Did you predict Winston would get caught from the beginning?
The government can really destroy you with their best abilities and this is their point of making you follow their rules and propaganda. The party completely destroys Winston. He was broken. The whole point to his torture was to break him and to destroy his sense of self, to make him not only an example to others but to crush his identity and make him happy to be broken. In the end, his joy was the complete destruction of his mind, his ultimate defeat and the victory of the state over the individual himself. One of the party's main goals was to take away Julia and make Winston go against her. He is released to her, but he feels absolutely nothing for her. We see Julia at the very end of the book as well, and can get a picture of her physical appearance, and she mentions things so you can infer what happened to her. "her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple...her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way, had stiffened...her body felt like [a corpse]." It is very sickening that they had the capability to do this. A great number of memories appear in Winston's head. At first he remembers a day from his childhood, before his mother disappeared. It was a memory of joy, and Winston "pushed the picture out of his mind. It was a false memory. He was troubled by false memories occasionally." Or at least that is what they tell him.
Of course, this was a real memory, but he has now been "trained" to believe in only the thoughts that go with the Party's goals, which means forgetting all that made Winston unique because no one can be an individual person. They say no one at the Ministry of Love murdered Winston, even though O'Brien threatened that Winston would eventually be shot. But O'Brien and the Ministry of Love did murder Winston. They murdered who he really was. At the end of the book, Winston isn't someone who can think for himself. He is like a puppet for the party. He is now never going to be the same Winston, now loving Big Brother forever. Winston's self is the part that makes him human and unique, the real Winston that is dead and not coming back.
It is sad to say all all around the world, parts of 1984 have become and are becoming a reality of todays society. As shown in 1984, there is no loyalty. While torturing Winston, O'Brien says “No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend... there will be no loyalty except, for loyalty for the party. There will no love, except the love for Big Brother.” Although, we do trust our loved ones, many do have loyalty/trust issues due to lack of qualities some people have because that is how their lives have always been.
Overall, what did you think about 1984? Do you think it is becoming a sad reality from 1984 turning into today's world?
This post was very interesting, it made me think more. I personally did feel like Winston was going to get caught ever since he started writing in his diary. There was soo many scenes where it foreshadowed what would happen. One of the biggest clues I found was that when Winston met up with O'Brien, he asked him if he would meet him in the "place where there is no darkness". And near the end, when he was at the Ministry of Love,they started torturing him. Ironically...that was the place. It used double-speak because NO darkness, technically meant the DARKEST place. I don't think our world would ever get to a point where the government would control our minds.1984 was a cool book to read, many twist and turns :)And it got your minds thinking.
ReplyDelete