Double-edged Satire in Zamyatin's We. Issue 3 (2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eichholz, Patrick
• Is Part Of: Extrapolation. Volume 56:Issue 3(2015)
• Page Start: 267
• Page End: 286
• Publication Date: 2015
• Subjects: Science fiction -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Science fiction -- Bibliography -- Periodicals; Science fiction; Bibliography; Criticism, interpretation, etc; Periodicals; 809.38762
• DOI: 10.3828/extr.2015.15
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0014-5483

Abstract

Abstract : At the end of We, our narrator retreats to an underground bathroom to complete his manuscript as Mephi revolutionaries take to the streets above. D-503's withdrawal from the fighting can easily be read as a cowardly abdication of political responsibility. In this paper, however, we will argue that D-503's retreat to his writing is the novel's true revolutionary act. To do so we will first use a Foucaultian understanding of biopower to critique the Mephi as a viable political alternative. We will then use Bakhtin's novel theory to appraise D-503's journal as the last dialogic space left between the converging OneState and Mephi, two ideologies that both come to demand the total subjugation of D-503's narratorial "I" to their monologic "we." D-503's records thus provide the final safeguard against the perfect tyranny sought by OneState and Mephi alike.