Sophomores:
1. Choose 2 passages that you want to write about from the reading. Type them in, as well as a question off of them: think of a question that would help us link these quotes — a question that would go before a topic sentence, or a question that would lead to class discussion, or a question that would lead to closely picking apart the quotes. (10 minutes)
2. Next, open up a comment bubble on one of the posts with 2 passages and a question, and then formulate a topic sentence that might answer this question or (if you want to ignore the question) might use these quotes if you wrote the whole paragraph. (10 minutes)
3. Then, click on a topic sentence, and in the comment bubble try to write out a paragraph with the topic sentence and quotes given to you. I encourage you to alter the topic sentence as you write. (20 minutes)
Good luck! This should be great practice for essay writing, particularly in-class essays. But I won't be grading these, or judging you for any misspellings or stupid ideas. So do your best, but don't worry if you know you don’t have the best idea in the world.
B. Slater
1- "You just was to put a little wall around infinity. And you're afraid to look on the other side of that wall" (40).
ReplyDelete2- "It's true that he is not a precise person, not rhythimical, and his logic is ridiculous, inside out, but still... we're friends" (41).
How can R understand what the narrator does with his mind, when the narrator doesn't understand anything that R thinks?
"Trochees... cutting, rapid... sharp as an ax. About an unheard of crime, about a blasphemous poem, one in which the benefactor is called... but no, I cant make my hand write it." (p. 47)
ReplyDelete"And in machines, in steel, he harnessed fire,
And chaos fettered he with hoops of Law." (p. 47)
What's happening in this book?
Machines conquer people only because the people do not wish to work to be happy.
Delete"That irrational root grew in me like some alien thing, strange and terrifying, and it was eating me, and you couldn't make any sense of it or neutralize it because it was completely beyond ratio."
ReplyDelete"Our poets no longer soar into the Empyrean; they've come down to earth. They go along in step with us to the stern mechanical march of the Musical Factory."
How has the society shaped him to be afraid of things like radicals and why?
1. 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.... I became glass. I saw into myself, inside. (56)
ReplyDelete2. They were offered a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness, nothing else. Those idiots chose freedom....Then for centuries they were homesick for the chains. Thats why the world was so miserable, see? they missed the chains. (61)
Does happiness without freedom let you see inside yourself, like Winston does? Why or why not.
Happiness without freedom only blocks the pathway to discovering who you are.
DeletePeople are only able to see inside themselves once their freedom is taken away.
DeleteHappiness without freedom only blocks the pathway to discovering who you are.
DeleteYou are not truely happy if you are not given the option to feel another emotin. Freedom enhances the chance to feel REAL emotions, as opposed to synthetic, lab-enhanced emotions that people such as the narrator in We feels. He has never been given the chance at freedom, nor does he WANT the chance. He sees the past as a horrible place. "They were offered a choise: happiness wihtout freedom, or freedon without happiness, nothing else. These idiots chose freedom... Then for centuries they were homesick for the chains. That's why the world was so miserable, see? They missed the chains" (61). The people were given a choice of the fate that they wanted. It would determine the path for centuries. The narrator thinks that they chose the wrong path. They chose freedom, but they ended up wanting what they turned away. They wanted the government to drag them down, so that they wouldn't be free, so that they would be 'happy.' THe government has bainwashed the people into thinking that freedom is bad. Freedom brings out the true emotions of the people who can hold it in their hands and say, "I am free." The government doesn't want the people to figure out why they are on this earth, what their purpose is. They want them to remain unconscious, but sometimes, their methods don't seem to work. For example, the government makes the buildings out of glass so that the people think they have nothing to hide. The people know that if they do something against OneState, then everyone will know. So they don't do anything that could convict them, and eventually the thought of doing that thing floats away. "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 out feet seems to turn to glass, and suddenly we see... I became glass. I saw into myself, indside" (56). The narrator has an out-of-body expirience, so to speak, and yet he never thought that it was the result of freedom or corruption. He has never know this part of himself, even after hiding nothing and living in a glass box. But suddenly he turns to glass and is able to see the real him. He is shocked, because he never realized he was hiding anything. The people that they can see through glass, and the people 'know' themselves. But why can't they see through themselves as they do glass? In the same sense we are like glass. We may not be clear, but we are solid, and we can stop things physically, we are made up of atoms and molecules and are chemically structured. Yet why are we different? We see glass as an object, and ourselves as people? People have emotions, but why can't we see what lies behind the emotions?
People are only able to see inside themselves once their freedom is taken. In a society where people are no longer granted freedom, they are able to view life in a deeper perspective. D503 explains that "they (people from a long time ago) were offered a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness, nothing else. those idiots chose freedom...then for centuries they were homesick for the chains. Thats why the world was so miserable, see? They missed the chains." In order for a society like the one in We and in 1984 to work, freedom must be destroyed to maintain happiness and simplicity. To miss the chains, was to miss a part of yourself. D503 goes on to say that "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...I became glass. I saw into myself, inside." Now that the chains have returned, life has become clear again. When people are given limitations, they look inside themselves to decide what to make of it, and who they will become as a result.
DeleteHappiness without freedom only blocks the pathway to discovering who you are. The narrator makes the observation that, "They were offered a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness, nothing else. Those idiots chose freedom....Then for centuries they were homesick for the chains. Thats why the world was so miserable, see? they missed the chains."(61)The narrator suggests that happiness and freedom cannot be cohesive. They are two opposite things, whereas without one you are granted the other. The people in our society have chosen happiness without a sense of order in society, and because of that we are not granted with happiness. This foreshadows that in the future, we will be hungry for a strict sense of order and that order will grant us with happinesss. The narrator explains that with freedom, "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.... (56)With freedom, we are not only unhappy, but also blind.When there is a freedom to see whatever you want, the ability to notice smaller and more important things in life disappears.Once this freedom is removed, people are granted with a sense of vision as though the world is being seen through glass. Now the mind is able to open up and analyze things more precisely, such as your own true self. When freedom is granted, people become caught up on the material things. But,when the material things are no longer distracting, people are trapped in a mindset where they only have few few things to focus on, one of those things being themself. Just like exploring what has been there beneath your feet all along, people must explore their own self. This ability to explore onesself is granted by the vision, which is a result of happines without freedom.
DeleteHappiness without freedom blocks the path to discovering who you are. D-503 is enlightened when he says, "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... I became glass. I saw into myself, inside" (56). In life, fire sometimes represents chaos. In this society, people live life as if there is no chaos, no freedom, and everything is in order. While D is with I, he experiences a somewhat liberating experience. He has broken the perfect glass shell surrounding him, allowing him to be free and enjoy the fire. This freedom has changed him in a sense that he can understand himself more. Before he only had a sense of happiness and not freedom. Now that he has experienced his freedom, he can follow that path to discovering who he is. Unfortunately this sense of freedom doesn't last for long, when he says "They were offered a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness, nothing else. Those idiots chose freedom....Then for centuries they were homesick for the chains. Thats why the world was so miserable, see? they missed the chains (61)." D has grown up living in "perfection." He finds that if anything is out of order, it messes up the balance of his life and there is no longer perfection. He sees freedom as the cause of imperfection. He doesn't believe that you cannot be happy if there is imperfection in his life. This is why he is surprised that the two in Paradise would choose freedom over happiness. What he doesn't realize that if you are free, then you can be truly happy. Right now he is happy with no freedom because that is all he knows. If he can experience the fire for a longer period of time rather than living in perfection, he will be able to go down the path of discovering who he truly is, no who they taught him to be.
Deletebottom of page 40 - "You want to put a little wall around infinty. and youre afraid to look on the other side of the wall..." "walls, walls are the basis of everything human..."
ReplyDeletebottom of page 56 - "the other used to just stick his hairy paws out of his shell, but now all of him came out, the shell burst open, and the pieces were just about to fly in all directions...and then what?"
is the wall from the first quote and the shell from the second the same thing? how do they contrast from the "wild cage" on page 29?
Walls are built up around every human, and inside, everybody is alone with their thoughts, so when your thoughts come out, you have the freedom to follow your instincts, and the walls come crashing down.
DeleteWalls are built up around every human, and inside, everybody is alone with their thoughts, so when your thoughts come out, you have the freedom to follow your instincts, and the walls come crashing down. D-503, the narrator, has built up walls around himself to keep in all his thoughts and instincts. He does this because he believes this will keep him on the perfect path of life he is living now. Everything he does is on this perfect equation. These walls keep everything in order. Everything inside the walls can be made sense of. "You want to put a little wall around infinty. and youre afraid to look on the other side of the wall..." "walls, walls are the basis of everything human..." (40) He is afraid to look outside of these walls. This is because outside of the walls is where being human really is. It is your instincs and passions and feelings. However, to D-503, this is the worst thing in the world. Instincts and feelings are what he is most scared of. You can't put these things into a mathematical equation. "the other used to just stick his hairy paws out of his shell, but now all of him came out, the shell burst open, and the pieces were just about to fly in all directions...and then what?" (56). D-503 has broken through his walls. He is feeling outside of math. He shows that once you break down your walls, everything becomes instinctual. The walls he has put around himself are keeping him on this equation, but does he really want to be there?
Delete"That irrational root grew in me like some alien thing, strange and terrifying, and it was eating me, and you couldn't make any sense of it or neutralize it because it was completely beyond ratio." (39)
ReplyDeleteWhy can't he think about things without reason?
"But they served their irrational, unknown God, whereas we serve something rational and very precisely known." (45)
Why can't belief go past reason, why cant they believe without seeing?
The people in this world have lost the ability to believe without seeing.
DeleteThe people in this world have lost the ability to believe without seeing. When the narrator was learning about radical numbers he said, "That irrational root grew in me like some alien thing, strange and terrifying, and it was eating me, and you couldn't make any sense of it or neutralize it because it was completely beyond ratio." (39) The narrator has a lot of trouble grasping the ideas of these radicals because they are not strictly real, he cannot grasp the idea like he can in an integer. There is no real world example which he can. Another example are of his thoughts on religion, "But they served their irrational, unknown God, whereas we serve something rational and very precisely known." (45). The people require realism with the order their lives have given them, they cannot think abstractly anymore. A legalistic approach is given to every idea, they do not believe in anything that is tangible. Ideas without real world applications seem useless to them. The people in We have lost faith in everything besides the real world.
DeleteThe people in this world have lost the ability to believe without seeing. Numbers are so unwavering that the people of OneState cannot believe in something not concrete because they believe it conflicts with their happiness. This is why they try to make everything into a perfect mathematic equation that will always be true. Winston explains their views when he says, "But they served their irrational, unknown God, whereas we serve something rational and very precisely known." (45). This is why they also cannot understand things that cant be rationalized and explained with math, so they think that all of these things including god and religion stop their happiness. He also explains his need for everything to fit with math perfectly when he says, "That irrational root grew in me like some alien thing, strange and terrifying, and it was eating me, and you couldn't make any sense of it or neutralize it because it was completely beyond ratio." (39). This creates a conflict within him because he only wants to see things as mathematically solvable, but when something isn't he doesn't know what to do.
Delete"The glass walls, the glass armchairs, the table were all glistening. This was reassuring. My heart stopped hammering."(33)
ReplyDelete"To the right and left through the glass walls I see something like my own self, my own room, my own clothes, my own movements, and all repeated a thousand times. It cheers you up: You see yourself as part of an immense, powerful, single thing." (34)
How does the narrator see his society, and what does glass symbolize to him?
The narrator's view of this perfect glass world is his ideal world, and he thinks he can reach a better state in life if he mimics the buildings by being a perfect orderly person.
Delete"Walls are the basis of everything human..." (40)
ReplyDeleteIt this true? Why?
"Dear O... dear R. There's something in him, too (why "too" I don't know, but let it stand as written), something in him, too, that isn't quite clear to me." (44)
Why does he not know why he wrote "too" and why do you think he wrote it? What could it mean?
Knowledge can be limited when one doesn't live beyond reason.
DeleteKnowledge can be limited when one doesn't live beyond reason. "Walls are the basis of everything Human..." (40)
Delete"Dear O... Dear R. There's something in him, too (why "too" I don't know, but let it stand as written), something in him, too, that isn't quite clear to me." (44)
Concrete knowledge has always and will always be the same, but intellectual knowledge can't be found if you don't go beyond reason and concrete facts. Winston is figuring out that there is something different inside of everyone, and it frustrates him that he doesn't know what is going on inside their heads. Also, Winston is just now finding out who he himself is. To a certain level, he thinks that everyone else thinks just like him, because that is how things should be in their orderly society. But past this level of understanding, Winston doesn't realize that intellectual knowledge is the only thing that could help him figure out what is going on in other peoples minds. This is why Winston wrote "too." He doesn't realize it, but everybody has their own thoughts, indifferent from everyone else's. This is why walls are the basis for humans, because you can't see behind them, and nobody really thinks to look behind them; if you do, then it is nearly impossible for people to figure out what is there because the society has stripped away the intellectual knowledge that you need to figure it out.
DeleteKnowledge can be limited when one doesn't live beyond reason.
ReplyDelete"you could see here and there the gray opaque cages where the blinds were down, the cages of rythmic, Taylorized happiness"
ReplyDelete"eyes reflecting the shining heavens, or maybe the shining of OneState"
What makes the people of OneState believe that order brings happiness without questioning OneState. what does this say about human nature.
"I felt strange being left on my own or, to be more precise, with this new person, a stranger to me, who, only by a strange freak of chance, happened to have my number D-503."
ReplyDelete"And from "there" (this "there" is simultaneously here and indefinitely far away) from "there" I look at myself- at him, and i know full well that he, the one with the brows drawn in a straight line, is an outsider, is a stranger to me, I have met him for the first time in my life. But I am real, I am not him..."
Why does D-503 feel disconnected from himself, or feel that he has separated into two selves?