By far the most prominent and significant imagery in We is cloud and wind imagery. Edward Pitcher in his "That Web of Symbols in Zamyatin's We" interpreted this imagery to represent the inner state of D-503:
"Following one circle of Zamyatin's web of symbols, we find that sky-cloud images reflect the changes in the character and life of D-503. As he moves from complacent acceptance of the One State, through stages of passionate interest in I-330, to conscious individualism precipitated by sexual jealousy and possessiveness, to subversive action, doubt and hesitation and then back to conformity and un-imagination, we find an analogous movement from calm, blue skies, to lightly clouded skies, to iron-grey clouds, to ever increasing wind and storm, then subsiding of storm and restoration of calm following personal defeat."
Wind, sky and weather, however, are strong symbols of freedom. It is chosen because nothing can change the course of the wind, nothing can rule it. It is not even dependent upon the body, as flight is, for flight requires wings, but wind requires nothing. It is absolutely free, it almost is freedom, and thus the state of the weather can be interpreted as representing the degree of freedom in the world. Thus the wind imagery represents the levels of revolution and freedom in D-503 and his life. In the beginning D-503 describes his sentiments about the sky, and those of his whole world: "But the sky! Blue, unblemished by a single cloud. (How wild the tastes of the ancients, whose poets could be inspired by those absurd, disorderly, stupidly tumbling piles of vapor!) I love- I am certain I can safely say, we love-only such a sterile, immaculate sky." He spoke of the past as "when the untamed sky had raged from time to time with 'storms.'" His world, a world without cloud or storm, is one of unblemished order, without non-conformity or revolt, where the people are subservient and tame, just as its sky is tame. The clouds only appear as the resistance to the One State grows more active, both inside of D-503 and in the actions of the Mephi. The most significant cloud imagery is in the storm just before the attempted theft of the Integral and the Great Operation. Here the clouds are described with great frequency as being "cast-iron." Here, in their moment of fury, just before freedom will be obliterated forever by the Great Operation, the clouds are described as Iron; Wind, a representation of freedom, is described as iron, slavery. When, in the end, the people are transformed into living robots by the Great Operation, the skies return to a calm tameness, and, with no rebellion left in the people, it shall never vent its furies again.
These anti-utopian novels deal with worlds ruled by governments whose policy is absolute domination. In order to be successful governments, they must keep the people happy, or, at least, satisfied with their lot in life. For this they use the appeal of slavery, which is more than would be immediately apparent for something as harsh as domination. But domination, as well as being the cruel oppressor, is all that rules and governs. It is law, rules, precedent, conscience. It is the advisor who tells you the answer to a difficult decision, what is right, what to do. In that way it is the support for all actions, the aid you can fall back on, the leader you can look to. Slavery is everything concrete and real, that which will not change. It is the assurance that when you go to sleep the world does not end and that when you wake up it will still be there exactly as it was the night before. Freedom is a tremendous burden, after all, for if one is free one is responsible for one's actions and must decide them on one's own. Absolute freedom, that is, a world without slavery, is absolute independence, a level of solitude nothing could withstand. A world without dependence would be one in which one is faced every moment of existence with an infinite number of possibilities, a world of madness. Huxley once said that "A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses... control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude." By using the appeals of Slavery and the threat of the burdens of Freedom, such a state can be achieved, and that is how it is in these three novels. This is described by Zamyatin through the words of his character D-503: "[The People] longed for someone to tell them... the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain." The Benefactor's reward for doing this was to be the head of a state in which everyone was "joyously bowing his head to the beneficent yoke of the Number of Numbers." Of course, at times the horrors of such domination were realized by those who still held freedom enough to understand that there was horror in domination. D-503 here describes those who had undergone the Great Operation and had the last of their freedom removed from them: " 'People' No, that does not describe them. These are not feet- they are stiff, heavy wheels, moved by some invisible transmission belt. These are not people- they are humanoid tractors." Rebels can always be isolated, defeated or otherwise destroyed, leaving the state of absolute domination that rules the One State, Oceania, and the World State.
In these three worlds, domination is not yet pure enough to dominate simply because it is domination. It relies upon its appeal, and the appeal of the absence of liberty are not strong enough alone. Iron has two other major aspects which help it dominate: physical pleasure and physical pain. Huxley's Brave New World is governed through physical pleasure. The people are always sexually satisfied and fully amused, so they never think to revolt. Huxley said that he chose this method for his world because "Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not merely inhumane..., it is demonstrably inefficient...." Orwell, however, in 1984 used exactly the kind of government Huxley condemned for inefficiency, for in his opinion "men will be coerced not cosseted into soullessness.... That they will be dehumanized not by sex, massage and private helicopters, but by a marginal life of deprivation, dullness, and fear of pain." In 1984 the Ministry of Love serves as a constant threat of pain, horror and death, and suppresses revolt just as pleasure does in Brave New World. In Zamyatin's We, both are used together to discourage revolt. People are kept happy, productive and sexually satisfied at all times, but, for those who do not remain under control by this, there is the threat of the Gas Bell and the Benefactor's Machine. Thus the government in the One State uses both methods to suppress revolt. Revolution does, however, occur in all three cases. The revolution in We is much larger and more successful than those in Brave New World or 1984, showing that these two methods are more effective when used separately: the constant threat of torture tends to diminish one's contentment, and in a life unused to pain torture is less of a threat.
Orwell is described as one who "...is able to speak seriously and with originality about the nature of reality and the terrors of power." In 1984 Orwell deals with power. Power is similar to domination but not exactly the same, for the control of domination is based on dependency and submission, whereas power is simply power and rules through itself. Domination can be used to achieve power, as indeed it is in these three novels, especially 1984. In book three of 1984 O'Brien reveals power to be the ultimate motive of the Party's domination:
"The Party seeks power purely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power.... We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
This view is obviously corrupt to the point of insanity. Indeed, "1984... is a great examination of Lord Acton's famous apothegm 'Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'" In this world in which the rulers are omnipotent, they are absolutely corrupt. They achieve their absolute power through Iron, through domination, and specifically pain. O'Brien posed the question directly to Winston while in the Ministry of Love: "'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?' Winston thought. 'By making him suffer.'" The Party's torture-based domination is its method of asserting power.
But domination alone is not enough to gain absolute power, for to gain absolute power one must destroy any power the people might theoretically gain and leave them powerless, and thus unable to oppose one's rule. But how does one destroy power that has not yet been achieved? One must destroy the means by which it could be achieved, but then how does one stop people from recreating those things? Again, by destroying all memory of them. One cannot simply destroy things, for they still were created, they once existed, they are still remembered and they could be reconstructed. Simple destruction is not enough; one must effectively "undo" the creation of those items. To undo creation one destroys, not just the item itself, but the memory of the item, the knowledge that it ever existed. To achieve that one needs domination and power. Domination to exert your power, and the power to influence the minds and memories of people, to force them to forget, be it through torture or other means, and power to destroy that which you have un-created. This destruction is so effective that it not only un-creates that which those in power wish to destroy, it also limits humanity, for, directly or indirectly, all decisions are based on those which have already been made, and, without the past as a base, any level of intellectual decision is impossible. This limitation of humanity is the only way to assure that the people will never gain any power, and thus that the power of the Party is absolute. "Nothing could be more touching, or more suggestive of what history means to the mind, than the efforts of poor Winston Smith to think about the condition of man without knowledge of what others thought before him...." George Woodcock (below) wrote: "The stability necessary to maintain society unchanged will mean the elimination of the Idea of freedom and the knowledge of the past...." When he wrote this he was discussing Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, for power, and the destruction of history, is discussed in that novel as well. We deals exclusively with the conflict between freedom and domination. Power, however, is an important result of any form of domination, for as one commands others, so does one person have power over them. Thus power, as well as domination, is key in the control of the rulers over their subjects in 1984, Brave New World and We.
These are worlds of extremes and their immoderate nature is exemplified by the extremeness of the imagery in the novels; the sky and flight imagery being the polar opposite of the imagery of iron. These stories are largely about worlds rather than individual people, and the imagery thus is more symbolic of the state of the worlds than of the characters. By considering this imagery as being reflective of the whole world rather than of individual characters, as in most novels, one is able to better understand the significance of this extreme imagery. The iron and wind imagery in these novels fits into it exactly, as does the discussion of power, physical pleasure and physical pain. Whether or not you consider this theory in looking at these novels, it is clear that the imagery is one of the keys to understanding We, 1984 and Brave New World.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES
Zamyatin 1972, 218
Zamyatin 1972, 219
Pitcher 1981, 434
Zamyatin 1972, 3
Zamyatin 1972, 142
Huxley 1946, 291
Zamyatin 1972, 214
Zamyatin 1972, 143
Zamyatin 1972, 189
Huxley 1946, 291
Trilling 1949, 296
Symons 1949. 294
Orwell 1949, 217
Schower 1949, 295
Orwell 1949, 219
Trilling 1949, 296
Woodcock 1972, 309
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