Monday, April 2, 2012

Structure and Character


During the first half of the semester we read novels from the nineteenth century and after reading our first twentieth century novel, We by Zamyatin, differences between the two century can be noted. Firstly, the structure of the novel differs from those we have read. Unlike traditional chapters told by a third person narrator, We is told through a series of records narrated by our main character D-503. The records are brief and are basically series of stream of consciousness.  I sort of see this structure as a combination of Pechorin’s diary and Raskolnikov’s episodes of dementia.

Secondly what struck me was the way Zamyatin characterizes his characters. Forget detailed physical descriptions that we saw with Tolstoy, Zamyatin gives his characters, who are named with a single a letter and a number, one or two traits i.e. O has the wrists and the color pink. In this sense, Zamyatin downplays his characters which I guess could represent the idea that the communal is greater than the individual; the description of the One State trumps that of the ciphers. This lack of physical characterization made the novel harder for me to read as I, a visual learner, had a hard time envisioning what was going on. 

Combine the stream of consciousness with the lack of vivid imagery I found reading We much more challenging than anything we read from the 19th century. Am  I the only one?

5 comments:

  1. The idea of collective versus individual was new at the time when the novel was written (1921). The characters are not downplayed by Zamyatin, in my opinion, but rendered less relevant if compared to the collective body. He insists on the beauty of all rather than one (individual), their equality and identity. I also don't think that there is a total lack of physical characterization since, for example, O-90 and I-330 are described as rather different looking females who stirred different emotions in D-503.

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  2. I completely agree... although I liked both We and Envy for the ideas they presented, I didn't enjoy the reading experience as much as I did with Anna Karenina, for example. I think this is because the stream of consciousness style doesn't allow the narrator to have the ironic distance that I enjoyed in Tolstoy's voice. I missed his critical little jabs at his characters, so I'm glad that the narrator in Margarita and Me is sassy again.

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  3. I agree as well. One of my favorite parts of everything we have read this semester is the amount of gross physical description that is in Crime and Punishment, both to illustrate characters and the city around them. We was very hard to even picture for me but though it meant I did not grasp the characters of the book as well, possibly it helped to image the collective state more.

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  4. I rather enjoyed the character descriptions in We. Often in Anna Karenina I was bogged down reading the same descriptions over and over, about Anna's dark hair, etc. While the same repetition of traits happens in We, they are more concise, and more representative of D-503's interpretation of his relationships. In a society where everyone is striving to be the same in some or mechanized, the fact that D so latches onto certain parts and colors shows that he cannot force himself to be devoid of these thoughts and emotions. I got bored with reading the descriptions in Anna after a while, but We kept me more entertained with D's almost compulsive writing.

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  5. I know that there isn't a total lack of physical description, as I said one or two traits are described. I agree that the way Zamyatin describes his individuals helps to emphasis the collective.

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