Ready Reference Treatise: We

By Raja Sharma

“We” by the Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin was first published in 1924 in New York. The English translation was done by Gregory Zilboorg.

The author had completed writing the novel in the year 1921, but it took him three more years to have it published.

It is a dystopian novel set in the future. D-503, the central character, happens to be a spacecraft engineer. He lives in the One State. This urban nation is completely made of glass. The secret police and spies are able to peek into the private lives of the people and supervise them.

Ready Reference Treatise: We
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311478306

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: We

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: We

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2015 Raja Sharma

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Chapter One: Introduction

We by the Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin was first published in 1924 in New York. The English translation was done by Gregory Zilboorg.

The author had completed writing the novel in the year 1921, but it took him three more years to have it published.

It is a dystopian novel set in the future. D-503, the central character, happens to be a spacecraft engineer. He lives in the One State. This urban nation is completely made of glass. The secret police and spies are able to peek into the private lives of the people and supervise them.

The state can be compared to a kind of prison which has been designed by Jeremy Bentham. He is generally referred to as the Panopticon.

The life in that state is very well-organized so that maximum productive efficiency can be achieved. The system has been largely advocated by very much influential person named F. W. Taylor.

The citizens must wear identical clothes and they are supposed to march in step with each other. They can only be referred to by their given numbers. Logic and reason primarily run the state. The law is very strict and applicable all across the state.

There are formulas and equations to decide the individual behavior. There is no individual freedom to anything willingly for the individuals in the state.

It is noticeable that the novel was not published in the USSR until 1988. The novel had been banned by the censorship bureau in the USSR.

Later on, in the year 1927, the book was published in Czech language. Eastern European intellectuals admired the novel. Before being published as a complete novel in Russia, it was published in the journal Volya Rossii.

The author came under a lot of political pressure after the publication. It took about more than fifty years to have it published as a complete novel in Russia.

It is generally assessed as a critique of the Soviet Union, which it is obviously not. The novel only criticizes the tendency of government in general to repress dissidents and restrain human freedom.

The novel describes how even human emotions were suppressed by the authorities. The author was inspired by the time he had spent in England to write this novel.

He was also inspired by several other writers, including Frederick Winslow Taylor, who was the pioneer of time and motion studies.

It is noticeable that Zamyatin had translated many of H. G. Wells’ works into Russian language. Consequently,