We Journal #3

Motifs: Colors: I have changed my mind again! Colors ARE a motif, but only select colors, however it goes beyond pink. One color being blue is associated with O. I think blue was chosen because the connotations of blue can be sad, and she's a very emotional person for their society. She loves D, she is pregnant, she is sad, as well as the two of them having a sort of family connection to each other. She is a character that feels things very deeply and D will always mention her "blue eyes" (190) or "blue emptiness" (192). I think it's very interesting how even a character who was apart of D's life before he changed, experienced deep emotions, so really emotions still exist within the society even though they should not. A second color that I've found reoccurs with the same context is yellow. Yellow is always mentioned when talking about either ancient people, or this concept of wild savagery. For instance, on page 93 and 94 in the first third of the novel, he mentions an animal of some sort o the other side of the wall with yellow eyes, then visits the ancient house and the old woman also has yellow eyes. As it turns out, the "animal" he saw, was a person living on the other side. Both these yellow are associated with yellow and it shows that they are connected by having to do with defying the One State. Bringing it back to the last third, after D-503 has attacked U, he says "With shaking hands... the large, yellow, flabby body fell back on the bed..." (209). He has just done something uncivilized, and these uncivilized, unaccounted for actions are things which are related to the ancients or those living outside the wall.

Shadows: On page 202, when he is getting on the Integral and he's thinking about the plan he sees "a rapid spot flew like a brown shadow" and this is not the first time shadows have been noted. They were mentioned in earlier parts of the novel, and I've realized that shadows, or fog, which was also mentioned in the novel, cover things and remove clarity. The One State cannot function properly without clarity, and definite answers, so this idea of shadows or fog is a motif for imagination and souls. Imagination and souls, can challenge or threaten logic by making it harder to have things run on the button, but at the same time imagination helps logic be carried out. So, I think that in the instance before the big event where they will take over the Integral, the fact that D sees shadow, shows how he as a character has had his previously engraved logic be clouded and ignored by his emotions, imagination, and the idea of a soul.

There was the continuation of using nature to make figurative language, but I've talked about that before.

Setting: When D goes outside the walls, he looks at the sun and says "this was not out sun, evenly diffused over the mirror-smooth surface of our pavements" (154). This leads me to believe what I stated in the second journal, about how the weather is controlled, and not only that but maybe that there are two suns, the real sun outside the walls, and the artificial sun which has specific degree rays. Also I think it could be two suns because when the wall explodes D says it's so bright everywhere, and that he fell asleep at seven, and just as it got dark, he "could see the bird-strewn roofs" (225). So, with the wall gone, there's ultimately havoc. There's birds on roofs, which before did not go into the society much, two suns, and on top of that he finds his dead friend R. He says the street was swept clean after the wall got blown up, so the city was really destructed, and branches and nature where inside the society. I think the branches on page 226 re key because nature can be abstract and something to admire, whereas they find it ugly because it may not have a definite logical purpose, but with the destruction of the wall these things are prevailing and infringing upon their society.

Language: He uses lot of figurative language! He uses extended metaphors and lots of similes. for instance, on page 185 he says "the wind was ... carrying me like a slip of paper". Also before he gets the operation, he stops using a lot of math words, however this does not mean he stops using logic. He is talking about how something cannot be white and black because they're opposites, or how duty and crime cannot be one and the same. He is questioning the sort of "grey areas" in life and society, like white lies, or things that may be "bad" but aren't bad considering the situation. D finally concludes that there is "no black or white in life", by realizing that not everything can be computed and deciphered with math and science (190). Although he concluded this, he used logic, but no math terms like he once did. However, after having the operation to remove your soul, he goes back to picking out the finite details in faces and says, "the forehead a huge yellow parabola" noticing that there is a U-shaped function within a mans face (208). I believe Zamyatin does not want people to lose their imaginations because with that it means that things cannot properly function, and truly even in the people who did not have an imagination or soul, like O, she still felt feelings and got pregnant. So Zamyatin is also saying that this can never really happen as is shown through how the doctor in the first half was in on the rebellion, as were many others.