Perhaps one of the more challenging articles I've read yet has been Eliot Borenstein's "The Plural Self: Zamjatin's We and the Logic of Synecdoche." Borenstein begins with the idea that "The entire novel can be seen as a challenge to the linguistic and philosophical assumptions on which D-503's initial 'state-sanctioned' conception of the self is based: the logic of synecdoche and the possibility of 'wholeness' or 'integration.'" From this notion, Borenstein expands the definition for synecdoche by using a definition from Kenneth Burke's Grammar of Motives so that we can see synecdoche as a way of understanding the state's relations to its subjects ("all theories of political representation where some part of the social body...is held to be 'representative' of the society as a whole" (Burke 508). This relationship of 'representative' to 'whole' becomes a central theme to the novel on the social level, but Borenstein argues that this is central to understanding D-503's psyche and the ways in which the narrative is filtered through this psyche. Borenstein writes, "By mediating the action through a consciousness that continually swings from dissociation (multiple selves) to solipsism (one self creating and encompassing all others), Zamjatin calls the very possibility of the stable self into question." The inability to establish a stable self suggests there is no possibility of a 'whole,' both for D-503 and for One State. In the end it is only a group of parts that pretend to act as an "illusory whole."One of the more explicit moments of this unstable self occurs when D-503 looks in the mirror to find 'another self' looking back at him.
"И из «там» (это «там» одновременно и здесь, и бесконечно далеко) — из «там» я гляжу на себя — на него, и твёрдо знаю: он — с прочерченными по прямой бровями — посторонний, чужой мне, я встретился с ним первый раз в жизни. А я настоящий, я — не он..."
Here D-503's struggles to establish a sense of self come from a sense of "pronomial confusion," and inability to establish the relationship between "I/me" and "he/him." This sense of self only grows more unstable with the addition of I-330, as the two become one ("мы одно, из нее переливается в меня") and D-503's relationship to One State is compromised.
The article continues on with D-503's further fragmentation as writer/reader of the journal and his belief that his readers are real. Borenstein ends with the only successful way for the 'stable' self to occur: "Ironically, even the stabilization of D-503's personality mimics the creation of teh soicety in which he lives: the One Tate was made possible only by excluding unacceptable elements behind the Green Wall. D-503 finally becomes a stable, integrated self only after the excision of those parts of himself that caused his self-consciousness to develop." By removing the writer/creator from D-503, he is able to both become stable within himself and within society.
I love this approach to understanding the individual as part of the body politic in Мы. It completely explains the alternative ethical structure of Utopian/Dystopian fiction. Understanding the individual as only a part of the whole shows the logic that allows for the individual to be threatened without moral/ethical compromise on behalf of the group. For example: If I willingly cut my hand (or cut OFF my hand), there is no outcry on behalf of my parts. I, as the whole, make decisions on behalf of all of us (all my parts, organs, cells, etc.). This is as it should be--I exercise both ownership of and knowledge of what is best for all my various parts.
ReplyDeleteThe principle question of modern dystopian fiction seems to be: why does this logic (so understandable when I apply it to my body) not apply also to the community as a whole unit? Why can't we sacrifice the individual for the good of the group? It seems like this question determines a text's designation as u/dystopian.