Hunter Liguore

Professor of Writing, Writing, Linguistics & Creative Process Department,

Western Connecticut State University, 181 White Street, Higgins 219, Danbury, CT 06810
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.,  www.hunterliguore.org

Introduction

Dystopian literature throughout history has allowed writers to present a view of the far future, while casting a light on the current events of their day. Early writers of Dystopian literature, like Yevgeny Zamyatin, Ayn Rand, and George Orwell, generally show the reader how the world may turn out if events and actions continue on course.

Zamyatin’s We was written to show what he thought Russia would look like if Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ideas about men and machines materialized to a point where humans became machines, or robots, a word derived from the Russian and Czech word robotat, meaning to work.ⁱ

Orwell’s 1984 was written as a warning to England about the course of its bleak future while combating Stalinism.ⁱⁱ The book 1984 looks back at Stalinism and (even Hitler’s reign) and projects a probable future, while We uses the growing ideology of Taylorism in pre-1920 with a future parallel to the current events of his day.ⁱⁱⁱ

Ayn Rand published her novel Anthem, as a response to the threat to freedom in America she saw possible with the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 1930s; Anthem attempts to show the importance of maintaining individuality from becoming a collective.

All three novels are set in a future distant time, other than the writer’s time, but quite clearly reference the contemporary world they were living in, an element that distinguishes dystopian fiction from others. ^iv

What follows is an exploration of the way We, Anthem, and 1984 and We, utilizes the world the world and society to forecast the impending doom and consequences if the situations continued. It also acts as a ‘how-to’ guide for understanding the way dystopian fiction is differentiated from other genres, in their ability to warn their readers in advance with the expected result that the people will be instrumental in its (country/State) change.

We might conclude by looking forward to the rush of dystopian fiction in the last decade and wonder if today’s writers advocated, like its forebears of dystopian fiction, on matters of doom to exact change from readers, and if not, what did arise in response (e.g., zombieism, pandemic fiction), bringing to question the effectiveness of the genre as a whole. 

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We

Understanding the background of the author Zamyatin is important to grasp how he came to write We, the first science fiction dystopian novel, an honor he is generally credited with. As early as 1905, at the age of twenty-one, Zamyatin was arrested. At the time he was a Bolshevik student activist, and after being beaten by Tsarist police and then exiled, he returned to St. Petersburg under disguise.^v

During the next six years, Zamyatin studied engineering, and in 1911, he was apprehended and sent into internal exile, where he began writing satires.^vi Eventually, Zamyatin went to England to work on icebreakers, an aspect of his life thought to be symbolized by the name of the secret agent S-4711, referring to the launch date of the Saint Alexander Nevsky that he worked on.^vii He returned to Russia and was hired as a writer by Maxim Gorky, the creator of socialist realism. Under the new Soviet authorities he was arrested in 1919 and 1922, and continued to write satires reflecting his experiences.^viii

The publishing history of We reflects the sentiment of the times, as well as how Zamyatin was viewed by his peers. Zamyatin wrote We in 1920, at the height of the Bolshevik revolution, and also in between the years he was arrested. During the time the manuscript was complete, Zamyatin was considered to be a writer against the Bolshevik Revolution, or so his critics protested.

While his manuscript was announced several times, it was never published, and his sponsor, Gorky, considered it too dangerous to publish at the time. In fact, We was never published while Zamyatin was alive, and the earliest consideration for publication was in 1952 by Chekhov House Publishers. Later, in 1988, it was finally published in his homeland. During the 1920-30s Zamyatin’s works were pulled from libraries, and with Stalin’s consent, he emigrated to Paris in 1931. After failing to produce a historical text on Russia, he died in 1937.^ix

Zamyatin had the belief that the future could be calculated, and the next revolution could be out-guessed.^x This premise is at the foundation of understanding the construct of We, and dystopian fiction. One possible influence to his prophetic nature can be found in H. G. Wells, the English writer that Zamyatin was translating at the time. Wells was known for his catastrophe genre novels like War of the World (1898), Time Machine (1895), and World Set Free (1914). Wells used science as a method to predict the future. His philosophy was basically, if you could outline the shape of things to come, you were in some ways a prophet.^xi

The catastrophe genre novel established an end to one societal order, and a beginning of the next, while reinforcing and often disrupting preconceived attitudes; it also had the dual function of promoting passivity, reassurance, and anxiety,^xii all things that get woven into dystopian fiction. Zamyatin uses some of these basic elements from Well’s repertoire in We. Essentially, Zamyatin creates a character akin to his own plight and existence, D-503, a man reporting on current events that will have horrible consequences in the future, and will inevitably lead to revolution. This is also a Marxist principle that revolution was impending, yet Zamyatin’s revolution would be to free the people from the Soviet State, symbolized by the One State. We, if nothing else, was Zamyatin’s attempt to play prophet, much like Well’s tried, and cast a light on things to come.

Russia, at the time Zamyatin created We, was at the embryonic stages of a new ideology, the ideology of industry. At the time, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to introduce the world to a better and quicker means to do things. At the forefront were Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, two inventors, who implemented new production standards in making cars that cut down on time, but changed the worker into a more robotic form.

Henry Ford, in America, employed the “division of labor” technology and adapted it to the assembly of a motor vehicle; He also implemented Taylor’s efficiency standards.^xiii Fordism had an immense effect on culture and society, as well as the workforce and workplace.^xiv As car production turned into an assembly line, with conveyor belts and automatic welding machines, a shift in time management and labor issues ensued. The continuous flow caused by the assembly line dictated a more disciplined work environment; workers were known to speak in the “Ford whisper,” that is, by not moving their lips, as regulations were implemented to discourage sitting, smoking, and talking.^xv There was also a shift from skilled labor, people who would normally set the work pace and were high priced, to unskilled labor, which made work mindless, easy to time manage, and was paid less.^xvi The images and influences of Fordism and Taylorism were incorporated into We and evident in similarities of the mechanized One State in We’s future.

Another influence of Zamyatin’s was the poet Alexei Gastev who described Nikolai Aseev as the “Ovid of Engineers, miners, and metal workers.”^xvii Aseev was a big proponent of Taylorism and time efficiency practices. During 1920, Gastev was the head of the Central Institute of Labor. It is believed that Zamyatin’s material for the One State was from Gastev’s experiments on Soviet workers. Here is a summary written by Orlando Figes in Natasha’s Dance, describing Gastev’s research, which lends to the way factual events segue into fiction, while offering an origin point of the now-classic use of genderless, numbered names, that had a tangential purpose in early dystopian fiction and don’t necessarily anymore:

“Hundreds of identically dressed trainees would be marched in columns to their benches, and orders would be given out by buzzes from machines. The workers were trained to hammer correctly … Gastev’s aim, by his own admission, was to turn the worker into a sort of ‘human robot’ … Gastev envisaged a utopia where ‘people’ would be replaced by ‘proletarian units’ identified by ciphers such as ‘A,B,C or 325, 075, 0, and so on. These automatons would be like machines, ‘incapable of individual thought,’ and would simply obey their controller. A ‘mechanized collectivism’ would take the place of the individual personality’ …^xviii

It becomes clear that Gastev’s views would’ve been available to Zamyatin for which he would draw upon to create We. Further, seeing actual cars on the street would have been evidence that Gastev’s views were manifesting.^xix It’s clear that influencing the robotic nature of the workplace was due to the growing acceptance of Fordism and Taylorism around the world, but also important to Lenin as he geared Soviet Russia toward mechanization. Zamyatin suggests, with his interpretation of Fordism and Taylorism, that if mechanism continued, people would lose their sense of free will and the individual human spirit; individualism would be traded for mass collectivism,^xx a theme Ayn Rand continues, and explores beyond factories, but into everyday life. In writing We, Zamyatin attempts to cast what the future will bring for the working people in this controlled, collective state.    

It’s important to also note, during the time We was written Russia, that it was undergoing many changes with the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution. The 1920s brought about new ideas in the form of machinism, movies, radio, and the car. Petrograd was being rebuilt after its destruction in World War I, while shortages for materials and food were widespread.^xxi While the cold winters and starvation depleted the population of Petrograd from 1,217,000 to 722,000 between 1918 and 1921, the Proletarian Cultural movement called the Proletkult was busy exchanging ideas about god-building, tectology, and human mechanization; ultimately they set out to spread their message.^xxii Of the half a million members reported in 1919, Zamyatin was one. In fact, he took the title We from a collection of poems and plays the group produced prior to Zamyatin’s.^xxiii

The symbolism of Zamyatin’s We depicts the political and cultural climate of his day, as it describes a society where the government has planned every aspect of a person’s life, with the sole purpose of making them happy.^xxiv He also shows in an allegorical and satirical way what will happen to art and literature in a negative utopia, like the one in We, which mirrors the new ideology of the Bolshevik’s.^xxv As writing was becoming regulated and censored, those like Zamyatin retaliated by showing the inevitability of such censoring. Literature scholar Edward Brown points out, Zamyatin was clearly writing and rebelling against society in general when he wrote We:

“Zamyatin’s rebellion … is not directed against any particular version of the modern mass society. It is not directed at socialism or Communism as such but rather at the forms of regimentation which has resulted from the growth of a huge and complex industrial civilization.”^xxvi

Zamyatin’s fear was seeing Russian cultural life coming to an end and yet, there was no vision of a future socialist state for which he could attack.^xxvii Zamyatin chose not to include the realism of famine and civil war as the backdrop of his book, but rather the culmination of ideas indicative of his time. The main character of We, D-503 symbolizes the average proletarian or worker, but more so, a person that his current society was about to reject, one that would disappear under the coming changes. D-503 was a poet, an inventor, and a philosopher; one might add that these qualities were attributes of Zamyatin also. D-503 routinely praises technology and machines, not because he has been taught or brainwashed, but because he is poetic; his admission reads like satire, more like something Gastev may have been a proponent of, which Zamyatin plays with and ridicules.^xxviii This disappearance of the poet, of people like him, was the true act and need of the writer to tell.

Another critique of We is that it proposed to reveal, as well as, warn the public of the dangers of the new Soviet government. Zamyatin was aware of the conformity that became more and more real under Lenin’s rule and depicts this through the mechanized and controlled world of the One State.^xxix Zamyatin used science as the primary drive in We, much like Lenin and the Bolsheviks used science and technology to change society.^xxx The glass-closed civilization in We is designed to satire N. G. Chernyshevsky’s utopian society in What is to be done? Lenin later writes his own treatise by the same name in an effort to define his new Russia in which he called for a new party type.^xxxi Zamyatin presents a glass-enclosed society that is on the brink of a scientific marvel, that is at the height of dehumanization, and yet the protagonist D-503 succeeds in doing more, thinking on his own, and escaping to the wall outside the city, the wilderness, a land with little human interaction (themes later picked up in Logan’s Run). In an indirect way, Zamyatin answers Lenin’s (and Chernyshevsky’s) question what is to be done? with his novel We.

All in all, Zamyatin’s We set out to satire the current sentiment of his day, while rejecting the ideology of the Bolsheviks. Zamyatin interpreted the growing sentiment of dehumanization and incorporated that into a dystopian world at the pinnacle of scientific mastery. While the world Zamyatin displays to the reader demonstrates the detriments of a controlled society, it also reveals the plight of the human spirit to overcome and persevere over the shadow of conformity and law, a trend that will go on to be the foundation of dystopian literature.

Orwell’s 1984

Without a doubt, George Orwell’s novel 1984 is often ranked as a primary example of dystopian literature today. Many of Orwell’s terms have become a part of society’s lingo, like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Newspeak’, and whether or not someone has read the book, they have a general idea of what those terms mean. What they may not know, however, is that Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning against the growing dictatorship of Stalin in Soviet Russia. He saw the role England played in combating Stalinism, as well as the growing trends of Capitalism, and together, he wove them into a narrative taking place in the immediate future, a dystopia where the people of Oceana, (Soviet Union) is controlled by the dictatorship of Big Brother (Stalin), a symbol modeled after Stalin’s branding image of his face on public buildings.

Orwell wrote the book in 1948, and simply turned the letters around to get 1984. Orwell put the book in the not too distant future in order to rouse people of his time to the possible and real dangers which surrounded them. He believed that people had the power to create change—like most dystopian writers, perhaps; the book then would serve as a motivation to create that change.^xxxii

One of the most interesting aspects of 1984 is the idea that there is a continued war taking place with an enemy that becomes an ally, and an ally that becomes an enemy. Orwell’s inspiration for the three super powers, that don’t defeat each other, came from James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution. Although a critic of Burnham’s, Orwell was inspired by the idea of a state of permanent war, with limited aims between combatants that can’t destroy each other, but rather, there exists a struggle of territory and possession.^xxxiii The goal of the war is to use products of industry without raising the standard of living, as an increase of wealth would destroy the fabric of society and introduce a class system (themes later explored by Rand in Atlas Shrugged).

Additionally, society could no longer be kept in poverty by the restriction of production since it usually brought about opposition; war then is a means to destroy the products of labor.^xxxiv Yet, each state appears to posses the objective of wanting to conquer the world, while ridding the world of free thought. While there are skirmishes, none of the states will cross boundaries and risk loss. The world then, which Orwell paints, suggests that war as a continuous feature of society, (consistent with the Marxist/Communist ideology of revolution needing to be constant) ceases to be dangerous; it becomes commonplace.^xxxv

Over the course of the book, as history is erased and rewritten, the main character Winston Smith is faced with the shapelessness of his life. He begins a metamorphosis, which the reader understands as questioning the existence of the human free spirit. Winston is taught with reoccurring signs that war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. The reader assumes this logic could never securely happen, but as Winston succumbs to defeat in the tedious destruction of his free spirit, love, and mental capacity, it doesn’t seem as foreign.

It is the incorporation of doublethink that makes Orwell’s message even more real. Doublethink is described like this:

“to know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneous two opinions which cancel each other out …”^xxxvi

Doublespeak is a type of mental cheating that satisfies the person by realizing reality has not been violated.^xxxvii Today’s reader can quickly relate to the idea of doublethink. Knowing that it is possible to be fooled, to hold more than one thought, to be led, and misled, adds to the eerie prophetic warning attributed to 1984.

In some circles, 1984 is viewed as having an anti-Capitalism message. It is evident that the war is fought to expunge the products of labor, but yet in the society Orwell was living in, government and corporations would’ve been behind the selling of war goods, and thus, could stake a profit from waging war, which still exists today. Orwell may have been pointing this out as a means to show one aspect of the detriments of Capitalism, but the notion of Winston’s non-conformity for a time, speaks clearer to individualism which is part of the ideology of Capitalism.

A few years before Orwell’s 1984 another writer had similar interests in showing what the future world could be if the ‘powers-that-be’ were allowed to run amok. In 1946 Ayn Rand published her novel Anthem, a dystopian world were one man asserts his individuality from the collectivity of the populous. She wrote the book in 1937, the same year Zamyatin died.^xxxviii The narrator of Anthem writes:

“We are known as Equality 7-2521,” from a City run by the World Council.^xxxix

In this moment, the main character is expressing and establishing his own individuality, then sneaks to an underground railroad that is abandoned and invents a source of light that will clearly change society. When it’s finished, he bravely takes his invention to the Council, but is rejected, and he is forced to flee or risk imprisonment. Additionally, the main character falls in love, another individual human quality that sets him—and the book—apart. He leaves to start a new world with his new love, recognizing their individual qualities.

Ayn Rand grew up in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. She possesses much of the same ideas as Zamyatin during this time period and was known in her lifetime to be an advocate of Capitalism, which may’ve been her answer to collectivism. The idea for Anthem originated in the early 1920s as a play; she was a teenager at the time. In her words:

“It was to be a play about the collective society of the future in which they lost the word ‘I.’ They were all calling each other ‘we’ and it was worked out as much more of a story …”^xl

In her journal, she also wrote about her sentiments regarding Russia, that it was “depraved,” making her unsurprised it took up the Communist ideology, but maintained she “got out and found a civilized country.”^xli Rand’s dystopia is no less a warning against world organizations that would reap power over the individual.

Anthem demonstrates the Capitalistic quality of individualism, whereby the main character develops a product which could be marketed and sold to benefit the people. This same premise underlies the theme of her later work Atlas Shrugged. Rand’s Capitalism, akin to today’s corporate-consciousness, is one that benefits the people and exists for the people, which aren’t the same as Orwell’s Capitalism, one that profits at the expense of war and the people.

One of the differences between Anthem and 1984 is that Winston succumbs to collective power, which eliminates his individualism. He accepts Big Brother and even loves him. While Rand was determined to show that even in the bleakest hour the human spirit can and must survive. Her dystopian is more reminiscent of Zamyatin’s, in that it offers the idea of human reason as a solution in the wake of scientific discovery that may or may not advocate fully for human creativity and the spirit of free will. In Anthem this occurs when the main character invents a devise to better society, while in We the main character was an inventor and is responsible for the welfare of the space ship. Anthem and We both end with both its main characters finding an unknown, or freedom in the wilderness; they also have love waiting for them as well.

By the end of Anthem the main character no longer refers to himself as the assigned number, another feature similar to We. Rand ends the final pages stating that the people were “whiplashed to their knees” by the word “We,” a homage, if not a confirmation, of the similar shared in Zamyatin’s book. Interestingly, all three books attempt to show the detriments of the collective state. Rand and Zamyatin having lived through the revolutions, while Orwell wrote from the development of those revolutions to what became Stalinism.

Another aspect dystopian characteristic found in Orwell’s 1984 is the important message of truth. Orwell plays on the notion that one truth can become a non truth. This was mentioned above with the discussion of doublespeak, yet the symbolism of truth was meant to signify Stalin’s interpretation of truth and his treatment of truth, most specifically in the 1930s with the Terror.^xlii Orwell raises the question of what is truth? and is depicted in many ways throughout the book, like the changing of the enemy and ally in the conclusion, or the history Winston changes, or even the love he thinks he possesses and loses. The character of O’Brien is in one sense his salvation, then in another his rebuker, and then in the end his redeemer—which O’Brien is the true archetype? Orwell uses these opportunities to show the unbalanced nature of truth and more specifically the biased nature of Stalin’s truth.

Orwell’s 1984 serves as an example even today of what can happen if power is usurped by one party or state or dictator. He predicted the continued detriments of Stalinist Russia, and what could happen if all sense of humanity was wiped out. His message is a stark reminder that democracy, as an alternative to collectivism, allows for the people to have an important voice.

Conclusion

Dystopian fiction, through the lens of some of its original writers, like Zamyatin, Rand, and Orwell wrote novels which they intended to be vocal pieces to the public during their time. Each element in the book can be linked directly and symbolically to something prevalent in their time—and dangerous, if gone unchecked. Zamyatin spoke out against the beginning censorship of artists, and the advances of dehumanization through the industrial movement’s mechanization. Orwell years later dared to warn his reader about the detriments of Stalinism, and the risk of lettering power go unchecked, while offering up questions about the individual spirit amid the control of conformity. Ayn Rand, a product of Zamyatin’s generation, offered her own take on the risks of freedom at the hands of collectivism.

While Zamyatin and Rand both close their chapters off with a sense of hope for mankind, Orwell does not. Instead, his main character is stripped of humanity and conforms like a machine to the will of the state. Perhaps it is this significant difference that makes 1984 more diversely know throughout the world.

If we consider the rash of dystopian novels of today, we might ask what they linked to and what messages they were calling upon from the public to change—environmental disasters; civil wars; rampant technology; power of the few—and a more precisely, if these books brought forward the change needed to avert these fates? It may be that in some cases, changes have been made and are still in process… or that the dystopia wave created more despair and inertia, enough to foster a greater forecast of doom with the rise of zombies and pandemic fiction.

All in all, dystopian literature will continue to evolve branches, so long as there is a free, human spirit to predict, warn, and attempt to change any course of action that would endanger it.

Works Cited:

Atkins, John. George Orwell. (London: John Calder Press), 1954.

Booker, M. Keith. Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as social criticism. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press) 1994.

Brown, Edward James. Brave New World: 1984 and We, an essay on Anti-Utopia. (Ann Arbor: Ardis Press) 1976.

Carden, Patricia. Utopia and Anti-Utopia: Aleksei Gastev and Evgeny Zamyatin. Russian Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Jan., 1987) pp. 1-18.

Chapple, Richard, and L. Soviet Fiction in the Soviet Satire: Or Can’t Anyone around Here Write? The South Central Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4, Studies by Members of the SCMLA. (Winter, 1977) pp. 140-142.

Flink, James, J., The Automobile Age. (Cambridge: MIT Press), 1988. Pp. vii-456.

Ginsburg, Mirra. A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin. (Chicago: Univ of Chicago Pres) 1970.

Malia, Martin. The Soviet Tragedy: a history of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991.(New York: Free Press) 1994.

Orwell, George. 1984. (New York: Penguin), 1977. 

Parrinder, Patrick. H. G Wells and the Fiction of Catastrophe. Cardwell, Richard A., & Coveney, Peter, Ed. Renaissance and Modern Studies: Visions of Dystopia. Vol XXVIII. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press), 1984.

Rand, Ayn. Anthem. (New York: Penguin) 1995.

Resch, Robert Paul. Utopia, Dystopia, and the Middle Class in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Boundary 2, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1997) pp. 137-176.

Suvin, Darko. H. G. Wells and Modern Science Fiction. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press) 1977.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny; Randall, Natasha, transl., We. (New York: Modern Library) 2006.

References:

[1] Zamyatin, Yevgeny; Randall, Natasha, transl., We. (New York: Modern Library, 2006) xii.

ⁱⁱ Booker, M. Keith. Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as social criticism. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994) 69.

ⁱⁱⁱ Zamyatin, xii & Booker, 69-70.

^iv Booker, 19.

^v Zamyatin, vi-vii.

^vi Ibid.

^vii Zamyatin, xvii.

^viii Zamyatin, vii.

^ix Zamyatin, vi- xv.

^x Zamyatin, vii.

^xi Parrinder, Patrick. H. G Wells and the Fiction of Catastrophe. Cardwell, Richard A., & Coveney, Peter, Ed. Renaissance and Modern Studies: Visions of Dystopia. Vol XXVIII. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press, 1984) 40-41.

^xii Parrinder, 52-53.

^xiii Flink, 43.

 ^xiv Ford would go on to be the inspiration of Porshe, who eventually went on to make the Volkswagon, an affordable car that outsold Ford’s Model T. Further, Fordism was embraced by Hilter, and his factories in both Germany and Japan continued to make revenue for the Ford Corp. despite the Second World War. (see Flink for further information on Ford and his ties to Nazi Germany).

 ^xv Flink, 115, 119.

^xvi Flink, 115.

^xvii Zamyatin, xiii.

^xviii Zamyatin, xiv.

^xix Carden, Patricia. Utopia and Anti-Utopia: Aleksei Gastev and Evgeny Zamyatin. Russian Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Jan., 1987) pp. 7.

^xx Brown, Edward James. Brave New World: 1984 and We, an essay on Anti-Utopia. (Ann Arbor: Ardis Press, 1976) 39.

^xxi Zamyatin, xii.

^xxii Zamyatin, xiii.

^xxiii Ibid.

^xxiv Brown, 43.

^xxv Chapple, Richard, L. Soviet Fiction in the Soviet Satire: Or Can’t Anyone around Here Write? The South Central Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4, Studies by Members of the SCMLA. (Winter, 1977) pp. 141.

^xxvi Carden, 2.

^xxvii Ibid.

^xxviii Carden, 11-12.

^xxix Booker, M. Keith. Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as social criticism. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994) 25-26.

^xxx Ibid.

^xxxi Malia, Martin. The Soviet Tragedy: a history of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991. (New York: Free Press, 1994) 74, 100.

^xxxii Atkins, 252-253.

^xxxiii Atkins, John. George Orwell. (London: John Calder Press, 1954) 238.

^xxxiv Ibid.

^xxxv Atkins, 238-239.

^xxxvi Atkins, 243.

^xxxvii Orwell, George. 1984. (New York: Penguin, 1977) 214-215.

^xxxviii Perhaps Rand was aware of Zamyatin’s death and became reacquainted with her own similar story, much the same way today’s pop culture is influenced by celebrity deaths.

^xxxix Rand, Ayn. Anthem. (New York: Penguin, 1995) 20.

^xl Rand, viii.

^xli Rand, ix.

^xlii Orwell, 320.

About the contributor : Hunter Liguore is the award-winning author of WHOLE WORLD INSIDE NAN’S SOUP (2022 Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers Winner). Her work has appeared in Writer's Digest, Irish Pages, Sand Hills Literary, and many more. She is a Professor of Writing at Lesley University. She can be reached at www.hunterliguore.org @skytale_writer.

(The paper was received on February 10^th, 2022. It was sent for blind peer review on 20^th March and after review it was received back from the reviewer/s on 20^th April 2022.)