We Journal #1

Q: Dystopian Journal #1: How do the motifs, setting, and language contribute to our understanding of the society. Address each area separately and in depth.

Motifs: In We so far there are several motifs. One motif is glass. Many things are made out of glass, and their homes have glass walls. I think that this motif clearly shows the evasiveness and control of the government through the lack of general coverage people are aloud to have. The glass is transparent and therefore is a very obvious motif for their lack of freedoms. There is the motif of shapes when describing people for example D-503 will say her crescent downward mouth, instead of a frown. Looking at emotions in terms of shapes I think shows the sense of detachment that people were taught to feel. I think they are sort of taught to separate themselves from emotions through looking at things very scientifically and mathematically it just reduces the emotional value in life. There's also a lot of colors of shades. Pink reoccurs a lot when talking about women and the pink coupons, there's the green wall, and there there is emphasis placed on the lightness or darkness of a situation.

Setting: The novel takes place in the future and many of the characters, and D-503 in particular talk about "the ancients" a lot. D-503 is writing his book or journal entries for the ancients, but he also refers to us as aliens or people that live on Mars, so it makes me question either if they've been told that we didn't always live on Earth, or if we moved then went back to Earth. I think the fact that they are meant to be in the future and be far more intelligent than us, the reader, shows their confidence in themselves as a society. Everything is calculated out and math and science play a great effect in people's day to day lives. Generally speaking, people do not question authority or speak out. Their civilization is really small, only a small portion of the worlds population exists now after the 200 years war, and they're in this sort of enclosed place, surrounded by the green wall, although it's not green, it's glass.

Language: There are several allusions to science and math, for example D-503 mentions Newton and his theories. These allusions show the importance of math and science to the society. He also uses math words like sinusoids, and imaginary numbers, those sorts of things. I really like the fact that the novel is told by D-503, I think his point of narration shows a lot of character, especially for how the society is and how people seem to lack character. I like that he shows his thoughts by saying that he apologizes for overlooking to explain things because they're as natural as explaining what a coat is. His narration is just really friendly and it makes you want to keep reading. He uses a lot of figurative language like similes and ongoing metaphors when he writes to the reader and it makes his reading very colorful.