We by Yevgeny Zamyatin - Summary

Keywords: Dystopia, revolution, freedom, love, happiness

Summary: “WE” is a story about revolution mounted by people living in the “Onestate” which is the only state to exist in the future. This state was established after the 200-Years war between the City and the Country and is limited by a green wall. A benefactor is the absolute ruler of the Onestate and people in it are referred to as male and female numbers. Everything in this state has been calculated to ensure happiness of all numbers and therefore hunger and love, the rulers of the primitive world were both eliminated. All numbers have also been granted equal rights and duties and all their acts performed, including sexual ones are planned ahead and scheduled in a similar way for everybody. On a regular day for example, numbers work the same amount of time, each performing his/her own task, they sleep at the same hour and anyone can mate with a number of his/ her choice.  There’s no place for envy or jealousy in the Onestate. Moreover, no one is allowed to get late to work or lie or disobey. The state is strict about such behaviors and a severe punishment system is established for those who do not follow the law. It is through the diaries of the main character, a male number called D-503, the only mathematician in this state that we learn about the Onestate and all the events happening in it. We’ll also discover as the story continues that contradictory to all expectations, this predicted perfect life is not satisfying to all numbers because the absence of freedom which was purposefully abrogated for there is a negative relationship between freedom and happiness. Free people according to D-503 are considered the savage primitive people, the ancestors of the now civilized, evolved, wise numbers that reside in the Onestate.  Nevertheless, for a group of numbers in the Onestate the “Mephi”, freedom turns out to be more valuable than all the comfort one can offer. To this end, they have elaborated a plan to overthrow the system in this Onestate by not accepting to re-elect the benefactor on Election Day. Their leader; a female number named I-330 also gets D-503 to help them out without him really knowing. D-503 is an engineer that has built an Integral which is a sort of a machine of great importance for the well-being of the Onestate. D-503 has always been a perfect citizen but one encounter only with I-330 was enough to destabilize him. He starts getting dreams, he gets jealous and he is dragged unwillingly into helping I-330. He breaks many laws but is never caught because he is protected by the friends of I-330. He eventually realizes that the world does not end outside the green wall and that many people chose to cross over there for a free life. He also learns that freedom is contagious. Unfortunately, the coup d’état to overthrow the benefactor and liberate the numbers fails, and members of Mephi get arrested. D-503 accepts to be treated of his disease the “dreams” and “imagination” which he thinks caused all his awkward behavior and disobedience. His treatment is some kind of a lobotomy. I-330 on the other hand refuses and she is tortured in front of D-503 who is now indifferent to her. After all the punishment and torture, I-330 DOES NOT GIVE UP and her final message to D-503 and maybe to every one of us is that “The number of revolutions is infinite”, as long as there are numbers, there will be revolutions.