Record 7 - An Eyelash Taylor Henbane and Lily of the Valley
In this extract of the novel 'We' by Zamyatin, language is used in a variety of ways to convey D-503's inner emotions and feelings, which mainly consists of worry and confusion. The record starts off with an unorganized, disorientated dream of the narrator. Once he had woken up, D-503 becomes aware of himself dreaming, and decides that he is sick - because people in "We" are not used to dreaming, they relate it to people being ill. Perhaps this may hint to the readers of the inhibition of creativity within one's mind in this dystopian world.
The stream of consciousness shown in the beginning is formed by the use of short sentences, colons, semi-colons and commas in order to form a continuous paragraph describing the odd dream. The use of language in the first paragraph will therefore evoke confusion as it depicts the mind of D-503, which is a conflation of colours - "Green, orange, blue, a redâ¦" - "juices" and a "bronze Buddha".
why the shoes?
dog lost interest in us...
through my eyesThe imagery shown here connotes to the blurriness of dreams, and in a way gives the readers a clearer understanding of D-503's personality. Zamyatin further emphasizes the oddness of the dream by using repetition of the word "juice", which "ran all over the mirror" and began oozing out of everywhere. This experience was described as a "fatally sweet horror" by the author; the oxymoron here has the effect of creating a paradox. Therefore, in the first paragraph, the author effectively uses language to create a stream of consciousness.
Zamyatin also uses ellipses at the end of a paragraph in order to show a change in mood, setting or the fading away of his thoughts. This is...