# Record Four explained — We

> Chapter companion for We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

## What happens

D-503 attends a lecture on ancient music and is disturbed by I-330's performance on an antique piano, which awakens chaotic emotions in him. He later meets with O-90, who becomes upset when he discusses his diary and the beauty of mathematical forms.

## Themes in this chapter

### Art and Censorship

The lecture denigrates ancient music as 'epileptic' and promotes the State's regulated, mathematical compositions, illustrating the suppression of free artistic expression.

### Technology and Dehumanization

The musicometer, which can produce sonatas by turning a handle, exemplifies the replacement of human creativity with mechanical production.

## Character check-ins

### D-503

Narrator; attends lecture and feels disturbed by I-330's music; later meets with O-90.

### I-330

Appears on stage in ancient dress and plays the piano, provoking a strong reaction in D-503.

### O-90

Visits D-503 for their sexual day; becomes tearful when he discusses his diary.

## Key lines

> The Wild Man noticed that every time the barometer’s hand stopped on the word ‘rain,’ it actually rained. And as the Wild Man craved rain, he let out as much mercury as was necessary to put it at the level of the word ‘rain’

The lecturer tells a story about a primitive man who tried to make it rain by adjusting a barometer to the 'rain' setting.

_This anecdote is used to mock the irrationality of ancient people who tried to control nature through superstition rather than science._

> By merely rotating this handle anyone is enabled to produce about three sonatas per hour. What difficulties our predecessors had in making music! They were able to compose only by bringing themselves to strokes of inspiration—an extinct form of epilepsy.

The lecturer boasts that the new musicometer can generate sonatas mechanically, contrasting it with the 'epileptic' inspiration of ancient composers.

_This highlights the State's preference for predictable, machine-made art over human creativity._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/we_se/chapters/record-four
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/we_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/we_se/chapters