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.