Blog Portfolio

1. Coverage- Talking Back- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/at-least-there-was-no-trouble.html Klaus Barbie- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-we-all-want-to-be.html The Beauty Myth- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/next-glass-ceiling.html Blame it on Feminism- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/no-way-to-win.html Blog 6 -http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/houses.html Blog 7 -http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/about-road.html Blog Extract Deconstruction- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/falling-women.html 2. Depth- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-we-all-want-to-be.html I selected this post for depth because I did extra research to emphasize my point. 3. Interaction- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/at-least-there-was-no-trouble.html I selected this post because I mention what I had encountered on other people's blogs, as well as brought more information. 4. Discussion- http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/next-glass-ceiling.html#comments 5. Xenoblogging- You do not need both a primo and a grande. http://saumya22.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/the-world-is-flat/#comments 6. Wildcard-http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/uncomfortable.html

About "The Road"

I found that the novel by Cormac McCarthy was a very interesting read. The post-apocalyptic setting that the audience is given at the very beginning of the novel starts the fear for the father and son. I think that this is an amazing novel that could very well be helpful to push society to reduce the pollution in the atmosphere because of the horrific images that "The Road" leaves with the reader. / Throughout the novel we are never privy to the name of the father and son. This lack of information has an effect that I had not realized. By refraining from naming the two main characters the author has made it so that they could be anyone, you and your father, your brother and father, it makes the experiences that they go through a lot more personal. By doing this McCarthy has written a books the touches everyone because the environment that the father and son live in is not so impossible with the way that we are pollution and living now./ The recurring image of “carrying the fire” has great significance in “The Road.” When the little boy talks about carrying the fire and others that also carry the fire, he is talking about goodness, hope, love, everything that the world before him no longer has but had before the unexplained apocalypse. At the beginning of the novel McCarthy begins with a lot of dark imagery while at the end after the father has died, the boy finds others who “carry the fire” and the boys prospects are looking up after the death of his father. /

Houses

After reading "How Fiction Works" by James Wood, we see that the style that "The Road" is written in is indirect. McCarthy uses this style of writing to make the information presented more reliable and less personal to the father or child. We are rarely given information about the area that the father does not already have so "The Road" has some limitations to the descriptions that we read."The Road" is very enthralling read because of the way that it is written; because we never really get a huge influx in information but what we do get is well rounded and not biased toward one character./ In Wood's text he describes a house with "many windows, but only two or three doors," comparing the house to writing an how it can be done. I think that this is a very interesting idea that Wood has put forward. I think that if the windows are different ways to write (perspectives) then the doors would be the products./When Wood’s talks about the unreliability of first person narratives and other styles of writing I found it interesting. Thinking back to the other novels that we read this year such as “We” and “The Handmaids Tale” it is obvious that we were obviously not getting truly reliable information as we only got parts of the story as well as information that the characters were (themselves) unsure of.

Falling Women

In Atwood's novel "The Handmaids Tale," the notion of love has been twisted and warped since Gilead had been formed. In this excerpt Atwood shows Offreds reaction and connection to love as well as the doubts involved due to the horrible conditions that she is required to live in. Through the use of specific diction the mood of this excerpt is felt, while imagery and irony helps intensify the tone./ The diction in this excerpt clearly portrays the reaction of the commander to love as well as Offreds own feelings toward love. While Offred talks about love she expresses the opinion that love was inevitable by using “one way or another,” “it was the central thing,” “we we’re falling women.” The diction used to describe the commander’s reaction is also quite vivid as Atwood uses “sneered.” The reaction of both the commander and Offred displays that the world they live in does not have the same connections to love as it used to have. This diction also affects the mood of this excerpt because the it shows that the commander does not take love seriously while women (in general) were centered on it. Near the end of the excerpt, Offred beings to explain the negative side of love by comparing love to pain. This idea is very similar to the purpose of the handmaids and Gilead, the love if freedom and uncontrollable, while when they do start to control people they are no longer able to love, creating mutants./ When Offred describes those who have never been in love as, “mutant[s], a creature from outer space,” the imagery that is provided intensifies the tone because the audience can feel Offreds disgust and revulsion. This imagery is very effective because the reader pictures disfigured people, while the handmaids and people living in Gilead do not know what love is and have never experienced it. “The shadows in the sockets of his eyes darker and more cavernous than in day-time,” this imagery illustrates the doubt and fear the creeps into everything in the lives of the people that live in Gilead.

Uncomfortable

After researching about feminism in the world I found an interesting articles about Germany. This article, published in 2005, was about the legalization of prostitution. I found this article to be quite disturbing because of the ability of a woman to lose her benefits because she did not feel comfortable selling her body in a brothel. I think that the original intention of this action was good. I would have made the conditions for the prostitutes better with "proper contracts, proper health insurance" but these benefit were never felt during the actual event. While instead of helping the prostitutes is hindered other women in the country, women were at risk of losing their benefits while unemployed because they did not take up jobs in the "sex trade." This is similar to The Handmaids Tale because in this new society women are no longer abused or raped and they are "equal" however these benefits are not really felt by the women. Insted the handmaids are restricted, controlled and subjugated. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05013106.html

No Way to Win

At the beginning of the text by Susan Faludi, Blame It on Feminism it appears that the liberation of women have caused all this pain. They “have never been more miserable,” they experience “an infertility epidemic,” “a man shortage,” “loneliness,” “identity crisis,” and they experience these things “precisely because they are free.” From these issues it appears that the liberation of women is actually painful to the women. In The Handmaids Tale we see something similar to this, the handmaids are protected, there is no rape anymore, they all have homes, and they are fed and clothed, however their lives are not pleasant. With this “freedom” they also lost education, their rights to read and learn, they also are forced to produce offspring or move to the colonies, they are also hated by the wives that can no longer produce children. Like the women in Faludi’s text the handmaids have been “robbed” of something, love, while the women in Blame It on Feminism lost men.

                Blame It on Feminism also describes how women are not actually really free, they still have many places in their live that are lesser than men’s. I thought that it was interesting that even though liberation has so far appeared to hurt the liberated, that some of the women that are written about in this text feel that they should still strive for equality. Though I see the benefit in becoming equal to men it also would seem apparent how freedom is causing pain among women. The statistics that Faludi provides are “75 to 95 percent of women credit the feminist campaign with improving their lives, and a similar portion say that the women’s movement should keep pushing forward,” this means that that either women think that liberation is more important, the consequences are not as bad as they are portrayed, or the problems may be fixed if equality is reached.

                Continuing through Faludi’s writing she explains that the problems created by the liberation of women are actually hugely exaggerated by the media.  This explains women’s insistence that equality of women is still fought for. This is seen in The Handmaids Tale because we see that the women in that society have a group that recognizes each other by the word mayday , and this group is against this regime and the way that they are force to live their lives.

The Next Glass Ceiling

In the text by Naomi Wolf, she talks about the problems that women face now that they have gained their rights. It seems as though women have lost the rights to their own body. In The Beauty Myth Wolf writes about how after women obtained rights and jobs the next problem was image. Now that women have all that power the last thing left to be controlled by is their image. Through statistics Wolf tells us that as women got more and more power the number of eating disorders and cosmetic surgery shot up. It appears that men used the last thing they could to stay in control of the women.

In The Handmaids Tale we see that women’s rights seem to have been removed even though they appear to have the power (as they produce the next generation). By doing this the society has also removed the women’s need to be beautiful. Wolf writes about the fact that in many religions goddesses “only function [is] the service of the divine ‘womb.’” This is seen in The Handmaids Tale because the handmaids are needed and are “special” because of the service they provide but they are really only needed for their reproductive ability.

The power that is exercised by men (in Wolf’s essay) to control the thoughts of women through the advertisements (ex: “diet and skin care industries because the new cultural censors of women’s intellectual space.”) is also seen in The Handmaids Tale. During the novel we see that the education of the handmaids is not important any longer and that the next generation of handmaids will not know how to read or write. This affects the power that they could potentially have.

I think that in The Handmaids Tale the struggle between Beauty and power has been shown very well. Throughout the novel Offred mentions that she used to wear makeup and now she no longer does anything to try and beautify herself. While she is taking a bath she tries not to look at herself so that she won’t see what defines her so completely. From this we see that in an attempt at liberation of women, beauty has been discarded, however women’s freedom has been even more restricted.  

Power or Lack Thereof

In the short text, Lusting for Freedom, by Rebecca Walker, she talks about the power that is gained in sexual relationships, and the power of one’s body. I think that this connects very strongly to the novel The Handmaids Tale, because of the portrayal of women and their purpose in society. In The Handmaids Tale women are given the responsibility to produce the next generation for the community that they are living in, to produce the people that will never know what it is like to be free.

The power that the Handmaids hold is really just an illusion. This is because even though they are the only ones that produce children for the civilization, if they are infertile, and cannot produce children they are sent away to the colonies. The connection between this and the text Lusting for Freedom is that in the text Walker emphasizes that power and trust that is gained, while in The Handmaids Tale the ceremony is their twisted version of sex where there is no trust between the Handmaid and the wives, and the power of the women is removed from them because they have no say in what is being done to them.

Walker also mentions that “Sex can also be power because knowledge is power.” I think that in The Handmaids Tale the society has attempted to make this untrue. They have removed all education for the Handmaids, they are no longer allowed to read, all knowledge will be unimportant to the Handmaids anyway because the single job that they are given does not require it. In The Handmaids Tale the necessity of knowledge has been removed and therefore the power gained through sex has also been removed.

The shame that Offred feels during the ceremony is also similar to the shame that Walker mentions in Lusting for Freedom. In Lusting for Freedom Walker talks about the judgments that are imposed that “encourage shame within individuals.” This is seen in The Handmaids Tale because of the shame that Offred feels because of the ceremony and her sole purpose in society. I think that in Walkers text she almost sums up the problem with the ceremony, “Sex in silence and filled with shame is sex where our agency is denied.”

What We All Want to Be

The first text that we read I thought was very true on many levels. We all crave to be perfect, whatever image of perfect is thrown at us. Unfortunately it seems as though Barbie is that perfect. Throughout this text it is apparent that the author feels that the Barbie constricts children's view of the possibilities of the world. I personally agree with this idea, whether it is a Barbie or other "perfect" doll little girls all find that they themselves are not perfect in comparison to these plastic role models. The concept of having these other Barbies (Birkenstock Barbie, Bisexual Barbie, Bite-The-Bullet Barbie, Blue Collar Barbie, and others) does not seem to mesh with the worlds ideals, whether we want to or not. Many people would believe that companies that produce these other barbies were trying to confuse and destroy their little girls child hood, while the “normal” Barbie does just the same thing though it lacks the perspective of the rest of the world.

In the handmaids tale you see this happening to the women living in the area. The longer they live there the more they are programmed to be “perfect.” They all are there for the birth of a child, witnessing the job they are also supposed to be fulfilling. While the Barbie shows them what they should look like the women in the Handmaids tale are shown what they are meant to produce.

In the second text I found that the problems the author points out are similar to my complaints when I browse through a magazine.  The models in the pictures are unhealthy, that’s really the only thing to say. The models in pictures, on runways, in movies, are all underweight and its disgusting. Why can’t people be average sized? We have Super Über Skinny models and Plus Size models, what about the NORMAL people? Huh? It appears in the media that being a stick figure with skin is acceptable (though skinnier would be better), or weighty with large curves (stretch marks included) is the only way to go. So either you have to be overweight or underweight. You choose…  Both not the best options in the world but apparently those are the only two body shapes the world interprets as beautiful cause you never see a normal person in a magazine, only one of the two extremes. In this article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-418780/The-stunning-size-12-model-branded-fat-TV-competition.html the controversy over the weight of models has become appearnt. Now that the public is seeing that the models that they are exposed to are unhealthily skinny people have started to fuss over the images we are trying to get across to younger girls and such.

"At Least There Was No Trouble"

The Handmaids Tale portrays many of the issues that were described in both Talking Back and Sins of Silence. In the text Sins of Silence one part stood out to me more than the rest, "But no matter! I was stone. Silent. Hard. Emotionless. Nothing was going to hurt me!" In The Handmaids Tale Offred says something similar was told to her by her mother, the she should steal herself and he wouldn't get hurt. The interesting thing is in both Sins of Silence and The Handmaids Tale they disregard their rules, Offred begins a strange unknown relationship with the commander, and Mai Kao Thao moves to America and learns differently.

I found it intriguing in Sins of Silence that she felt she was losing her "Self," I interpreted this to mean that she was losing who she was, her individuality, and her passion for life. I think that this is seen in many of the more compliant handmaids, they appear to have given up all hope for their world to return to the way it was before as well as resigning themselves to the repression they are subjected to now.

I like, Saumya and Rahul see the huge space between the rights of men versus those of women. When you go outside and watch India go by, you see very few women. Yet if you were to stand in a kitchen, you would only see women. Like in Talking Back the men were in charge of church and the women the house. After doing some research I found that in 1998 less than 40% of women in India were illiterate, this kind of life style (one without the power to read) is seen imposed on the handmaids in The Handmaids Tale as an attempt to control the women. http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

Different propaganda it seems, have similar qualities to one another.  While people were presenting their posters many said the same things for their choice in color, text, layout and images, they all wanted and needed to be remembered. Many of the posters had a large image in the center that drew your eyes, while at the same time having large text that otherwise would have dominated the poster. It seems to me that with propaganda posters it is very similar to just talking, because many people believe that if you say it louder more people will remember it, same a posters, the larger its written the more likely people are to remember it.  However we also have to take into account what is being said, if it is dull and has no weight it will probably not be remembered whether it is loud or not, but if it is interesting and catchy than it might be more memorable.

Another thing that I would to really connect all the posters was that we were focusing on making people feel rather than providing information for the public to decipher. To do this many of us portrayed people of power, abusing said power, as ugly, as disfigured, and things emphasizing the worst. Looking at other propaganda posters through history I found that many of them also changed or portrayed the image of a “foe” as hideous and ugly.

According to http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/proptech.htm there are about eleven different types of propaganda. The types that this site explains include: Assertion, Bandwagon, Card stacking, Glittering Generalities, Lesser of Two Evils, Name Calling, Pinpointing the Enemy, Plain Folks, Simplification (Stereotyping), Testimonials, and Transfer.  Some of the more frequently used types of propaganda in our class was card staking, this is when you present information however you omit facts that are against your argument. Glittering generalities was also used my many of us because it is easy to use a word that implies that it is already good, or bad. Some of the posters that were very specific about their cause used Pinpointing the Enemy because it is very effective at gathering all the bad stuff and piling it onto one person, however simplification is very similar and also widely used because it provided an opportunity to exaggerate a problem or person and to glorify others.

Blog Portfolio

1. Coverage
I have done all blog posts on readings

2. Depth
http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/experiencing-novel.html

3. Interaction
http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/very-different-world.html

4. Discussions
http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/implications-of-truth.html#comments

5. Xenoblogging
http://rahdigga27.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/scary-korean-story/#comment-11

6. Wildcard
http://samantha94englishblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/very-different-world.html

Implications of Truth

I was just thinking about our topic and I realized that what we have all come to understand really impacts our way of life more than we realize.
For example what if we took this idea and applied it in court scenario. This implication would be disastrous. Because everything and nothing is true, which would mean that whatever was brought forward as evidence could be denied by the accused and no one could prove that in their world it was or was not true.
This also has an effect on how we view people that we might consider "insane." What if what they are seeing is what is actually going on? What if we are all delusional and they are the only ones who truly see sense? Is it possible to see the truth?
As we progress farther and farther into this unit more and more question are being asked that can’t be answered because of this restraint of truth not being entirely valid. It seems backwards that now truth appears to be very restrictive while the saying says "the truth will set you free."

A Very Different World

While reading "Born and Raised in a North Korean gulag" the idea of truth never being constant (http://iyagovos.blogspot.com/2010/09/truth.html#comments  -thanks for the insight James!) really solidified in my mind. During the presentations of our "objective" truths I found the arguments that consisted of people being taught something else unrealistic because I couldn't understand how anyone could have been taught otherwise. Now having read this article these claims against the objective truths seem more concrete than they did before.

It is surprising to me at how trusting our minds are, at how we, as human beings, believe things right off the bat. What also surprises me is how in “Born and Raised in a North Korean gulag” he thought that the prison that he was in was the way of life everywhere; it is surprisingly hard to understand how someone could possibly believe that was life for everybody. I think that, for me at least, not being able to understand how someone could believe something like that is because we live in a very different world comparatively. This is seen a lot in “We” because D-503 often writes about how the old world must have been very wild and how he cannot image a world like that because he has grown up in an entirely different environment.  

I also found that Shin’s feelings toward his mother and brother were very interesting. I think that this is interesting point because this also shows that truth also effects your emotions to a large extent. Because Shin had grown up feeling hatred toward them for trying to run away the truth of his love for her was then masked be his taught hate for her because of the pain she had inadvertently caused him.

The Truth about Truth

Having listened to the presentations on objective truth be torn down within a space of sixty seconds, it is impossible to not realize that there are very few, if any real objective truths in this world. Once you really begin to think about it, everything we have ever been told (that we assume is the objective truth) is really very subjective. From the point of view of a history class we are told that this war happened in some such year and this monstrosity was committed by these people, at the same time that we are told that history is always written, which in itself implies that not only is there a bias but so of the horrible things that they did could have been removed. In 1984 this is seen specifically when the people edit and correct what is said in all of the historical documents, "fixing" history so that everything seems perfect. This editing of the truth is important to recognize in everyday life because not only are we told perfected lies, we are also told half truths, however what makes this so scary is that we are told these things and we assume that they are true AND the people that tell them to us as fact also believe that they are the absolute truth.  So at this point our problem with “truth” today is almost parallel to the problem with “truth” in 1984, the only difference is that we do not consciously go back through history and revise it, while we might write out the first facts “incorrectly.”

We also often see the manipulation of truth in debates. This is because to one fact there is almost always a counter fact, in a debate you obviously present the information that best backs your idea, but there is still that other truth, you have just filtered out the information that did not benefit you. This then moves me on to the next point in the discussion of the manipulation of the truth; we use the assumption of truth to benefit ourselves. This is seen in 1984 many times, the most important of which is near the end on the novel when O'Brien tells Winston that 2+2=5. This is an example of the manipulation of truth for one’s own benefit because O'Brien needed to convince Winston that what they told him was the truth and that everything that he had thought was the truth was false.

Reflecting on the presentations of objective truth, it is frightening when you realize that everything we have be taking point blank as truth really isn’t that solid a statement. Many of the “truths” that we found to be more objective than subjected were incredibly specific or basic and refined, however some of the “truths” that we  thought would be really easy to prove were in fact if they were looked at with a little more concentration we found them to be quite flawed.

An Enlightening Exercise

The exercise we did in class today really made me think about the amount of times that I have written with the use of large pompous words. After thinking about the text we were given about George Orwell’s opinion on writing again I find that I agree with him a little more after experiencing the effect of that kind of writing.

While changing the speeches given to us into the type of writing that Orwell would have thoroughly disliked, I became aware of how many famous people that we still quote today wrote and spoke, breaking virtually every one of Orwell’s rules. This exercise also surprised me because it made me realize that I often wrote in a similar way, especially when I didn’t really feel comfortable with the information or did not know what I was talking about.

When we were completing the portion of the exercise that was to change the writing to follow the rules in Orwell’s text, I found that it was a lot harder that I thought it would be. I expect that this was because I am so use to writing with bigger words and really dancing around an idea instead of getting straight to the point.

Now that I have seen both of the effects of obeying Orwell’s rules and totally disregarding them, I believe that thought disobeying Orwell’s rules sounds more sophisticated, following them is a better way of writing. However I think that it is also the harder out of the two because of the way we have been writing in the past.

Opinions of the English Language

This text, "Politics and the English Language" is extremely opinionated and a subjective truth. From the information given at the top of the page we see that this view of English is out dated by about 60 years. We also can understand the George Orwell’s opinion of the English language is very strong. I personally agree with only a small portion of this article, I find that some of Orwell’s claims about the use of metaphors relevant to today’s writing styles. In today’s world we use metaphors often to describe thing in our lives, however I agree that some metaphors “are used without the knowledge of their meaning.

 Most of his opinions about “Pretentious diction” I find to be incorrect for the present day English. Nowadays our vocabulary has expanded to encompass most of these words as normal vocabulary and the words we use from different languages have either become customary or have been translated into English and used. In comparison some of the language that Orwell uses to describe these “pretentious words” today we tend to find them used to sound intelligent or pretentious, for example Orwell uses the word “sordid” in his writing and currently that word is not used often in language.

I also disagree with Orwell’s approach to the writing of art and literary criticism. From this text it appears that Orwell’s prefers it if writing is all cut and dry, that authors don’t dance around a point or describe things “vaguely.” I find that Orwell’s examples of meaningless (words as applied to art), do hold value in description and criticism. The words “living” and “dead” (when applied to art) do hold meaning in the art world today, and are valued pieces of criticism.

"Politics and the English Language" is an example of subjective truth because not only was this an opinion at the time, but the information has changed and will continue to change.

Experiencing A Novel

The text "The Psychology of the Novel" brings up many points that also relate to the novel “1984” as wells as the effects of ones life on a story they read. In the text the author writes “it exists not as words in books but as images with feelings attached.” This statement means that to any given person the experience of reading the same books is different from the next, because of the different events they have lived through and the different ways in which we all see the world. “Every word seems to relate to and reflect upon every other word, building layers of meaning and feeling that seem to shift continuously,” this relates heavily to the novel “1984” because in that society they are forever changing what is written and this means that, even though the words do relate to one another the meanings can never be layered because how the information and texts have been edited and “fixed.”

Later in the text the author writes about how a reader instantly perceives and reacts to “the qualities of the voice,” this is seen in “1984” as well because of the reactions to the Two Minutes Hate. The people living in  1984 are all programmed to react to a certain voice and image in a specific way. Even though in 1984 this is a bad thing in present day it is not perceived as so horrible because we are reacting from past experiences and knowledge.  A little farther into the text the author also talks about how a persons experiences and connection to the novel effects the way that they read it. This is also seen in “1984” because Winston gets “the book” and because of his interaction with the Party, O’Brien, the Brotherhood, and Julia he reads “the book” with complete trust.

The author of  "The Psychology of the Novel" proceeds to talk about the willingness of suspended disbelief and it’s effect on the experience of reading a novel. Personally, I believe that being able to lift your self out of reality and read a story without the prejudices we have of/in the real world really impact your ability to understand what the story is about. This is also written in "The Psychology of the Novel."  However the way that the idea is presented also hold a lot of power of experience. As said in "The Psychology of the Novel" some stories are written so that you notice the little things along the way because you really already know the outcome. This is a major part of the story of “1984” because all through the novel Julia and Winston know that they are going to die and the essentially they are already dead, but they live in the here and now to see what they can do in the present to maximize their lives.

Reaction to "First the Forest"

“First the Forest” talks about the ways that humans were/used to be connected with the forest and how now we view the forest as a dangerous place, harboring things of evil. Robert Harrison says that human beings were free underneath the canopy of the forests, then the lightning came and we were then aware of the sky, he says that this sparks our imagination. This could mean that we are all fine with what is around us and then the minute that something new is introduced we create an explanation that works for our world, this means that our imaginations are used a lot. However in this text also the author seems to say that the forest was the only place that the humans felt that they could be wild and free to do what they pleased and not be minded by the consequences and the implications. He then proceeds to describe freedom and it actually seems pretty horrible because of how crude and primitive life seems. Then Harrison goes on to talk about how the humans felt the need to move “away” from the forests, but they continued to affiliate themselves with the forest through family trees and being born from the trees because their ancestors were buried there. Then the need to clear a piece of their forest to calm the chaos and to raise a family sanely is discussed, this would mean a life without freedom.

Response to "Freedom and Democracy" and "The Questions of Conquest"

It seems that these two texts are in agreement or rather one is portrayed in the other at different ideas. In “Questions of Conquest” the author writes a lot about the lack of freedom of the Incas and the Indians. In “Freedom and Democracy” the author writes about how as children we begin to be taught to suppress things and begin to our freedom, and how or why we do such things.


“Questions of Conquest” talks about how the Incas were this amazing civilization but that they were demolished because they had this hierarchy of power that strengthen and weakened them at the same time. Llosa says that this major down fall of the Incas was because the great almighty power had been captured and they didn’t have any original thinking and they were massacred. There is a similar thought that is stated in “Freedom and Democracy,” which is that as children we are taught all these different facts or information and then we when are adults and we are given a more creative problems we are dumb founded and confused because “education too often results in the elimination of spontaneity.” The Incas were in essence like the children above, they had been taught to follow the orders of the higher power and that was it, no initiative or creativity, just taking order. This on the other hand had worked out for them very well in terms of food dispersal and other thing that kept the Incan civilization afloat until the Spanish came.

Both texts mention the illusion of freedom that we all seem to have. In “Freedom and Democracy” the author talks about the impression of “the insignificance of the individual,” in fascism and the impression we get form the ideals of “the right to express or thoughts” that we have our freedom. In “Questions of Conquest” Llosa talks about how the Incas and Indians also had the impression of freedom even though they were always under the control of the higher power, whether it be a god or an authority figure.

Zamyatin's arguments in his essay's correlation with We

Zamyatin's argument that he poses in "On Language," from what I have experienced so far of "We" follow each other every closely. I think this because the points brought up in "On Language" include, "the writer must be a great and talented actor," the need of a "fresh and keen imagination,""all the descriptions of the surroundings, the characters, the landscapes must be couched in the language of the milieu portrayed," it is "inadmissible to litter the text with words which are entirely incomprehensible to the reader" and so on.

Zamyatin follows through, or took his own advice when he wrote "We," we see this because many of the ideas in "On Language" are implemented or avoided in "We." Zamyatin's characters are very well developed where it is necessary, Zamyatin incredible grasp on who D-503 is shown through the different circumstances Zamyatin pulls him through.
In no way, does Zamyatin lack imagination. By just reading the first few chapters you are immersed in the futuristic world that he has created for essentially scratch. Though the situations with I-330 have been seen before the setting, and the basic issue of “soul” is entirely out of the ordinary.
Every so often Zamyatin does dump a word into the story that has no real meaning to us as readers. However the way that the book was introduced gave Zamyatin the opportunity to describe what each thing means to them in the futuristic world that they live in, without sounding arrogant.