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.