The Unbearable lightness of being - Thomas and Teresa

Within the opening pages of the novel

the unbearable lightness of being

we are introduced into the basis of the novel and two of the main characters.

The basis of the novel consists of the philosophical view of the way one looks at life. The Idea is that every person has a kind perspective that they see the world through, lightness and heaviness. People who look at the world with a heaviness attached to every event that occurs believe in a repetition of all the 'heavy' events that occur. The people who's perspective is more towards the lightness end of the scale tend to not think through their actions and take events as they are produced.

If we look at this idea through the two characters we are introduced to - Thomas and Teresa we can see Thomas is a man of lightness and Teresa a woman who sees the occurrence of events through the heaviness perspective. These philosophical differences in beliefs show an interesting relationship that is emerging. We can see from the very beginning of the text that as soon as Thomas is influenced by Teresa he sees a heaviness in the world, even if it was a brief moment of contemplation of Teresa "offering him up her life".

definitions - points of view, dialogue, narration and extended metaphor

Points of view: (narrative) the perspective used by the author of a literary, theatrical or other piece of writing to convey the story to the audience.

Dialogue: a conversational exchange between two or more characters, A singular character being expressed through his thoughts is using interior monologue.

Narration: a recital of events that have been constructed into a format that is sequenced, narration can be of fictional or non-fictional events


Extended Metaphor: Metaphor that is sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or throughout the whole written piece.

First look - We (record One and Two) & We Modern vs ancient

We - first look

Method of narration - first person
Types of language showing through - mathematical and idiomatic language

other ideas -
Irony
Conformity

key word -
dichotomy

The first look we get into the world of One State is through a news article that D 503 has copied word for word. The article allows us an insight into how the One state is run. We see the One State as a totalitarian state, the control even the newspaper has over the people controlling all the information they know about the world they live in.

The One State also differs dramatically from the world we would imagine as the 'perfect' world. We would imagine freedom as the key aspect to this world where as the one state controls nearly every minute of the lives of the people living there. This changes the view on everything we see in the text as our perception on their world is that it is wrong as we have been brought up with different values on what the world should be like.

In Record Two the paragraph starts with D-503 describing spring, the way he looks into spring for a small moment allows D-503 to break away from the mathematical way life is usually seen through, "the wind brings the yellow honey-dust". After the short poetic burst D-503 goes back to talking through logically about the world around him. We also see that D-503 sees the integral as more than a mathematically designed machine but more as a piece of art.

We modern vs Ancient:
The main thing we see about the modern in We is the Green wall. The Green wall symbolizes the divide between the 'modern' city and the way the world used to be in the ancient times outside the on the 'wild' side. The wall acts as a sort of seperation of values and lifestyles, it creates a barrier stopping all of the information from the outside getting into One State thus stopping corruption of residents and also allows full diplomatic control.

In the modern all of the buildings are made of 'glass' eliminating privacy within the ciphers own homes. In addition privacy is eliminated in public as all ciphers have to walk in fours, thus stopping private conversations that could be enforcing ideas that contradict the diplomatic way. In addition ciphers have an individual schedule preventing them from having time to think outside of the benefactors way.

In contrast the people living outside of the wall are living similar lives to the way we do now 'ancient'. These people believe in freedom,privacy and individuality - the compete opposite of the way the people inside the glass wall are being forced to live. These ancient values have been twisted in the one state to show the people there that the other way of life will corrupt them as people and make them 'bad' people. The Journey D-503 is taken on however is something that the One State did not think of - the minutes of free time there schedules do allow is enough to let D-503 be taken on a journey showing him what the other side is truely like.

femme fatale and fredrick winslow taylor

femme fatale: an irresistibly attractive woman, esp. one who leads men into difficult, dangerous, or disastrous situations; siren.

I-330 can be related to femme fatale as she is a woman who is leading D-503 into situations that are dangerous,difficult and disastrous and ontop of that life threatening. The way I-330 draws D-503 in with her looks is her attractiveness and especially her eyes which are intriguing to him.

Fredrick Winslow Taylor -
He was a mechanical engineer who goal was to improve the efficiency of the industrial world. He liked the idea of controlling the industrial world. He liked to be able to control aspects of the mechanical process into time. He liked to plan time by the hundredth of a minute this way he could control every aspect of what was happening.

This relates to We as the lives of the ciphers is controlled with there daily routine - but unlike fredrick winslow taylor the ciphers have small amounts of free time that are unaccounted for. This time i swhat enabled I-330 and D-503 to question the world they were living in, this shows us that we can never truely have control of someones life and thoughts unless we control every second of it.

Often the setting in a text will carry symbolic significance, supporting as well the writer's key themes. Discuss these concepts in the light of The Sorrow of War.

A place of being can haunt those who visit even if the buildings are gone. Because of the third dimension of belief in the country of Vietnam, even if there is no physical presence of being trauma cannot be erased as it lives on in memories and the presence an area has. " set the village alight to cleanse it. but after the fire the soldiers were still terrified". This concept shows that no matter how hard you try to get rid of the past the place will forever hold a significance as memories last forever. War permeates this as trauma is trigger when we go to the place it occurred.
If a person who did not know the history of what happened in that area so they have a different mind set no memories to be triggered only the memories being created. The past is something that can forever haunt us and in war you have no distractions war becomes your life.

The Sorrow of War extra reading

I chose this book as it has given me more insight into what the Vietnam war as a whole and then there is a page (92) on the sorrow of war

. This page made "the sorrow of war" more real to me as it explained to me more about the Vietnam war so that the context of the book has become more realistic. I believe this extra reading has also added to my full understanding of the war putting the life of Kien into perspective.

The History of the war also means that because of the non linear timeline throughout the book I was able to gain more understanding of what was going on around the same time period as the war lasted for such a long period.

An aspect I found interesting in "The Sorrow of War" is the extended metaphor of the river. The text even though has a non-linear time frame is tied together by Bao Ninh in other ways like the use of extended metaphors.

The extended metaphor of the river is telling the audience about how turbulent war is and like a river there are twists and turns. It is used to show the audience that life after the war is changed.

The River is ever present throughout the piece after war has occurred. This is showing the audience that war will be ever present in your life. The River is also in the background which could be representing the river in the background of your mind and life affecting all that you do.

If we look at the metaphor at the beginning of the book we see Kien sitting on the river bank fishing. The river in this scene shows Kien thinking about the war. Even in this beautiful moment the war is still ever present. It doesn't matter where you run or push the thoughts in your mind the war always haunts you.