Friday, February 1, 2008

Tragic Ending

While reading the book, the whole time, I just knew the story was going to end badly. The actual ending was not near as bad as I was expecting. I thought for sure D-503 was going to die, most likely under the Benefactor's Machine from all of his excapades. The story built up and up and then kind of gently ended in an unexpected way. D-503 finally begins to understand his "soul" and feel emotions, fear, jelousy, rage and see the flaws of the One State. Just as he seems to see life and the world in a different way, a way that is more clear to him with "no infinity," the operation is forced on him. After the operation D appears to be very happy, very submissive, and seems to be the ideal citizen he thought he was towards the beginning of the book. This hardly seems to be the tragic ending I expected out of this book. On the other hand though, seeing the changes D has made, especially from his point of view, definately caused his zombie-like transformation from the operation to seem tragic. And it was hard not to feel bad for I-330 as she was tortured by the benefactor to find out more about the enimies of happiness while D-503, or at least his body, sat there and watched with no reaction to what was going on. I pictured it as seeing a dead person; the body is familiar, but it is no longer the person you know. Overall, the ending was unexpected, and definatley is considered tragic in my eyes.

1 comment:

Brian M said...

I had the same feeling as I finished reading D's "happy" ending. I wanted D to escape with I-330 or die trying. It seemed as if he took the easy way out...by choosing "happiness" over an uncertain fate.