Little Brother

“The sound I got wasn’t even a busy signal – it was like a whimper of pain from the phone system.”

When Marcus attempts to contact 911 to report Darryl’s stabbing, he cannot get through. Personifying the phone system as a creature in pain demonstrates how broken the city is after the bombing, and the breakdown in technology creates a surreal mood for the teens.

“I didn’t know what a terrorist looks like, though TV shows had done their best to convince me that they were brown Arabs with big beards and knit caps and loose cotton dresses that hung down to their ankles.”

In this example of stereotyping, Marcus is confused about the clean-cut American looks of his captors. His remark demonstrates the power of the media in shaping common misperceptions about terrorism.

“‘What have you got to hide?’

‘I’ve got the right to my privacy.’”

Carrie postulates that only criminals would object to having their privacy invaded. Marcus’s insistence to not give up his password shows he understands that the right to privacy is not about hiding anything but about protecting a citizen’s dignity. Doctorow demonstrates the fallacy in the argument that if you have nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear; this argument suggests that everyone is under suspicion until proven innocent by search, when in reality, our system of justice assumes innocence until proven guilty.

“I thought I lived in a country with a constitution. I thought I lived in a country where I had rights. You’re talking about defending my freedom by tearing up the Bill of Rights.”

Marcus is frightened into nearly submitting to the DHS’s demand that he provide passwords to his phone until Carrie tells him that they are interrogating him to keep him safe. Marcus’s reply, which uses the rhetorical device of anaphora, emphasizes the concept of country, rights, and freedom, creating greater emotional pull.

“It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you.”

Again, Doctorow uses anaphora to emphasize the fallacy in the “nothing to hide” argument. By repeating the words “it’s about,” he is drawing attention to how privacy gives a sense of control over one’s life. This emphasis creates a sharp contrast with Marcus’s succeeding actions, in which he feels that he deserves what is being done to him and is grateful for basic rights, such as a shower and a meal.

“It felt so weird to have everything back in its familiar place, to be wearing my familiar clothes. Outside the truck’s back door, I heard the familiar sounds of my familiar city.”

Using repetition, Doctorow draws attention to Marcus’s return to the familiar elements of his life. Again, the repetition creates a contrast to the surrealistic experiences he has endured at the hands of the DHS. Describing familiarity as “weird” illustrates the disassociation Marcus is experiencing as he is returned to normal life.

“This is why I love technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.”

Marcus’s connection to technology defines him. When he creates a solution to the bug in his laptop, he feels in control of his circumstances for the first time since leaving the prison. Much of his empowerment comes from getting the best of the DHS by creating a workaround for their bug, but he also now has the privacy to wage war on his enemies anonymously.

“Why do we have cameras in our classrooms now? Terrorists. Of course. Because by blowing up a bridge, terrorists had indicated that schools were next.”

Marcus employs verbal irony when he echoes an argument that is based on a logical fallacy. While increased security on the streets for a limited period of time makes sense after the terrorist attack, putting cameras in the classroom to keep students safe from terrorists is a Fallacy of Composition argument; just because there were terrorists on the bridge does not mean that there are terrorists in the classroom. 

“My new handle, come up with on the spur of the moment, was M1k3y [...].”

Marcus’s new screen name is an allusion to Mikey Walsh in the 1985 movie The Goonies, a nerdy leader of a band of misfits who saves his town from greedy land developers. In the movie, Mikey searches for pirate treasure. In Little Brother, M1k3y uses a fake email address through a Swedish political party called Pirate Party, plays a windup pirate game called Clockwork Plunder, and his band of Xnetters creates pirate characters to interact on Xnet. 

“Abnormal is so common, it’s practically normal.”

This paradox examines the outdated idea of normality, or of conforming to the norms of society. However, Marcus notices that there so are many instances of abnormal traffic patterns or usage patterns that it is normal to be abnormal. To shift the definition of normal in San Francisco even more is just a small matter of coding.

“What’s the big deal? Would you rather have privacy or terrorists?”

Marcus’s father Drew employs an either/or logical fallacy in his argument in favor of increased DHS surveillance. This fallacy ignores the possibility that one can have both privacy and safety at the same time and reflects Drew’s irrational state of mind following the bombing. 

“I was no better than a terrorist.”

Marcus’s discovery that four Xnetters were nearly captured and sent away forever by the DHS is a sobering reminder of his obligation towards the movement he has started. His instructions taught the four teens how to jam arphids, and they were acting on his behalf; if they had been captured, he would have been to blame for their deaths. This moment marks the progression in his evolution as a leader and the beginning of a newfound maturity. 

“She explains Americans for a living, and she said that these days it was better to do that from home, where she didn’t have to actually see any Americans or talk to them.”

Lillian’s career is based on sharing her knowledge of Americans with her fellow UK citizens. The irony is that she doesn’t seem to care for Americans in their present crisis at all, given that she doesn’t want to speak to or see them. Her unwillingness to be around Americans demonstrates the ugly nature towards “foreigners” of at least some of the citizens of San Francisco after the terrorist attack.

“After dark, there’s hardly anyone out there. It gets very cold, with a salt spray that’ll soak you to your bones if you let it. The rocks are sharp and there’s broken glass and the occasional junkie needle.

It is an awesome place for a party.”

Doctorow employs imagery to describe the bleak setting for Marcus’s key-signing party. The beach is described as hostile, freezing cold with sharp rocks and needles that can cut flesh. However, the irony is that Marcus believes it is perfect for a teen party, given that no adults will ever come out there after dark.

“Watching you try is like watching a bird fly into a window again and again.”

Jolu’s feelings about Marcus’s doomed campaign is compared in the simile to the torture of watching a free bird attempt the impossible, damaging itself in the process. Marcus, who is compared to a bird in the metaphor using zoomorphism, cannot see that what he is striving for is nothing more than a reflection in the glass. The sentence encapsulates Jolu’s feelings of compassion for Marcus and his perception of Marcus as a free spirit engaged in a futile struggle.

“When they think of someone being spied on, they think of someone else, a bad guy. When they think of someone being caught and sent to a secret prison, it’s someone else—someone brown, someone young, someone foreign.”

Van uses anaphora to explore the reason why people allow their rights to be stripped by governmental authority. Her repetition of “When they think” highlights the discrepancy between what they “think” and what is truth; it’s not that people different from them are criminals, but that people different from them are targeted. Marcus seizes this truth to begin his campaign to level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots by “jamming” their arphid data. 

“[...] there’s something about a girl and a night and a beach, plus she was smart and passionate and committed.”

Marcus’s lyrical ode to Ange on the night they meet uses parallelism to show Ange’s inner qualities are just as important as the fact that she is a girl in a romantic setting. That Marcus places importance on her brains and commitment shows his building maturity, compared to the beginning of the novel when he thinks it’s “sad” (16) that Darryl has fallen in love with Van’s mind rather than her body. 

“Don’t trust anyone over 25.”

Ange is alluding to Jack Weinberg’s Free Speech Movement’s slogan “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” The slogan reflects the frustration felt by youth activists, whose age oftentimes makes them less credible to an older and more settled populace. Ange believes that in current times, people turn into adults sooner, forgetting what it means to be young and viewed with suspicion all the time. 

“Head swimming, eyes running, a burning shame for having left all those Xnetters to the tender mercies of the DHS and the SFPD, I set off for home.”

Marcus’s decision to walk away from the protesters at Dolores Park renews his shame at his failure to fight against the DHS on Treasure Island. Traumatized by fear, Marcus cannot effectively lead the movement that he started with Xnet, and even though he recognizes the validity of his fear, it doesn’t make him any more comfortable about letting other people take the risks he is unwilling to take.

“Cameras filmed me as I went. My gait was recorded. The arphids in my student ID broadcast my identity to sensors in the hallway. It was like being in jail.”

The class discussion led by Mrs. Andersen infuriates Marcus, bringing to light the propaganda that Fred Benson is using in place of education in social studies. As Marcus walks to Benson’s office, the cameras, arphids, and gait recognition surveillance systems symbolize how the school suppresses freedom of speech to the point that education feels more like imprisonment.

“Holding in the secret had dirtied me, soiled my spirit. It had made me afraid and ashamed.”

Marcus still feels shame for his submission to Carrie in the prison, as well as crippling fear. When he tells his parents the truth, he is finally separating his identity from his behavior when he was incarcerated, which allows him to let go of the fear and shame. When he held the secret in, he couldn’t grow significantly as a character because of the negative feelings about himself, but now he has validation that he behaved in the only way he could to survive. 

“There was still light shining through the narrow, obstructed corridor that led to the fresh air outside.”

In the van, Marcus mulls over his choices and how they affect the people he loves. The light is a symbol of hope. It shines through what he believes are his narrow options in a metaphor that demonstrates that there is still a chance for him to find freedom outside of the confines of the escape van. When he chooses to stay and fight, it is indicative of his metamorphosis into a leader.

“It was practically illegal just to think impure thoughts about the government.”

Marcus’s hyperbolic assertion is an allusion to the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Much of Little Brother is a conversation with Orwell’s novel, including Marcus’s original screen name, w1n5t0n (Winston), also the name of the protagonist in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the earlier work, Thought Police arrest citizens who have unspoken beliefs that contradict the Party.