1984 #8

Chapter 8 of Orwell's 1984 explores Winston's involvement with the Brotherhood. Winston discovers that O'Brien has plotted against the Party, and is involved in an organization to overthrow Big Brother. When Julia and Winston arrive at O'Brien's flat, they learn about the Brotherhood and what it means to be in an organization that is dead to the Party. When describing the objectives of the Brotherhood, O'Brien asks, "'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases- to do anything which is likely to cause demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?''' (Orwell 172). The Brotherhood is risking their lives to weaken Big Brother and the government. They are willing to do everything in their power to make sure that life will be worth living again. Winston and Julia agree to these terms, however they are not ready to separate and never see eachother again. O'Brien has made sure that they both fully understand the consequences of being in such a dangerous organization under the watchful eye of the Thought Police.

These three chapters of Orwell's 1984 were of particular interest to me. Orwell further explored Winston and Julia's relationship, and explained a dream Winston had regarding his childhood. One specific thing that stood out to me was the contrasting ideas with the snow globe. The narrator uses the snow globe one way to demonstrate Winston and Julia's love: "Getting there was difficult and dangerous, but the room itself was a sanctuary. It was as when Winston had gazed into the heart of the paperweight, with the feeling that it would be possible to get inside that glassy world..." (Orwell 151). We know that the globe is glass, therefore unbreakable and think, yet transparent, just like the love the two share. The narrator also uses the snow globe in describing Winston's dream: "It was a vast, luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him...It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the done of the sky..." (160). Winston's childhood was a dark and depressing time. He was a troubled child who one day returned home to find his mother and sister gone. After reading this quote and about Winston's dream, I immediately thought back to the quote above and realized that the globe was used to describe different things: love and Winston's childhood.

1984 #6

After reading these two chapters of Orwell's 1984, I realized how different the idea of love is in Winston's world compared to mine. Although having a relationship with someone who is of a different age is common, the idea of love is different in the ways that Winston has to hide his relationship with Julia. In modern times, the representation of love is advertised on television, in books, movies, and in many other ways. In 1984, Winston is looking for someone that shares his common views about the Party and how corrupt the government is. The narrator says, "She hated the Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words, except the ones that had passed into everyday use" (Orwell 131). Athough Julia is from a different generation than Winston is, she seems to follow the same customs as Winston does, as if it was before the Party took power. Winston finally has someone that shares the same opinions as he does, as he can now turn to someone instead of keeping everything to himself.

1984 #4

After finishing Book 1 of Orwell's 1984, I realized what a different world Winston lives in compared to our modern day America. In these two chapters, the narrator discusses Winston's journey in the land of the proles, at the bar with the old man who discusses his childhood, and at the antique store where he bought his journal. When Winston picks up the children's book with Big Brother's portrait on the cover, he thinks, "In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it...And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right" (Orwell 80). This shows that members of the party are terrified to think about anything against the Party. If the Party says something that the people know is not true, such as two plus two is five, they have no choice but to believe it.

1984 #3

These two chapters in Orwell's 1984 were of particular interest to me. In chapter 5, the narrator describes a man named Syme, whom Winston speaks to in the lunch room. Syme was talking to Wilson about the Eleventh Edition, which is a dictionary. He says, "'We're getting the language into its final shape- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we're finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words...cutting the language down to the bone"" (Orwell 50). This quote shows that the government in the 1984 world wants everyone to be the same, and to conform to "their" idea of the perfect citizen. When Syme says "people like you", I assumed it was Winston's generation because Winston knew what the world was like before a totalitarian government took over.

1984 #2

Chapters two, three, and four gave me a closer and more detailed vision of the world projected in Orwell's 1984. In the novel, Winston is trapped in this world by the propaganda depicting Big Brother, causing him to become paranoid by the thought of the Thought Police. The narrator says, "Even from the coin the eyes [of Big Brother] pursued you...Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was yours except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull" (Orwell 27). This quote from the book shows that Winston can never be alone without being watched by Big Brother. Even when this quote says "Nothing was yours except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull", it is not necessarily true. This is because people in this world are scared to thing against conformity because of the Thought Police. Even the thoughts of the people are not necessarily "safe."

1984

After reading chapter 1 of George Orwell's 1984, I have come to discover that the world of the novel is much different and disturbing compared to the world that we live in today. Orwell discusses powerful leaders, distinct political parties, and harsh punishment for not following the ruler's strict laws. In the beginning of the novel, Orwell describes the world as a dismal, dark place: "Outside,...the world looked cold....there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner...BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own" (Orwell 2). The thought of Winston's world being that depressing is disturbing. The propaganda posters of "Big Brother" being everywhere seems that it intimidates the people having to look at them.