Yevgeny Zamyatin uses imagery in the first page of the novel to help characterize D-503. "Yes, to unbend the wild, primitive curve and straighten it into a tangent-an asymptote-a straight line" (2). This sentence describes in great detail what kind of man D-503 is. He is a man who s very straight forward, in some respects he reminds me of Meursault in the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus. Both D-503 and Meursault are straight forward and they get to the point. D-503 likes everything to be in order which is why Zamyatin writes, "to unbend the wild, primitive curve" (2). Wild and primitive are both antonyms of orderly, predictable, and organized which is how D-503 likes things. On the first page, Zamyatin is giving as a great insight into who D-503 is and how his character will act throughout the rest of the novel.
Zamyatin also creates a serious mood on the second page that sets he tone for the rest of the novel. He does this not by inserting serious words, but by excluding cheerful words, words having to do with any sort of emotions, or any abstract thoughts. Zamyatin does this to explain to the reader not only what the main character, D-503 is like, but also what the setting is like. After reading page two the reader can infer that One State is not a very happy place and that the overall mood of the novel will in fact, be serious.
One thing that's interesting is you must have a different translation of the book. In my book, it does not say "wild, primitive curve..." it says "taming a wild zig zag along a tangent...". They are obviously similar but it's interesting the different connotations with zigzag versus primitive curve. Especially since mine says nothing about being "primitive". Also, I thought it was interesting how you said that it made a serious mood because I had actually thought that he sounded very content and enthusiastic about his writing and that it wasn't very dark in this particular passage. We should probably track how the tone/mood shifts throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how you described D-503's personality by using his mathematical terms quotes. It does seem like he has the characteristics portrayed by the sort of graph he puts in the readers head. I also like how you portrayed the mood as relating to the setting of the book. The idea of simply excluding cheerful words and not using serious words makes me wonder why he would do this. It seems like if he wanted to show a certain mood, then he would simply match the words to that of the mood he wants to show.
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