Response 10

I hate the ending of the book.  I honestly threw my book across the room.  I was waiting for Winston to break the system and change the ways of the Party forever.  I had hope in Winston.  I really thought that he was the only one that could make things different. Now, all hope is gone.  I did not understand what O'Brien meant when he said that they did not execute people.  While Winston was being reeducated and tortured he asked if he would be executed.  O'Brien explained to him that they did not execute people.  They break the people down and teach them to love Big Brother.  It is when they are broken and soulless that they are executed.  Winston was not killed physically, but mentally and emotionally.  He is not the same person that he was before.  He thinks, acts, and believes differently now.  It really struck me when Winston talked to Julia.  I thought that there would still be some sort of attraction between them.  Winston and Julia admit that they betrayed each other.  It was at the moment that they wished that the other person be harmed instead of them that the betrayal occurred.  "All you care about is yourself."  This is a very powerful line because it illustrates what the Party was trying to force Winston to do the whole time.  As long as Winston does not care about anyone other than himself, he is no longer a threat to the Party.  Winston is now all like the other people.  He shuts the memories out of his head and is no longer concerned about why things are the way that they are.  Winston is a new person now.  O'Brien tells Winston during his interrogation that Winston cannot save himself.  He says that no one who has gone astray is ever spared.  O'Brien says that even if they were to let Winston live out his life he would never escape the Party.  "What happens here is forever." The use of torture and brainwashing killed Winston.  It eliminate his desire for love, truth, and feeling.  Winston's mind was manipulated and he is changed forever.

Response 9

The psychological manipulations play a major role in 1984.  It is through the manipulations that the people of Oceania are controlled.  The Party has a hold on every aspect of their lives: emotional and physical.  The Party has found a way to control not only how people think but also how they feel.  Their control their thoughts, actions, language, impulses, desires, and reasoning.  The posters of Big Brother placed everywhere remind the people that they are constantly being watched which prevents them from doing anything that the Party deems as unacceptable.  Their minds have been altered to the point that there is no longer any individuality.  They are manipulated to think, act, and say as the Party does.  The scary thing is that the people do so unconsciously.  They do not know what it feels like to think their own thoughts and decide their own actions.  The propaganda that the Party feeds it's people has strangled the people.  The people are taught that whatever the Party says is true so if the Party says that two plus two equal five then that is the truth.  The telescreeens monitor every second of the people's lives.  In chapter 9 it talks about how the invention print made it easier to manipulate the public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further.  The people are constantly reminded that they are under the control of Big Brother who is always watching over them.  The Party has destroyed the minds of the children and succeeded in turning them into products of the Party system.  The children have no idea how to think other than how the Party thinks and believe other than the Party believes.  The children are brainwashed and stripped of all human nature.  The children turn against their parents and are the biggest advocates of the Party.  However, I do not fear that our country will ever have to worry about this happening to us.  Our country has been founded on the basis that all men are created equal and we are guaranteed individual freedoms and rights.  The government may be able to control some of our actions through laws and regulations, but they can never control the way that we think.  On the contrary, what if everything that we believe to be true is a lie.  Maybe the version of history that we were taught was revised to favor our nation's own beliefs.  Possibly we are the unconscious one's that are under the psychological manipulation of a supreme ruling.

Response 8

Graduation is right around the corner and I have to deliver a speech for graduation.  The choices for my speech were either past, present, or future.  I had a while to decide which speech that I chose so I weighed my options.  I could talk about the past and give a brief overview of what has brought us up to this point.  I could talk about the present and where we are in our lives at this point. My last option was to talk about the future and where we would be going with our lives.  I decided to talk about the future.  After reading 1984 my feelings on the past have changed greatly.  Does the past really matter?  In 1984 the past is merely just a creation of the Party.  The past can be rewritten and altered.  The past is of no importance.  What happened yesterday is over and done with.  Nothing that we do now can change what happened yesterday.  What has passed is in the past.  Does it really matter who invented airplanes?  It did not matter to Julia when Winston was talking about the ways of the Party.  It has no direct effect on our lives and it would not change the way that we live now in the present and how we live in the future.  The past is just a collection of memories.  The memories are unique to the individual, but to the whole they are of little importance.  This is why the Party tries so hard to eliminate the individual's memory.  It is crucial to their structure that there be no independent thought and no ideas that exist other than the Party's.  Without memory people cannot know the past.  Because the Party controls the past they also control the present.  The memory holes are very important for the Party because they eliminate the chance of anything existing in the past or present that is not created by the party.  The past is history.

Response 7

War is Peace.  Unlike everyone else in the class, I actually found this excerpt from Goldstein's book to be quite interesting.  To me, it really was the point when I became aware of the Party's true colors.  I must admit that some of their tactics are actually quite intelligent.  Their war tactics are very well thought out and accomplish their task very effectively.  The war is necessary for the Party to maintain their strength and control that they have over the people.  The war itself is not the important part.  The fighting, the bloodshed, and the science behind it the war are of small importance when compared to the psychological hold that it places on the people.  The war must be fought in order to keep the people under control and give them a common enemy.  I couldn't help but think of the 9/11 conspiracy theory when I read about the way that Oceania fights war.  People believe that Bush ordered the bombs just as Julia stated that the Party possibly bombed its own people.  The bombs may cause physical destruction, but the emotional gain from the bombs is what the target is.  The party is able to unite its people under a common enemy and that is what holds their system of governing together.  The strategy of the Party is to fuel the hatred of the population against the enemy through the state of constant war.  In my opinion, this is a very clever strategy.   I feel like the saying War is Peace also applies to our military system here in the United States.  Our country has military stationed in countries that are considered war torn or of a threat.  The purpose of our troops there is to maintain the peace.  In this sense, war is peace even in today's society.

Response 6

As I sit in the nook area doing my homework I look out the window at the house across the street.  It's a simple house of your standard middle class American.  The mail man pulls up to the driveway and puts the mail in the mailbox.  A man comes out in a wheelchair and reaches for the mail.  He can't quite reach it, but extends a bit more and is able to get it.  As a realize what I am doing I realize that this is exactly what Winston is doing at the beginning of chapter 10.  I never realized the significance of him watching the woman until I took the time to do the same.  The woman is just going through the motions of everyday life: hanging the clothes on the clothesline and singing to herself.  The proles have stayed human.  They understand what it means to love and give of oneself.  The Party has not brainwashed them and convinced them that mere impulses and feelings were of no account. They care about individual relationships, helpless gestures, embraces, and the true valuable things in life.  They did not become hardened inside.  They do not have wealth or power, but they do not wish to.  They have everything that they need.  The proles had managed to hold onto the important things in life and still had morals and feelings.  If Orwell is comparing Americans to the proles, I believe that we are doing just fine.  I understand that this book is a warning and we should take precautions, but I feel like we aren't quite to the point where our lives are in danger.  As long as we care about each other and love deeply we, the proles, have succeeded.

Response 5

If you keep the small rules, you can break the big ones.  This quote from page 129 really struck me.  As soon as a read it I began to reflect upon how this pertains to our lives.  It is so common for people to go through the motions and do just enough to get by.  This is similar to following the small rules.  If a person does just enough to get by, he or she is then able to do whatever they please after that.  I think of teenagers when I think about this quote.  Teenagers are so good at camouflaging their personal life from their parents or adults.  Just because a person acts a certain way in public does not mean that is a true reflection of their personality. Julia fits this criteria well.  She participates in the Minutes Hate and works with the Junior Anti-Sex league.  She makes banners, volunteers her time, and collects for the savings campaigns . She does so well at covering up her true self.  By following all of the small rules and meeting all of the criteria that is required of a party member, she is able to break the big rules. However, I wonder if she will get caught breaking the big rules.  She is taking a major risk by being with Winston and all of the other men because they are witnesses to her crime.  I feel like sooner or later she is going to get caught for her actions.  After time, she will become so accustomed to breaking the big rules that she will slip up.  Even the smallest hiccup may mean that Julia's fate is death.  The rules are one of the major reasons that Julia states that she hates the party.  She says how they are restricting the people of all happiness.  She is able to survive because of her ability to disguise herself.   If a person masks their actions and feelings, he or she can accomplish anything.  Rules breed rebellion.

Response 4

What is love?  After reading the first two chapters of part two this question has been running through my mind.  Julia gives Winston a note which states, "I love you."  I love you.  Three words, but yet they have such an impact on Winston.  He starts making rash decisions and acts out in desperation in order to ensure that he and Julia can meet.  I find it hard to believe that Julia truly "loves" Winston.  After all, she hardly know the man.  Winston asks Julia what attracted her to a man like her on page 122 and Julia claims that it was something that she saw in his face.  She said that she though she would take a chance and she could tell that he was against the party.  Is this enough to love someone?  Julia even admits that she has been with numerous men, but yet she is in love with Winston.  If Orwell wrote this book as a warning to us to never become like this, than what could be meant by this?  Many of Orwell's predictions have proven to be true in today's world and it scares me to think that one day there will be no such thing as love.  To me, love is caring for a person and doing whatever it takes to make the person happy.  Love is a feeling rather than a thing.  When Julia wrote the note that said I love you it made me think.  Do we throw around the phrase I love you too much?  I see so many people that claim to love others or care for them, but in reality they do not matter to them one bit.  It is sad to see that love is being thrown around so much to the point that is will have no real meaning or feeling associated with it.  At this point, I really hope that Julia is not just messing with Winston.  No one deserves to be stabbed in the back like that.  I feel like Winston is feeling something for Julia, but she does not share the same feelings.  Julia is more concerned about herself.  She falls asleep when he is talking and on page 153 it talks about how Julia is questions the teachings of the Party when it touched upon her own life.  Julia is only worried about herself and her sexual pleasures.  Winston describes love on page 164, "If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love." Winston knows what love is from his memories of his mother.  She was the example of love to him.  Julia on the other hand, was raised a different way and never had a real taste of what love is.  You must be human to love.

Response 3

The Socratic Circle that we did in class on Thursday brought up many questions.  I started to think about Orwell's motives behind writing this book.  In class we talked about how he wrote this as a warning.  It was meant to open people's eyes and remind them to never let themselves get to the point where they act like the characters in the book.  It is scary to think that the proles are based off of the American people.  We have sports, booze, sex, and gambling which Orwell states is all that we need to be happy.  I would like to think that we are different than this, but in an honest opinion what Orwell is saying is partially true.  Chapter sever opens up with a quote by Winston that says, "If there is hope, it lies in the proles."  Since starting the book, this has always been my thought.  I realize I may be crazy for thinking this, but I see potential in the proles.  They account for about 85% of the population of Oceania which means that if they are united under a common cause they could overthrow the government.  The problem with the proles is that they simply do not care.  They have everything that they need to be happy and they don't really care about what they government is doing as long as they have their freedom.  One of the party's slogans is Freedom is Slavery.  So as long as the proles have their freedom they will remain manageable.  Winston writes that until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.  There has to be a way that Winston or someone can make the proles conscious.  Whether it be a leak of information or taking away their freedom.  I feel like taking away their freedom would fuel the rebellion.  If the freedom is what is enslaving them than when it is taking them they should actually be free and break into riot.  The truth will set them free.