Response 2

I have found myself thinking about the past a lot.  In the book, the past has a completely different meaning than what we are accustomed to.  Winston talks about the past as being a factor of the Party.  The party not only controls Oceania, but it controls the lives of everyone living there.  Because the party has control of the past they are able to control the people's thoughts, beliefs, and morals.  Winston's job deals a lot with the past.  He states that the past is always being up to date.  He goes into detail the type of work that he has to do and how that affects the lives of the people of Oceania. It is hard for me to understand how people can be vaporized.  This task seems impossible to me because no matter how hard you would try in today's world you could never erase someone.  Their life and their legacy will always have an impact on at least one person.  It may seem like they are gone, but they cannot be forgotten.  However, in the book the person's name is simply deleted from history and it seems as though they never existed.  The book even quotes, "He did not exist, he never existed." The history can be rewritten to reflect the wishes of the government.  When I think of history I think of something that is set in stone as an established truth.  In this book history is merely a set of lies that are accepted as the truth.  Winston says that the past had not merely been altered, it had been destroyed.  By this I think he means that everything that is true has been destroyed.  There is no way to bring back what was lost.  By altering the past, they are destroying it. The fact that everything that they know is based off of the past scares me.  It scares me that the past can be rewritten and it scares me that what the people believe is merely lies.  It bothers me that no one knows the truth.  It bothers me that Big Brother does not let anyone have access to the truth.  I feel like not even Big Brother knows the truth.  All of their lives are a lie.  If the people know that they were being deprived of knowledge and being spoon-fed a load of false information, I think that they could rally against the government.  It is because they do not have access to the truth and do not know what they are missing out on that they are so easily controlled.  Winston even states himself that no one knows and no one cares.  I feel like if they knew, things would be different.  Their lives would never be the same again.  I am curious to see if the truth will ever be released and what their reaction will be.