Imagine a city made out of glass. Imagine referring to your friends as numbers and letters of the alphabet. Imagine recognizing the dangerous, suffocating nature of being under constant surveillance and trying to break free from an authoritarian society. Unfortunately, for the citizens of OneState, imagination is illegal. 

We, written by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin in the 1920s, captures the horrors of a dystopian world, OneState, run on meticulous calculations and formulae, from the perspective of a citizen. D-503, the lead architect, conveys his confusion at a newfound desire to be an individual after encountering a mischievous rule-breaker, I-330. Documenting his feelings in a venting journal, D is able to communicate with the readers who he refers to as “ancients” and give us insight into his emotional development. We focuses on the themes of individuality, predictability, and suppressed imagination. 

The inhabitants of OneState fail to recognize themselves as singular people. As D sums up the belief system of his society, he recites, “the natural path from nullity to greatness is this: Forget that you’re a gram and feel like a millionth part of a ton.” As the Benefactor, dictator and living God, has united the world, he brainwashes the citizens into thinking that the greater good derives from people playing their given roles with no knowledge of their personalities beyond work. A parallel exists in the ideology of the Integral, an omnipotent spaceship of which D is the head designer. In calculus, the integral stands for the area of a region made up of infinite pieces. Therefore, the spaceship symbolises the workers of OneState, losing and sacrificing their souls for the benefit of a larger community. In a TED Talk The Voices of China’s Workers, Leslie T. Chang discusses the misconceptions of Chinese workers who are pursuing laborious factory jobs overseas. She points out that, “By focusing so much on ourselves and our gadgets, we have rendered the individuals on the other end into invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable as the parts of a mobile phone.” While the labor force is growing due to the industrialization of the modern world, we must not cast a blind eye on the stories of workers who have left their families in hopes for a better future. Chang sets a positive example as she amplifies the voices of a young woman, Min, and inspires others to see the laborers as their own, individual persons. Despite contributing collaboratively during the makings of a smartphone, the workers hold equal importance, worth, and should not be reduced nor stripped away of their identity. 

While mathematics plays a huge role in the functioning of OneState, the meaning behind the symbols forbids people to utilize the powers of their minds. When reflecting on why he treasures his job as an architect, D asserts, “Only the four rules of arithmetic are unalterable and everlasting.” The nature of mathematics ensures that every problem has a distinct solution and approach. Therefore, there proves to be no place for randomness and spontaneity, which can disrupt the society that depends heavily on the utilization of predetermined concepts. At times of chaos and uncertainty, D hangs onto the predictability in numbers and operations as a way to calm himself down. In addition, D discusses the existence of imaginary numbers and expresses, “That irrational root grew in me like some alien thing, strange and terrifying… you couldn’t make any sense of it or neutralize it because it was completely beyond ratio.” Mathematics defines imaginary numbers as the square root of negative one, which contradicts the definition of a squared value being greater or equal to zero. This concept startles D and foreshadows his later predicament at the horrifying discovery of his ability to dream. The citizens refer to the mind’s ability to deceive oneself from reality as an “ancient sickness” that needs to be “extirpated.” As people willingly undergo surgery to remove such disease, D, I, and their revolutionary army refuse to let go of this gift. Just like how imaginary numbers prove to be an erratic and ambiguous theory in mathematics, D recognizes how much he values his imagination despite hindering the development of OneState, the place he once complacently called home. 

At the beginning of each “record”, or chapter, D lists three words that sum up the events that will occur. This literary choice perfectly encapsulates D’s meticulous and logical personality. The novel ends with the victory of the Benefactor, successfully cleansing and ridding D’s mind of the thoughts that led to his revelation. D returns to his compliant state but doesn’t end his storytelling on a definite note. There is no real conclusion because the infinite symbol in mathematics goes on forever, meaning that change is still possible in a rationality-driven world. I enjoyed this novel and found lots of parallels between other satirical pieces, like Brave New World and 1984, published a few decades later. One line in the passage, “My heart felt huge inside me,” moved me. Through D’s adventures, I understood the feeling of wanting something bigger than myself and being in tune with my emotions.