We

Literary scholars claim that Zamyatin’s We inspired Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). Regardless of this claim’s truth, We, like these more famous novels, is a seminal work of science fiction and dystopian literature. It is a paradigmatic meld of these related genres, which both fall under the umbrella of speculative literature. Science fiction differs from other types of literature because its primary feature is to showcase the effects of science and technology on characters. Science fiction extrapolates from contemporary developments and imagines the effect of new technologies on human behavior and consciousness. This focus pervades the narrative in We. From “petroleum food” to “street membranes” and glass cities, Zamyatin envisages how future technologies will allow for a society that is more controlled and conformist. Technology that destroys private space facilitates constant surveillance. The citizens in We live a life where existence is universally and inextricably collective. This reaches its apotheosis with the operation to remove the imagination at the novel’s end. The One State removes the last place where difference or non-conformist thought is possible.

The socio-political element of the authoritarian state in We makes the novel dystopian.