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Gabrielle Mc Caffrey

Dr. Tamara Wilson

ENG 340

21 May 2009

From Hard to Soft Science Fiction in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We

As contemporary citizens in a post 9/11 world can observe, an immediate reaction

to any form of rebellion or attack is control; controlling the borders of one’s country,

controlling the masses of one’s country as well as, if possible, controlling those who

make the decisions on the other side of the enemy lines. The idea behind this modality

of thought is to eventually control the “individual” of societies, the working pieces to the

big picture. This action is taken to ensure that rebellion or attack will no longer be a

threat from either outside countries, or the region’s homeland citizens. In Yevgeny

Zamyatin’s We the narrator, D-503 operates in a self-labeled “utopian” society where

the One State has complete control over the individuals it is comprised of. D-503,

however, breaks from this control during a transition from merrily abiding laws which

outlaw human emotions, as well as anything not mathematically sound, to not only

embracing the aforementioned, but integrating these emotions into his line of thought

and reasoning.
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We demonstrates the outcome of complete control. Consequently, it also

demonstrates how human nature, no matter how clouded with technological

boundaries, will always be prone to return to a natural range of human necessities such

as creativity, love, hatred, or rebellion. Heather Masri, in her anthology entitled Science

Fiction: Stories and Contexts, defines hard science fiction as “sf that is grounded in

science”(10). She goes on to define soft science fiction as having “broader social

concerns” (10). The transition demonstrated in We from a technological reliance to the

acceptance as well as practice of the human range of emotions illustrates a transition

from hard science fiction to soft science fiction.

In We, careful attention is paid to qualitative mathematics, physics. Additionally,

it is set in a society where large technological advancements seem possible, if not

probable. This presence of technical quality in We offers the reader a taste of hard

science fiction through its technological reliance. A dependency on science as well as

mathematics can present itself in many ways, one of which being technological

advancement. As an engineer, Zamyatin incorporated science and mathematics

effortlessly into We thorough the main character D-503, who in the novel is also an

engineer. D-503 is a mathematician as well as the Builder of the Integral, a space

intended flight machine. It is through this mathematically based modality of thought

that is based from his occupation, we are introduced to the One State in addition to the

inner workings of D-503’s mind. For instance, every description the reader is exposed to
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is rigidly calculated into geometric or numerical logic as well as reasoning such as when

he describes O-90 as possessing an “incorrectly calculated speed of tongue. The

microspeed of the tongue out to be always slightly less than the microspeed of the

thoughts and certainly not ever the reverse” (9).

Beyond D-503’s individual method of reason, all individuals are bound, to the

second, by the Table of Hours; a calculated scheduled depicting every person’s actions

for every hour of the day. Furthermore, the control of the One State has caused

emotions such as happiness or appreciation for nature to not only be questioned for its

lack of efficiency in a logical as well as mathematically controlled society, but to some

extent be eliminated. Those who waste their thoughts as well as their time

contemplating the beauty of spring, like O-90, are dismissed as illogical or impossible

demonstrated by the dialogue between O-90 and D-503 when he says “When she

entered I was still buzzing inside out with the flying wheel of logic and, through inertia,

I started to utter some words about this formula I had only just resolved: ‘Stunning, isn’t

it?’ I asked” (6). When O-90 responds with a remark on the beauty of spring, he replies

“Wouldn’t you know it: spring… I say ‘stunning’ and she thinks of spring. Women… I fell

silent” (6).

Because the use of hard fiction characteristics are used in We as satirical motifs—

technological usage to the point of dependency—the reader is not entirely convinced by

D-503’s adamant implications of scientific reasoning. Even though he represents the

most faithful of ciphers to the One State, D-503, even early in the novel, occasionally
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catches himself pondering the wonders of the world outside of a computable realm such

as when he says “This sweet dust [of spring] parches the lips—you skim your tongue

around across them every minute—and you presume that there are sweet lips on every

woman you encounter (and man, of course). This somewhat interferes with logical

reasoning” (5). Despite his examination of the same dismissible topic spring just like O-

90, because he is bound to his mathematical thought process, he is easily able to

disregard his thought, thus moving forward with his familiar lines of logic. While the

linear thought processes, the extermination of superfluous emotions and an

implementation of a statewide schedule seems outrageous to a contemporary audience,

it is the probable use of technology, science and mathematics, as well as the great

attention to detail paid to it, which categorizes We under hard science fiction in the first

half of the book. Upon the entrance of an external force, however, We ultimately

abandon its comfortable category of hard science fiction much as D-503 does to his

mathematical mode of emotion-free thought.

D-503, true to human nature itself, initially rejects the forces of change in his life.

Upon being introduced to the enticing antagonist turned protagonist I-330, 503

immediately detects a change in his emotions as well as his thought. He wholeheartedly

tries to reject I-330’s interference with his life. He labels her as a devil woman for

introducing ideas outside of the realm of the One State such as freedom by introducing

him to illegal substances such as nicotine or alcohol, but is inevitably consumed by her

antics. When he meets her at a secret location, they make illegal love to one another. D
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503 gives into her means by pronouncing “And, inevitably, like the iron and the magnet

with sweet obedience to their precise, immutable laws, I poured myself into her. There

was no pink ticket, there were no calculations, there was no One State, there was no me”

(66). From this moment on, as he continually abandons his rational thought to comply

with I-330’s thug motives, the novel turns from a hard science fiction tale with a society

based on technology and mathematics, to an exploration of self-consciousness and

psychoanalysis which is commonly woven throughout soft science fiction pieces.

D-503 becomes increasingly obsessed with I-330 as well as her dominant female

figure through the progression of the novel. While this potentially lands the book in the

generic romance category, it is his helplessness coupled with denial leading up to his

embracing of the irrationally human nature of emotion which stirs the reader to self

reflect of their own emotions as well as societal expectations, an effect of soft science

fiction. He, like most humans, goes through the cycle of love—lust, complete

infatuation, love. In the narrator’s most pitiful moments, Zamyatin exploits not only the

psychological repercussions of a government and technologically controlled utopia in

which sagacity is enforced, but also the societal implications it possesses, as well. D-

503, in his moments of sincerity, not only acts upon his love for I-330, but questions

why the One State had forbidden such emotions by acting out against laws he had held

so dearly to him, such as when all ciphers are forced to get a lobotomy. He defies this

law as watches the others go by, “Oncoming unifs grazed against me but I walked alone.

It was clear to me: everyone was saved, but there was to be no saving me, I don’t want
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saving…” (163). This inward social critique is a satirical assessment of a pre-existing

society, Zamyatin’s, that is often found in works of soft science fiction.

Zamyatin uses We during its transformation from hard to soft science fiction as a

social critique of the world he found himself surrounded by in the 1920s. It is a novel

which faces the issues of Stalin’s Russia including the imposed quandaries which arise

from rationality, coupled with compulsory order in the wake of the irrationality of

human behavior/imagination. D-503 is only capable of dismissing these characteristics

of emotional behavior by the intervention of technology of a surgical operation—or

science. The reader is suddenly thrust back into previous diction with word choice from

an old, familiar D-503. “[I write now] with none of the ravings, none of the ridiculous

metaphors, none of the feelings: only the facts. Because I am healthy, I am completely,

absolutely healthy” (202).

Engineering is not technically considered science, but D-503’s mechanical,

mathematically smothered language leads readers to believe that We is a hard science

fiction novel. However, through the discovery of a “soul” as well as the embracing of

natural human emotions which would otherwise interfere with the attempted utopian

community of the One State, We becomes a societal critique; employing themes wildly

familiar amongst following soft science fiction such as George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous

Huxley’s Brave New World; both of which have been credited with drawing parallels to a

world familiar to our own. We was completed in 1921, but it’s distance only causes

contemporary audiences to become more uncomfortable, as a collection of the subject

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matter explored becomes intensely personal; the novel is increasingly pertinent to a

technologically dependent generation.

Works Cited

Science Fiction Stories and Contexts. Ed. Heather Masri. Bedford/St. Martins, 2009.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We. New York: Modern Library, 2006.