# Record One explained — We

> Chapter companion for We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

## What happens

D-503, the builder of the Integral, records the official announcement of the spaceship's impending completion and the United State's mission to subjugate other planets under reason. He reflects on his role as a mathematician and his devotion to the collective 'We', feeling a creative impulse akin to pregnancy as he begins his chronicle.

## Themes in this chapter

### Totalitarianism and Conformity

The State's announcement demands absolute obedience and the subjugation of other worlds, reflecting the totalitarian control over thought and action.

### Mathematics and Rationality

D-503 celebrates the 'mathematically faultless happiness' and the straight line as symbols of the State's rational order.

## Character check-ins

### D-503

The narrator and builder of the Integral, who records the announcement and expresses his dedication to the United State.

## Key lines

> In another hundred and twenty days the building of the Integral will be completed.

The Integral spaceship will be finished in 120 days.

_Sets the timeline for the central project of the novel._

> Your mission is to subjugate to the grateful yoke of reason the unknown beings who live on other planets, and who are perhaps still in the primitive state of freedom.

The United State aims to force other planets to accept its rational system, even if they are free.

_Highlights the imperialistic and coercive ideology of the State._

> For the United State is a straight line, a great, divine, precise, wise line, the wisest of lines!

D-503 idealizes the United State as a perfect, rational straight line.

_Illustrates the mathematical metaphor for conformity and order._

## Links

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