"Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work; a few thoughtless people commented on his absence. On the next day nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the notice board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had been one. It looked almost exactly as it had looked before – nothing had been crossed out – but it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme had ceased to exist; he had never existed." (122)
We were first introduced to Syme in book 1, chapter 5. Syme was a language expert and was fine tuning the new language he was trying to implement on society. Winston described Syme as someone who was very intelligent and he thought his brain would pose a danger to Syme. Coming back to book 2, chapter 5, we see that Syme has been erased from the record books. Big Brother stripped away any evidence that proved Syme was an actual person and buried it deep down where no one else would find it. This goes with Big Brother's method of structure. Whenever there was a person who had the potential to think for themselves, Big Brother would eliminate them so that their ideals would not spread.
I like that you brought this quote up because Winston had actually predicted that Syme would be vaporized. I agree with you about Big Brother eliminating people who are a threat about spreading their ideals. I think more importantly, it’s the independent way of thinking that got Syme vaporized. Syme portrayed himself openly which wasn’t a great thing because in the end he got vaporized. I’m pretty sure people were starting to wonder what had happened to Syme, so I liked that you brought this quote up.
ReplyDeleteHi Jason! I liked the quote that you chose since this quote was a quote that I was going to choose before I chose the one for my own blog. Also, I like your response since it was short and sweet in the way that you got straight to the point without any other distractions surrounding it. In my opinion, when I first read this quote I was quite surprised that Syme was really vaporized. I couldn't come to the conclusion that Syme out of all people would be vaporized, but in your response you basically said what I realized with great thought. It is true that Syme was vaporized due to his high intellect. It is crazy to see that the Party would rather vaporize people than take advantage of the intellect that some people have. Some like you said was intelligent, but the Party saw his intelligence as a threat to society so they had to eliminate him.
ReplyDeleteThrough reading about Syme and how the Party eliminates people from Oceania just like that, I see it quite crazy that they have the ability to kill, and get rid of any past history of Syme. It makes others who don't know Syme seem as if he never ever existed in society. Only the ones that knew him acknowledged his disappearance, but through the power of the Records Department, they have the power to do anything even if it is to depict a person never existed. This quote that you found made me instantly think of the story that we read in the beginning of the school year during flex week since that particular story's government treated their intelligent people almost the same as how Syme was treated. The only difference is that Syme was instantly vaporized. In the story that we read, they were given weights to 'balance' their intelligence with people without a good sense of intellect. It shows in these two stories that the government fears for the intelligent since they fear they can outsmart them. Unfortunately, it is crazy that the people that we should take advantage of is vaporized or has to go through a multitude of distress just for their intelligence.
All in all, your blog was very good since it was short and sweet. I enjoyed reading it and connecting it to the story that we read previously. I hope to read your blog next week.
This quote reminded me of the article we read during flex week about how the government purposely handicap intelligent people but in this case vaporized them. The execution that the party had was rather subtle yet impacted the world of 1984 since others appeared to not care or had not noticed the absence of Syme.
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