A Quote from "We"

“Somehow this never entered my head before, but this is really how it is: We on this earth are walking the whole time above a boiling crimson sea of fire, hidden down there in the bowels of the earth.  But we never think of it.  And then suddenly the thin shell beneath our feet seems to turn to glass, and suddenly we see….” (Zamyatin 56)

This quote encapsulates the idea of an awakening in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.  D-503 has come to question the firm regulations of OneState and begins to acknowledge his own unique thoughts, rather than acting as a mechanical part of the society as is expected by the government.  Rather than merely stating that D-503 has come to realize that he has ideas of his own, Zamyatin constructs a parallel between the soul and “a boiling crimson sea of fire.”  This analogy depicts D-503’s inner self as yearning to escape from the dark confines of his previously structured existence.  The quote exhibits a certain amount of unrest, as the instability of D-503’s personality is compared to a boiling sea, conjuring up images of inevitable outburst from the “thin shell” that surrounds it.  Throughout the novel, D-503 struggles between an outer, conformist identity, and his inner self that is perceived.  Ultimately this radical identity is unable to break through the shell that OneState constructed between D-503’s exterior and his not-so-unconquerable soul.