We #2

Motifs- "I seem to recall something about a "soul" flashed past and some senseless ancient phrase flew by:
"a tortured soul". (pg. 125) Again the motif and things being "ancient" appears in the second part. However the significance of the above quote is that the soul is ancient. When D-503 uses ancient to describe the house it makes some sense because they are further along in time, but to call the soul ancient implies that they outgrown it in some way, or improved upon it. It is interesting to compare what D-503 finds senseless and what he doesn't. It's senseless to think about feelings, however it is important for everyone to gather to vote for the same person. I think that Zamyatin in this passage is warning against the propaganda of governments, but more specifically that we can't ignore our feelings. Regardless of what society tells us our feelings are our feelings. And we feel it for a reason. D-503 finds these feelings to be senseless at this point and remembers the ancient phrase a tortured soul. I think that Zamyatin uses the motif of ancient at this point in the novel who warn against valuing logic over feelings. The way this shapes my understanding of the society is that it makes me think that it's a lot like planet Vulcan. And D-503 is like Spock. Vulcan makes excellent science officers on a star ship, however they lack the emotion to make necessary decisions, emotions that D-503 is just beginning to feel more and more often.

Setting- "Up above the wall: the sharp black triangles of some kind of bird were cawing [...]" (pg. 105)
The significant part of the setting in the quote above is the wall. Walls generally serve two purposes, to keep things out, and to keeps things in. I think that the ciphers are all convinced that the wall serves the function of keeping things out. Things that could potentially harm them. But I think that the purpose the wall really serves is to keep the ciphers in. If they won the 200 year war, then why limit the amount a space they have? If they are the victors then potentially they could defeat their enemy again and take as much land as they want, however they choose to confine themselves. I think that one possible explanation for this is that they have a jealous leader, who wants to control his citizens and won't let them leave because that would damage his ego. Also I think that wall is significant because they often limit things progress and part of the message that I think Zamyatin is sending is that limiting one's imagination because it doesn't coincide with math or logic is a bad thing. What I don't understand is why they have a wall because if they are such a mathematical society shouldn't they realize that limiting their own space is counterintuitive to expansion? Why build an integral to colonize other worlds but keep themselves limited? This shaped my understanding of their society because it just confuses me.

Language- "R, baring white, African teeth, spattered some word into my face, dived off, and disappeared" (pg. 127) The significance of the above quote is that D-503 uses the word African to describe R's teeth. In the one state I thought that they would control for race so that no one feels inferior to someone as a result. This makes me think that Zamyatin envisioned a world in which the idea of hating someone else because of something as simple as skin color was so absurd that the government wouldn't have to control for it. Also I am surprised that they know what Africa is, and the stereotypes that go along with it because if they live in the "one state" then why would Africa be mentioned in their school? What purpose would that serve to teach the children about history? I mean they could teach about how terrible it might have been to be ancient but then they would have to account that at least 1 person would realize that lack of freedom they have and try to rebel. The language used just perplexes me because I don't understand why there would be different races of people in this society, or why the government would teach about different countries from history. This is significant for the second third of the book because D-503 is developing at a much faster rate, and his language reveals this. The other interesting thing is that Zamyatin has D-503 focus on body parts an awful lot, that's almost always how he identifies people, and if he describes R as a having African lips then Zamyatin is calling attention to R's african roots. This shapes my understanding of the society because it is a lot different than I had previously thought.