate it into being a tool to control it's citizens further. Otherwise it seems like nature would only make the citizens more likely to question authority. Maybe that's why math and science are emphasized, because if the citizens look at the wind and think to themselves there is a scientific explanation for this rather than is something controlling the wind they will be less likely to ask the question is something controlling me.

Language- The language used is very descriptive and colorful. This affects my understanding of the society in multiple ways. The first is that it appears that the citizens have more control than they actually do, because they say an awful lot however what they say is fairly controlled. So basically they can say a certain thing but they can say it however they want, so they have a false sense of freedom. Another way it affects my understanding of the society is the way D-503 is very mathematical in his writing, and this makes me think that the society puts an emphasis on education in the maths and sciences. Then connecting that to my life and it makes me wonder why I would learn about math and science in school if it leads to a dystopian society. The other connection I made is that most people say knowledge is power but the characters based on the way they use language makes it seem like they have a lot of knowledge but little to no power.