A hidden rebellion slowly spread through the glass city, proving that no system of control, however perfect it appears, can completely eliminate the deep human desire for authentic experience.
2Reading· 오늘의 본문
We · Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1924
The encounter with I-330 was not in the schedule. D-503, a loyal mathematician of the One State, felt a strange disturbance as she looked at him. Her smile was not the approved, rational smile. It held a secret, a challenge. She spoke of ancient music and irrational numbers, things forbidden by the Table of Hours. For the first time, D-503 felt something other than the clear, mathematical happiness of the State. A chaotic, warm feeling stirred within him—something like the 'soul' from the ancients. This meeting was the first crack in the glass wall of his perfect world. The hidden rebellion was not just outside; it had begun inside his own heart.
B2 · 128 wordsavg 25.6 w/s
The ostensibly chance encounter with I-330 serves as the catalytic moment for D-503's emotional and ideological awakening, marking the inception of the personal rebellion that mirrors the larger societal one. Her very presence, characterized by an unsanctioned irony and a gaze that penetrates his conditioned rationality, disrupts the harmonic predictability of his existence. Through her, he is exposed to the subversive concepts of beauty, passion, and individuality—all anathema to the One State's ethos of collective, transparent uniformity. This interaction awakens in him a profound and unsettling 'desire for' authentic experience, a yearning that the State's perfected systems of control were designed to extinguish. The glass city, a symbol of total surveillance and order, proves permeable to this virus of genuine human feeling, which begins its insidious spread first within the soul of its most logical citizen. What makes We endure as a work of literature is precisely this refusal to offer easy consolation — it demands that readers sit with the discomfort of a world that does not resolve neatly, and find their own position within it.
C1 · 170 wordsavg 34.0 w/s
3Vocabulary· 핵심 어휘 & 연습
rebellion
반란, 저항
A hidden rebellion began to spread through the city.
spread
퍼지다, 확산되다
The idea of freedom began to spread among the Numbers.
system
체계, 제도
The One State's system of control seemed perfect.
eliminate
제거하다, 근절하다
Can a political system eliminate human desire?
desire
욕망, 갈망
D-503 felt a new desire for something real.
Activity 1 · 빈칸 채우기5 questions
1. Every hour of D-503's life was carefully ____ by the Table of Hours.
2. The ____ of privacy did not exist in the One State.
3. Individual names were ____ and replaced with numbers.
4. The glass walls guaranteed there was no ____ for citizens.
5. The State was ____ declared to represent perfect happiness.