Yevgeny Zamyatin's We

Early in the 1920 's Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote a story entitled We. It was a story which would go on to live in infamy. Predicting much of the horror to come during the years of Stalin, Zamyatin felt much pressure during the writing of We. Its vivid description of a society so corrupted by ideals of logic and reasoning brought much dissatisfaction from many of the high ranking political figures of the time. But nonetheless, Zamyatin stood by his book. Its perfect usage of dark humor and symbolism is what made this book as influential as it is. As an engineer, Zamyatin 's writing tended to share some of his scientific impressions. His book is perfect example of how one blends one 's own knowledge and experience into a story. It is through this, we can see where much of the symbolism comes from. But, being
As mentioned earlier, Zamyatin studied as an engineer before turning to writing. His scientific background is what helped him to breathe symbolism into his story through the usage of mathematics. For example, one of the main topics in the story is the construction, by our main character D-503, of a rocket ship called the Integral. For those unfamiliar to the concept of an integral, it is a function of calculus used to take a function to higher dimension. In the same way, this ship is to take this, so called, perfect society to the next dimension. Another example of mathematical symbolism is that of logic and reasoning. Because this society is perfectly logical it is supposedly in a state of pure happiness. But a short look at this society shows that there is a serious flaw in the reasoning used to arrive at this conclusion. This shows how a society believing to be so perfect and logical is failing due to the exact reason for which this society is believed perfect. The society is so deeply flawed that a