First one!!!!! I've never been first. so, here's my quote. "'Does [Big Brother] exist in the same way as I exist?' 'You do not exist,' said O'Brien... 'I think I exist,'... 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously. In that sense, does Big Brother exist?' 'It is of no importance. He exists.' 'Will Big Brother ever die?' 'Of course not. How could he die?'" (214)
So I don't know if I'm making a stretch but I definitely related to Big Brother to God when Winston was talking to O'Brien. the people are expected to believe and have their lives revolve around some entity they have never seen, heard or sensed whatsoever. When Winston was proving his existence, and talking about how two solids cannot occupy the same place at the same time means that he doubts Big Brother is real or tangible and if he were to exist everywhere like Jesus or God, and be 'with' everyone, he has to be some intangible spirit-like being. So it just sounded as if O'Brien was speaking of Big Brother as a god-like figure of adoration. Overall everyone is nothing compared to this god-like Big Brother, and to make sure everyone follows him in totality, they eradicate all aspects of life that could possibly weaken or distract a person's attention. By eradicating all forms of pleasure possible, Big Brother can rule everyone unquestionably. Hopefully this won't be accomplished in our lifetimes with small examples like the WASL and SATs Mr. Schindler. I'll try not to conform just for you. Molly Riegel
To reflect upon the book 1984, i will use the following quote: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
I believe this quote is extremely true throughout not only this book but the entire "genre" we have been discussing in class. The party uses this slogan as false history in order to break down the citizens. They control the present, meaning they can control the past. By controlling the past, they can make up whatever they want too. The party basically rewrites the history books to their liking.
As a whole I believe that this book is an eye-opener for people. We get to see what things could be like when people stop fighting for what they believe in and let others "push" them around.
Quote: "If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are nonexistent" -O'Brien pg. 222
I feel like this quote really explains a lot about the book 1984. Here O'Brien explains to Winston during one of his conscious intervals in his torture, that Winston is the last man on the earth. He is alone in his thinking and feeling. This can be used to understand how Winston is apparently a single person who stands outside of the Party and its ideals that must be fixed. Winston, who only believes what he thinks is right, doesn't allow himself to be brainwashed into believing things that don't make sense (like 2+2=5) that the party claims to be the truth. This quote also shows the power that the Party and its members have. O'Brien explains that they are the inheritors, they take the world from ordinary men with feelings such as Winston and change it into what they want it to be. This quote finally shows how the Party tries to break its followers down by making them feel like they can't survive without the Party. O'Brien tells Winston that he is alone, but Winston, unlike most other subjects of the Party, doesn't coward away from this statement. Perhaps we could say that Winston's ability to believe in his own ideals even though he is the only one and his ideals are in opposition with the Party's ideals could show the power that one voice has in the world of change.
My idea is that in the torture scene 1984 very much resembles Cuckoos Nest. O'Brian is telling Winston how he doesn't "merely exract [a] confession" but his goal is to "cure" them. I thought of how Big Nurse was trying to cure the committed, people that were just different from the combine of 1950s society. This is on a more extreme level of course, but still using torture, to retrain Winston to stay within the orthodoxy of The Party. O'Brian tells Winston, "the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.(209)"
Another thing I found interestign was the reason they decided to do this. They learned from the past mistakes of the Nazis and Communists; they do not allow any martyrs. This part doesnt relate to Cuckoos Nest as much because I think that McMurphy could be seen as a martyr.
A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police. pg. 216
This quote explains about the book as a whole in the fact that the society that exists in Oceania is one of fear and dislike. People in the community and in the party live under fear of Big Brother and the control of the party. People are brainwashed to believe everything that the party tells them. This is because the people are under complete control of the party and this is why the party succeeds with such power over the entire Oceania.
"There are three stages in your reintegration, said O'Brien. There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second stage" (215).
As the book comes to an end, Winston is confronted with O'Brien. All he wants is to convince Winston to believe in the fake world with Big Brother prevailing. This quote represents the Party's ideal integration of all the members. Winston is at the stage of understanding and by the end of the book accepts the ideas. I enjoyed this book overall and it really made me think how a world like this could actually exist.
I would like to discuss the striking similarities between 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. Both have leaders (the party and big nurse) that are outnumbered but rule nonetheless by instilling fear in the public/patients. Even the the prollys are greater in number than members of the party, the fact that the prollys are in constant fear and disorganization keeps them at bay. The Party is sure to keep the public in line and smothers any doubt or questioning that individuals may have about the authenticity of the government. An example of keeping fear in the publics' eye is, "Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counterrevolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared."
"You hate [Big brother]. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him; you must love him." -O'Brian page 232
I think the main issue with the novel was control. Big Brother, whomever he/she/it may represent, tries very hard to control everything. Thoughts, emotions, war, conflict, language, even the course of history.
This is seriously alluded to in the Metal Gear Solid series, as the secret organization known as the Patriots, the true power-holders of America, try to control everything. Their goal is to seize control over the digital world in order to rewrite history in a way that they see fit. In addition, they use technology to take control of soldiers. Taking control of the battlefield wins them the war, and gives them the power to shape future history.
this is very similar to 1984, as Big Brother, whom we can safely say si the dominant ruler of their society, has control of virtually everything, right down to human emotion and thought. If the novel was written for any specific reason, it was probably against the idea of complete control over the people of a society as depicted in this novel.
'Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But is was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He ha won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother" (245).
I think that the above quote reflects not only on the ending of 1984, but on the constant struggle Winston had against the party. Obviously he lost in the end, as they changed his thoughts and made him love the party. One can not tell if he is faking this affection or not, but I do not think that he is. I think that it is ironic that earlier in the book Winston and Julia spoke of how no mater what, the party would not be able to change their thoughts, and how finally in the end Winston changed his so drastically. I think that it is a reflection of the book because no matter what or who you are it is a message that in a society like this there can be no rebels and that everyone conforms to all of the set rules.
"It might be a long time," said O'Brien. " You are a difficult case. But Don't give up hope. Everything is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." p 226 This quote I think sums up the government and how much control they have over the people. He says it doesn't really matter because in the end were just gonna shoot you. When you think about how much power that is and how the government knows it and says it like its no big deal. It would be terrible to live in a world where the government will just shoot you after all the tourture just because they can.
"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation-anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if i wished to. I do not wish to, because the party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about laws of nature. We make the laws of nature."
This quote is important because throughout the book we see the power that the party has over everyone. This quote proves that absolute power is the goal of the party. The party tries to control the thoughts of everyone because if they control the thoughts then they have absolute power. It is also important how O'Brien says that they make the laws of nature because it goes back to that concept that 2+2=5 if they say it does. Whatever the party says goes, because there is no one else to say that it is wrong. The party has control over what people think and the information that they have that gives them the ability to form thoughts, so essentially the party has control over everything.
"Not room 101!...Do anything to me! You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want....but not room 101" (195).
I think this quote shows a lot of foreshadowing in the book. And later we find out that they strap you down and do horrible things to them. And Winston is in the same situation as this man and ends up being just as horrified and even tells them to do it to Julia and not him. I thought this was interesting because I always thought he was a lot stronger than that and was more determined to disobey or fight the party more than he showed then. This may even be the final end of Winston which would be interesting because it is a lot like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. And it seems like the theme for all these books is that one always has to take the fall for fighting against the power.
This is pretty obvious but basically what sums up the book for me is the quote "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." (Pg 87) This is a theme repeated throughout the entire novel. This represents the basic party goals as they want each individual to have the same views, to not feel things and to be loyal and faithful to Big Brother. Winston decides to band with the brotherhood and question the idea of war, decide in order to be free he cannot be enslaved by higher governmental figures, and to not be ignorant about what is going on in his life. This book was very interesting as it kind of can connect to our lives today in an indirect way as we our someone limited by the government in our action.
The main theme that continued throughout the book was the complete control and power of the party by controlling everyone’s thoughts through doublethink. The power of the party had been proved by the end of the book when the really did get inside Winston’s mind and make him not only think but believe the lies of the party. A quote to support this is, “’They can’t get inside you’, she had said. But they could get inside you. ‘What happens to you here is forever,’ O’Brian had said. That was a true word.” pg. 239 In the beginning, Winston was convinced that he was right about the party; that all of their principles were lies and that he had to rebel against the party to remain sane. The victory would be to overthrow the party by making the proles realize that it was all wrong. In the end he really believed that the struggle had been not with the party but with his own mind. They had gotten into his head and made him believe that the victory was won if he controlled his mind. “Everything was all right, the struggle was finished, He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” pg. 245
"And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself." (240)
This quote, from Julia to Winston shows that the Party can not only control the actions of its members, but also their thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Winston seemed to think that he could outsmart the Party by adhering to the actions of a good party member, while simultaneously maintaining free thought. Obviously, Winston's belief is proved to be false, demonstrated through his betrayal of Julia and his love for Big Brother. Winston did not simply betray Julia on the surface, to get rid of the rats, he fully preferred for Julia to be punished rather than himself. Based on the ending of the book, Orwell shows that independent thought is not a given. Everybody is susceptible to control.
In Orwell's "1984", we see the ability of the party to control the human mind, and therefore seize absolute power amongst its citizens. When O'Brien is subjecting Winston to physical pain, he also comments on the following:
"You [Winston] believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right...It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party" (205).
He brainwashes Winston into blindly accepting all that the Party states to be true. However, it is clear that the real reality is true and the "Party-created-reality is false".
" 'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself (192)."
Parsons says this when Winston asks him what he's going to be under trial for. Parsons was a man who epitomized the goals of the party. He echoed every slogan, rallied around community causes and always obeyed Big Brother. When he is brought in for Thoughtcrime the reality of this unforigiving society becomes really apparent. We see that the party just wants to make robots of the citizens. The idea that anyone, no matter what their loyalty was subject to speculation in this oppressive society. The idea that you had be on the guard, watching your every action, word and even thoughts became the major factor. Orwell does a good job of using this book as warning for future societies, even though it is extreme in its way. The overall theme of oppressiveness and paranoia is tied together very well.
I also recognized that McMurphy and Winston are very similar. Both characters had their beliefs changed completely by a higher power. A quote from 1984 that I found somewhat creepy was "you hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him : you must love him." Winston is then sent to Room 101 where is tortured until he yells that he wants Julia to be tortured instead of himself and he ends up loving Big Brother. It is possible that he lies about loving Big Brother but I personally feel that he has snapped and fear has caused him to truly make himself believe that Big Brother is wonderful.
Overall I related most of this book back to Coo Coo's Nest or the first book we read over the summer, I'm having a brain fart I can't think of the name....anyways, the brain washing, the constant narrowing of the minds, all completely mimic (only in a sort of opposite way) the ideals of the futuristic and very much preplanned, predetermined world. SCARY.
"'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside you. 'What happens to you here is forever,' O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out." pp. 239
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
This quote serves to show that the physical pain of torture can surpass any loyalty that one may have to another. Both Winston and Julia reveal that they would betray the other in order to avoid torture, and would rather have it be done to the other person. By physically torturing, the Party was able to access and control thought as well, and thus gain control over one's feelings and emotions.
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.” This quote shows how the the past affects one’s attitude about the present. Winston just finished a conversation with an old man about life before the Revolution, and he realizes that the Party has deliberately set out to weaken people’s memories. If no one remembers life before the Revolution, then no one can say that the Party has failed. I think that this story was overall an interesting but scary view of what could happen to the world if the government was to take complete control. I think that the reality of what might happy is very real and this book describes the circumstances very well.
My quote is from Goldstein's book, since I thought this was the best and most thought out part of the book
"The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare." -pg.157
Apparently Big Brother and the government has found the perfect way to keep people busy and productive while avoiding the hassles of surplus (making too much stuff) by just destroying things in a continuous war. Also, they keep the people just comfortable enough to not complain. The book also goes on to explain how having a common enemy keeps the people together by having one thing to direct their hatred towards. After reading this I was suprised at how this way of government would probably work, and its scary how something like this really could come true. It seems like Orwell really knew his stuff when it came to history, and his prediction for the future in this book was a very gloomy one.
"He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions "the party says the world is falt","the party says that ice is heavier than water" and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvistation." (pg. 229)
This quote sums up the book very well because it shows that the party could not conquer the mind so instead force the mind to conquer itself. The Party doesn't make people love big brother but rather makes the human mind want to so much that it is completely reprogrammed. This is true brainwashing. If nothing can conquer the mind, than once the mind has conquered itself there is noway to go back. Winston has started on a road to complete subservience and has truly given in completely. Its kind of funny to see how it takes Winston's intelligence and creativity to come up with ways to override his own brain and rewire it to think differently. This shows that one of the themes is the control that government has over the people is not just the stick but also our minds. Its a warning to guard your mind against crimestop and doublethink. You cannot allow yourself to be swayed into changing your mind. Once the government can guide people into unknowingly rewriting their brains we are all in trouble.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This has to do with the book becuase during the whole book everything was being controled by big brother and even when something in the past did not support something that was going to happen in the future they would go back and change it. That was Winston's job and even though he did not agree with it he could do nothing about it to change it. He would even go back to old newspapers and change quotes so that someone could use that quote in a speech that they were going to make in a day or so. The present controlled the past and the past controlled the future. Through out the whole book this was present.
"Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?"(260) "Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to re-learn."(261) "we do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them."(265) "They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean."(268)
I feel that these quotes have summed up the purpose of the book from the Big Brothers' perspective point of views. They like to control everything as a way for them to repress any rebellion against them in the future. They like to capture every aspects of you including the soul in order to hold you captive from your true nature. To be order to hold what and how you think. If you think differently from the Party, they will make sure that they could cure you. It will sound like that you have an illness that needed to be cured and that the only remedy you must have is the vaporization of emotion, of one's true self and the true nature around you. They have like to think that they don't merely destory you, but that they have changed you into a brand new person with no sense of feelings. Finally, they feel that by doing these things it will help bring about a better lifestyle to everyone and that they are doing for the good of everyone--to be controlled? I would hate to be entirely controlled and to not be able to have any sense of feeling or a sense of my own identity, which I can use to share with everyone in order to make a different in the world, my community, and my family.
“Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, we’ve got to fix up about the next time we meet. We may as well go back to our place in the wood. We’ve taken a good long rest. But you must go a different way this time. I’ve got it all planned out.” Pg 113 Julia
This quote gives speculation to what side Julia was really on. Was she on Winston’s side and truly planning a correct route for him to go back and forth or did she plan all along that they would be turned in. I do think that there was something interesting about Julia. She had this sense about her that did not seem to care about anything. She did not care about dying and when Winston read her “The Book” she did not listen. She went to sleep.
Like everyone else I found 1984 to be a disturbing prediction of what can happen when people let their government control everything about them but I found it very weird that the party only wanted power, and not even power over the whole world but simply the power to control their citizens. "Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power... Power is not a means; it is an end." p. 217 I dont understand how they can be content with simply controlling Oceania. Those in power always desire more power, and what good is power if you cant use it to gain more things? If the party plans to keep everything the same for the rest of human existence, then ruling for a thousand years would be essentially the same thing as ruling for one year. Without progress for civilization, with luxury for the leaders of the party, what is the purpose of maintaining power? It seems to me that the leaders of the party have no incentive to continue the party indefinitely if no one leader is going to live to see the Party's rule in its entirety. I feel like this philosophy is against human nature and while I understand the party is attempting to stamp out human nature, I feel like at some point this system of government would fail.
'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside you. 'What happens to you here is forever,' O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out. (III.6)
This shows how complete Big Brothers power was over everyone. Even if you told yourself that they wouldn't be able to change you inwardly or that you could just pretend, their force was so strong that any unique trait or trace of individuality would end up disappearing.
While reading this book I kept thinking about the past books we have read this year and I believe along with Jake that this quote really does reflect not only this book but this whole year.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
People are controlled in a sense by the government. They tell you what you can or cannot do and you must abide by those rules or else you will be put into jail or punished. Throughout this year all of our books have had that sense of thinking.
I also agree with Jake, Bri and Lindsey. The past determines your future and how you control your life and your destiny.
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
In a sense the party did control how you lived but you are the main person that determines the mistakes, regrets, decisions and consequences you will face in your lifetime
Throughout the year, and in 1984, there's an ongoing issue concerning power and the control people have over others. It shown a lot in 1984 by both the thought police and the Inner Party. No one is allowed to think or act in any way that could be different from what the government wants. Everyone will try and act like they are invincible but deep down there is something everyone fears, and that's O'Brian's point.
"But for everyone there is something unendurable-something that cannot be comtemplated."Pg. 234.
When you can turn fear into a weapon, the results will be similar to 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A large party in our situation the government, can manipulate and scare people into their belief system. And that's what the book in general shows.
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
This quote serves to show that the physical pain of torture can surpass any loyalty that one may have to another. Both Winston and Julia reveal that they would betray the other in order to avoid torture, and would rather have it be done to the other person. By physically torturing, the Party was able to access and control thought as well, and thus gain control over one's feelings and emotions.
"It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means." p.218
This quote summarizes the Party and how they view the importance of power. To the Party, power is everything and they are the ultimate power. O'Brien goes on to explain that power is collective and it is up to the individual. For example, if a human decides to live in and for the Party then he is powerful and immortal. However, if he isn't part of the party then he is defeated and dies. Also, the Party believes that power is power over the human mind and body. This summarizes the Party's presence in the novel.
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it." (292) When faced with a horrible fear or possible death, human will resort to the most instinctive level of putting someone else in front of the bullet. There is no getting around it, self preservation always wins and everything else is left behind. No matter how much Winston wanted to protect Julia, he couldn't do it when faced with rats. Julia did the same thing to him and so did everybody in the history of the party. The control exists out of fear and Our government can manipulate us into selling out "terrorists" out of fear of harm. Anybody can do it and get away with it. You can't go back from that confession. It's that moment that Winston breaks. He has no fighting spirit left, and why should he? He just sold what is dearest to him to escape pain.
The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of war is not to make or prevent conquest of territory, but keep the structure of society intact. Pg. 164
This quote reflects the book because the entire book is about how the government tricks the people into believing their beliefs. In the book there always seems to be a war going on but no one can really remember who they are at war with. This keeps the people scared and angery, and a common enemy brings a nation together. The government continues to win the war.
"We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and illution out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him." pg. 210
This is ultimately what happens to Winston. This shows how the party wants absolute control even when they will end up killing people, they want their minds pure and for the party. There wasn't much hope for Winston at all throughout the book. At the beginning it looked like it might work out, but it only continued to get worse for him. I think that the party does not feel satisfied until one's mind is for the party, that if someone dies and their mind in not for the party, the party feels like it had a loss.
"It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the color and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curve surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone." Pg. 84.
So this quote and description of the paperweight really kind of stuck with me. This was the second this that Winston bought from this store. First it was the journal and now the paperweight. This paperweight helps show us that Winston wants to know about the past. This paperweight was used and had a purpose in the past. In the world that Winston lives in today he doesn't have a past. He buys the paperweight in hopes of finding/remembering a past.
Not room 101!...Do anything to me! You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want....but not room 101" (195). I find this quote to be an odd one because Winston was so much more resilient to the party before. He really seamed to be giving up to what the party was to do. He stopped resisting and even asked for death. What they do in room 101 is as bad as it is at Woodinville high’s room 101. Of course the torture in 101 is bad but Winston had withstood so much to fight the party to just give up. This is a weird plot turn but not every story should end with a happily ever after. No one every said a story had to have a happy ending.
"No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first act. Nothing happened that you didn't forsee" (Pg 225)
I think that this quote really reflects some of the ideas of 1984. And I feel that a lot of our class discussion circled around the idea that had Winston not made that first action of writing in the diary, he could have stopped so much. And in some ways i guess this sortof (maybe it's a stretch..) connects to the idea of existentialism. That Winston's one choice led to all of these other things. And perhaps this is some sort of other underlying theme in the book.
"All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." & "It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version."
This quote reflects on 1984 because its basically summarizes the lies between big brother and Winston. The Party is always lying by changing and reinventing the past. By doing so the Party is able to manipulate and have its citizens believe anything that they say. Ironically, Winston is the one doing this for Big Brother and in return he is "lying (cheating)" to Big Brother by writing in a diary and having human emotions. How this reflects the book is that theres a constant battle between two embodiments that want to overcome one another with some sort of control. The Party wants empowerment over the citizens and wants to regulate and control everything while Winston wants to find those loop holes in Big Brother as well as to rebel against the party.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
In the book 1984 this quote shows how the party brainwashes its members. Meaning the party controls the present so they controlled the past and they can make up whatever they want to be the feature of the party.
This book and the discussions in class made me realize that there are things like this out there in our modern day world. Like polygmy and the clans in california
"A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police." pg. 216
This quote describes that the community is under the control the the thought police. They spend their whole lives being told what to believe, the way that the Party wants them to believe it. It makes it so they live in a world of fear. The Party controls their thoughts, and changes the past and future to whatever they want. I believe that this reflects a huge theme in the book and is mainly what our class focused on.
" A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police". Page 216.
I picked this quote becuase i think it makes a huge statement about the book as well as it lets you kind of make more statements about the book with the information if provides. First of all it definitly tells you that the community of oceania basicaly lives under the watch of big brother 24/7. As well as the control of the party. The society has been brainwashed to belive the party and in turn the power is kept. the idea of fear i think is also seen. The idea of room 101 and the brainwashing. To stay in power they must have conrol over the people and how else will they do that but alter what you believe as well as scare you into doing what ur supposes to. You will goto room 101 or else you will be vaporized. Of course when the people are being threatened that are going to respond by doing what they are told. The party uses fear for control. Also there is the brainwashing. the idea they can't have conrol without making you either believe you will be tortured or somthing bad will happen or making you belive what they tell you to do is right. In the end i think the idea of fear and making you believe somthing is huge in this book.
"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY...TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE...GOD IS POWER." page 287
I feel like this quote is gives a representation of what Winston became at the end of the book. As I finished reading, it kind of disappointed me because I didn't want Winston to be taken over by Big Brother, I at least wanted him to die trying to stand up for what he believed in. This quote represents what the people of Oceania have ingraved in their mind. Freedom is Slavery, because is one is free, they will not know what to do, how to act, or where to go and therefore would be a failure in life. Two and Two is Four, because the Oceania government has a hold on the people and "brainwashes" them to think whatever Big Brother puts out is the truth, even if it does not make sense, or is not true at all. God is power refers to believing everything that Big Brother says. This shows how they can control your thoughts even after fighting so hard. I did not expect Winston to ever throw in the towel for one minute, and it disappointed me when he did, or when he gave up Julia. This books conclusion was a bit different than I expected, it really left you thinking, without a lot of closure in my opinion.
44 comments:
First one!!!!! I've never been first.
so, here's my quote.
"'Does [Big Brother] exist in the same way as I exist?' 'You do not exist,' said O'Brien... 'I think I exist,'... 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously. In that sense, does Big Brother exist?' 'It is of no importance. He exists.' 'Will Big Brother ever die?' 'Of course not. How could he die?'" (214)
So I don't know if I'm making a stretch but I definitely related to Big Brother to God when Winston was talking to O'Brien. the people are expected to believe and have their lives revolve around some entity they have never seen, heard or sensed whatsoever. When Winston was proving his existence, and talking about how two solids cannot occupy the same place at the same time means that he doubts Big Brother is real or tangible and if he were to exist everywhere like Jesus or God, and be 'with' everyone, he has to be some intangible spirit-like being. So it just sounded as if O'Brien was speaking of Big Brother as a god-like figure of adoration. Overall everyone is nothing compared to this god-like Big Brother, and to make sure everyone follows him in totality, they eradicate all aspects of life that could possibly weaken or distract a person's attention. By eradicating all forms of pleasure possible, Big Brother can rule everyone unquestionably. Hopefully this won't be accomplished in our lifetimes with small examples like the WASL and SATs Mr. Schindler. I'll try not to conform just for you.
Molly Riegel
To reflect upon the book 1984, i will use the following quote: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
I believe this quote is extremely true throughout not only this book but the entire "genre" we have been discussing in class. The party uses this slogan as false history in order to break down the citizens. They control the present, meaning they can control the past. By controlling the past, they can make up whatever they want too. The party basically rewrites the history books to their liking.
As a whole I believe that this book is an eye-opener for people. We get to see what things could be like when people stop fighting for what they believe in and let others "push" them around.
Quote: "If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are nonexistent" -O'Brien pg. 222
I feel like this quote really explains a lot about the book 1984. Here O'Brien explains to Winston during one of his conscious intervals in his torture, that Winston is the last man on the earth. He is alone in his thinking and feeling. This can be used to understand how Winston is apparently a single person who stands outside of the Party and its ideals that must be fixed. Winston, who only believes what he thinks is right, doesn't allow himself to be brainwashed into believing things that don't make sense (like 2+2=5) that the party claims to be the truth. This quote also shows the power that the Party and its members have. O'Brien explains that they are the inheritors, they take the world from ordinary men with feelings such as Winston and change it into what they want it to be. This quote finally shows how the Party tries to break its followers down by making them feel like they can't survive without the Party. O'Brien tells Winston that he is alone, but Winston, unlike most other subjects of the Party, doesn't coward away from this statement. Perhaps we could say that Winston's ability to believe in his own ideals even though he is the only one and his ideals are in opposition with the Party's ideals could show the power that one voice has in the world of change.
My idea is that in the torture scene 1984 very much resembles Cuckoos Nest. O'Brian is telling Winston how he doesn't "merely exract [a] confession" but his goal is to "cure" them. I thought of how Big Nurse was trying to cure the committed, people that were just different from the combine of 1950s society. This is on a more extreme level of course, but still using torture, to retrain Winston to stay within the orthodoxy of The Party. O'Brian tells Winston, "the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.(209)"
Another thing I found interestign was the reason they decided to do this. They learned from the past mistakes of the Nazis and Communists; they do not allow any martyrs. This part doesnt relate to Cuckoos Nest as much because I think that McMurphy could be seen as a martyr.
A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police. pg. 216
This quote explains about the book as a whole in the fact that the society that exists in Oceania is one of fear and dislike. People in the community and in the party live under fear of Big Brother and the control of the party. People are brainwashed to believe everything that the party tells them. This is because the people are under complete control of the party and this is why the party succeeds with such power over the entire Oceania.
"There are three stages in your reintegration, said O'Brien. There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for you to enter upon the second stage" (215).
As the book comes to an end, Winston is confronted with O'Brien. All he wants is to convince Winston to believe in the fake world with Big Brother prevailing. This quote represents the Party's ideal integration of all the members. Winston is at the stage of understanding and by the end of the book accepts the ideas. I enjoyed this book overall and it really made me think how a world like this could actually exist.
I would like to discuss the striking similarities between 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. Both have leaders (the party and big nurse) that are outnumbered but rule nonetheless by instilling fear in the public/patients. Even the the prollys are greater in number than members of the party, the fact that the prollys are in constant fear and disorganization keeps them at bay. The Party is sure to keep the public in line and smothers any doubt or questioning that individuals may have about the authenticity of the government. An example of keeping fear in the publics' eye is, "Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counterrevolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared."
"You hate [Big brother]. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him; you must love him."
-O'Brian page 232
I think the main issue with the novel was control. Big Brother, whomever he/she/it may represent, tries very hard to control everything. Thoughts, emotions, war, conflict, language, even the course of history.
This is seriously alluded to in the Metal Gear Solid series, as the secret organization known as the Patriots, the true power-holders of America, try to control everything. Their goal is to seize control over the digital world in order to rewrite history in a way that they see fit. In addition, they use technology to take control of soldiers. Taking control of the battlefield wins them the war, and gives them the power to shape future history.
this is very similar to 1984, as Big Brother, whom we can safely say si the dominant ruler of their society, has control of virtually everything, right down to human emotion and thought. If the novel was written for any specific reason, it was probably against the idea of complete control over the people of a society as depicted in this novel.
'Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But is was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He ha won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother" (245).
I think that the above quote reflects not only on the ending of 1984, but on the constant struggle Winston had against the party. Obviously he lost in the end, as they changed his thoughts and made him love the party. One can not tell if he is faking this affection or not, but I do not think that he is. I think that it is ironic that earlier in the book Winston and Julia spoke of how no mater what, the party would not be able to change their thoughts, and how finally in the end Winston changed his so drastically. I think that it is a reflection of the book because no matter what or who you are it is a message that in a society like this there can be no rebels and that everyone conforms to all of the set rules.
"It might be a long time," said O'Brien. " You are a difficult case. But Don't give up hope. Everything is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you." p 226
This quote I think sums up the government and how much control they have over the people. He says it doesn't really matter because in the end were just gonna shoot you. When you think about how much power that is and how the government knows it and says it like its no big deal. It would be terrible to live in a world where the government will just shoot you after all the tourture just because they can.
"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation-anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if i wished to. I do not wish to, because the party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about laws of nature. We make the laws of nature."
This quote is important because throughout the book we see the power that the party has over everyone. This quote proves that absolute power is the goal of the party. The party tries to control the thoughts of everyone because if they control the thoughts then they have absolute power. It is also important how O'Brien says that they make the laws of nature because it goes back to that concept that 2+2=5 if they say it does. Whatever the party says goes, because there is no one else to say that it is wrong. The party has control over what people think and the information that they have that gives them the ability to form thoughts, so essentially the party has control over everything.
"Not room 101!...Do anything to me! You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want....but not room 101" (195).
I think this quote shows a lot of foreshadowing in the book. And later we find out that they strap you down and do horrible things to them. And Winston is in the same situation as this man and ends up being just as horrified and even tells them to do it to Julia and not him. I thought this was interesting because I always thought he was a lot stronger than that and was more determined to disobey or fight the party more than he showed then. This may even be the final end of Winston which would be interesting because it is a lot like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. And it seems like the theme for all these books is that one always has to take the fall for fighting against the power.
This is pretty obvious but basically what sums up the book for me is the quote "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." (Pg 87) This is a theme repeated throughout the entire novel. This represents the basic party goals as they want each individual to have the same views, to not feel things and to be loyal and faithful to Big Brother. Winston decides to band with the brotherhood and question the idea of war, decide in order to be free he cannot be enslaved by higher governmental figures, and to not be ignorant about what is going on in his life. This book was very interesting as it kind of can connect to our lives today in an indirect way as we our someone limited by the government in our action.
The main theme that continued throughout the book was the complete control and power of the party by controlling everyone’s thoughts through doublethink. The power of the party had been proved by the end of the book when the really did get inside Winston’s mind and make him not only think but believe the lies of the party. A quote to support this is, “’They can’t get inside you’, she had said. But they could get inside you. ‘What happens to you here is forever,’ O’Brian had said. That was a true word.” pg. 239 In the beginning, Winston was convinced that he was right about the party; that all of their principles were lies and that he had to rebel against the party to remain sane. The victory would be to overthrow the party by making the proles realize that it was all wrong. In the end he really believed that the struggle had been not with the party but with his own mind. They had gotten into his head and made him believe that the victory was won if he controlled his mind. “Everything was all right, the struggle was finished, He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” pg. 245
"And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself." (240)
This quote, from Julia to Winston shows that the Party can not only control the actions of its members, but also their thoughts. In the beginning of the book, Winston seemed to think that he could outsmart the Party by adhering to the actions of a good party member, while simultaneously maintaining free thought. Obviously, Winston's belief is proved to be false, demonstrated through his betrayal of Julia and his love for Big Brother. Winston did not simply betray Julia on the surface, to get rid of the rats, he fully preferred for Julia to be punished rather than himself. Based on the ending of the book, Orwell shows that independent thought is not a given. Everybody is susceptible to control.
In Orwell's "1984", we see the ability of the party to control the human mind, and therefore seize absolute power amongst its citizens. When O'Brien is subjecting Winston to physical pain, he also comments on the following:
"You [Winston] believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right...It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party" (205).
He brainwashes Winston into blindly accepting all that the Party states to be true. However, it is clear that the real reality is true and the "Party-created-reality is false".
" 'Thoughtcrime!' said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself (192)."
Parsons says this when Winston asks him what he's going to be under trial for. Parsons was a man who epitomized the goals of the party. He echoed every slogan, rallied around community causes and always obeyed Big Brother. When he is brought in for Thoughtcrime the reality of this unforigiving society becomes really apparent. We see that the party just wants to make robots of the citizens. The idea that anyone, no matter what their loyalty was subject to speculation in this oppressive society. The idea that you had be on the guard, watching your every action, word and even thoughts became the major factor. Orwell does a good job of using this book as warning for future societies, even though it is extreme in its way. The overall theme of oppressiveness and paranoia is tied together very well.
I also recognized that McMurphy and Winston are very similar. Both characters had their beliefs changed completely by a higher power. A quote from 1984 that I found somewhat creepy was "you hate him. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step. You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him : you must love him." Winston is then sent to Room 101 where is tortured until he yells that he wants Julia to be tortured instead of himself and he ends up loving Big Brother. It is possible that he lies about loving Big Brother but I personally feel that he has snapped and fear has caused him to truly make himself believe that Big Brother is wonderful.
Overall I related most of this book back to Coo Coo's Nest or the first book we read over the summer, I'm having a brain fart I can't think of the name....anyways, the brain washing, the constant narrowing of the minds, all completely mimic (only in a sort of opposite way) the ideals of the futuristic and very much preplanned, predetermined world. SCARY.
"'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside you. 'What happens to you here is forever,' O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out."
pp. 239
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
This quote serves to show that the physical pain of torture can surpass any loyalty that one may have to another. Both Winston and Julia reveal that they would betray the other in order to avoid torture, and would rather have it be done to the other person. By physically torturing, the Party was able to access and control thought as well, and thus gain control over one's feelings and emotions.
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
This quote shows how the the past affects one’s attitude about the present. Winston just finished a conversation with an old man about life before the Revolution, and he realizes that the Party has deliberately set out to weaken people’s memories. If no one remembers life before the Revolution, then no one can say that the Party has failed. I think that this story was overall an interesting but scary view of what could happen to the world if the government was to take complete control. I think that the reality of what might happy is very real and this book describes the circumstances very well.
My quote is from Goldstein's book, since I thought this was the best and most thought out part of the book
"The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare." -pg.157
Apparently Big Brother and the government has found the perfect way to keep people busy and productive while avoiding the hassles of surplus (making too much stuff) by just destroying things in a continuous war. Also, they keep the people just comfortable enough to not complain. The book also goes on to explain how having a common enemy keeps the people together by having one thing to direct their hatred towards. After reading this I was suprised at how this way of government would probably work, and its scary how something like this really could come true. It seems like Orwell really knew his stuff when it came to history, and his prediction for the future in this book was a very gloomy one.
"He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions "the party says the world is falt","the party says that ice is heavier than water" and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvistation." (pg. 229)
This quote sums up the book very well because it shows that the party could not conquer the mind so instead force the mind to conquer itself. The Party doesn't make people love big brother but rather makes the human mind want to so much that it is completely reprogrammed. This is true brainwashing. If nothing can conquer the mind, than once the mind has conquered itself there is noway to go back. Winston has started on a road to complete subservience and has truly given in completely. Its kind of funny to see how it takes Winston's intelligence and creativity to come up with ways to override his own brain and rewire it to think differently. This shows that one of the themes is the control that government has over the people is not just the stick but also our minds. Its a warning to guard your mind against crimestop and doublethink. You cannot allow yourself to be swayed into changing your mind. Once the government can guide people into unknowingly rewriting their brains we are all in trouble.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This has to do with the book becuase during the whole book everything was being controled by big brother and even when something in the past did not support something that was going to happen in the future they would go back and change it. That was Winston's job and even though he did not agree with it he could do nothing about it to change it. He would even go back to old newspapers and change quotes so that someone could use that quote in a speech that they were going to make in a day or so. The present controlled the past and the past controlled the future. Through out the whole book this was present.
"Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?"(260)
"Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to re-learn."(261)
"we do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them."(265)
"They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean."(268)
I feel that these quotes have summed up the purpose of the book from the Big Brothers' perspective point of views. They like to control everything as a way for them to repress any rebellion against them in the future. They like to capture every aspects of you including the soul in order to hold you captive from your true nature. To be order to hold what and how you think. If you think differently from the Party, they will make sure that they could cure you. It will sound like that you have an illness that needed to be cured and that the only remedy you must have is the vaporization of emotion, of one's true self and the true nature around you. They have like to think that they don't merely destory you, but that they have changed you into a brand new person with no sense of feelings.
Finally, they feel that by doing these things it will help bring about a better lifestyle to everyone and that they are doing for the good of everyone--to be controlled? I would hate to be entirely controlled and to not be able to have any sense of feeling or a sense of my own identity, which I can use to share with everyone in order to make a different in the world, my community, and my family.
~~Mea Pen~~
“Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, we’ve got to fix up about the next time we meet. We may as well go back to our place in the wood. We’ve taken a good long rest. But you must go a different way this time. I’ve got it all planned out.”
Pg 113 Julia
This quote gives speculation to what side Julia was really on. Was she on Winston’s side and truly planning a correct route for him to go back and forth or did she plan all along that they would be turned in. I do think that there was something interesting about Julia. She had this sense about her that did not seem to care about anything. She did not care about dying and when Winston read her “The Book” she did not listen. She went to sleep.
Like everyone else I found 1984 to be a disturbing prediction of what can happen when people let their government control everything about them but I found it very weird that the party only wanted power, and not even power over the whole world but simply the power to control their citizens.
"Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power... Power is not a means; it is an end." p. 217
I dont understand how they can be content with simply controlling Oceania. Those in power always desire more power, and what good is power if you cant use it to gain more things? If the party plans to keep everything the same for the rest of human existence, then ruling for a thousand years would be essentially the same thing as ruling for one year. Without progress for civilization, with luxury for the leaders of the party, what is the purpose of maintaining power? It seems to me that the leaders of the party have no incentive to continue the party indefinitely if no one leader is going to live to see the Party's rule in its entirety. I feel like this philosophy is against human nature and while I understand the party is attempting to stamp out human nature, I feel like at some point this system of government would fail.
'They can't get inside you,' she had said. But they could get inside you. 'What happens to you here is forever,' O'Brien had said. That was a true word. There were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover. Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out. (III.6)
This shows how complete Big Brothers power was over everyone. Even if you told yourself that they wouldn't be able to change you inwardly or that you could just pretend, their force was so strong that any unique trait or trace of individuality would end up disappearing.
While reading this book I kept thinking about the past books we have read this year and I believe along with Jake that this quote really does reflect not only this book but this whole year.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
People are controlled in a sense by the government. They tell you what you can or cannot do and you must abide by those rules or else you will be put into jail or punished. Throughout this year all of our books have had that sense of thinking.
I also agree with Jake, Bri and Lindsey. The past determines your future and how you control your life and your destiny.
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”
In a sense the party did control how you lived but you are the main person that determines the mistakes, regrets, decisions and consequences you will face in your lifetime
Throughout the year, and in 1984, there's an ongoing issue concerning power and the control people have over others. It shown a lot in 1984 by both the thought police and the Inner Party. No one is allowed to think or act in any way that could be different from what the government wants. Everyone will try and act like they are invincible but deep down there is something everyone fears, and that's O'Brian's point.
"But for everyone there is something unendurable-something that cannot be comtemplated."Pg. 234.
When you can turn fear into a weapon, the results will be similar to 1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A large party in our situation the government, can manipulate and scare people into their belief system. And that's what the book in general shows.
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
This quote serves to show that the physical pain of torture can surpass any loyalty that one may have to another. Both Winston and Julia reveal that they would betray the other in order to avoid torture, and would rather have it be done to the other person. By physically torturing, the Party was able to access and control thought as well, and thus gain control over one's feelings and emotions.
"It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means." p.218
This quote summarizes the Party and how they view the importance of power. To the Party, power is everything and they are the ultimate power. O'Brien goes on to explain that power is collective and it is up to the individual. For example, if a human decides to live in and for the Party then he is powerful and immortal. However, if he isn't part of the party then he is defeated and dies. Also, the Party believes that power is power over the human mind and body. This summarizes the Party's presence in the novel.
"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it." (292)
When faced with a horrible fear or possible death, human will resort to the most instinctive level of putting someone else in front of the bullet. There is no getting around it, self preservation always wins and everything else is left behind. No matter how much Winston wanted to protect Julia, he couldn't do it when faced with rats. Julia did the same thing to him and so did everybody in the history of the party. The control exists out of fear and Our government can manipulate us into selling out "terrorists" out of fear of harm. Anybody can do it and get away with it. You can't go back from that confession. It's that moment that Winston breaks. He has no fighting spirit left, and why should he? He just sold what is dearest to him to escape pain.
The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of war is not to make or prevent conquest of territory, but keep the structure of society intact. Pg. 164
This quote reflects the book because the entire book is about how the government tricks the people into believing their beliefs. In the book there always seems to be a war going on but no one can really remember who they are at war with. This keeps the people scared and angery, and a common enemy brings a nation together. The government continues to win the war.
"We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and illution out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him." pg. 210
This is ultimately what happens to Winston. This shows how the party wants absolute control even when they will end up killing people, they want their minds pure and for the party. There wasn't much hope for Winston at all throughout the book. At the beginning it looked like it might work out, but it only continued to get worse for him. I think that the party does not feel satisfied until one's mind is for the party, that if someone dies and their mind in not for the party, the party feels like it had a loss.
"It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the color and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curve surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone." Pg. 84.
So this quote and description of the paperweight really kind of stuck with me. This was the second this that Winston bought from this store. First it was the journal and now the paperweight. This paperweight helps show us that Winston wants to know about the past. This paperweight was used and had a purpose in the past. In the world that Winston lives in today he doesn't have a past. He buys the paperweight in hopes of finding/remembering a past.
Not room 101!...Do anything to me! You've been starving me for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want....but not room 101" (195). I find this quote to be an odd one because Winston was so much more resilient to the party before. He really seamed to be giving up to what the party was to do. He stopped resisting and even asked for death. What they do in room 101 is as bad as it is at Woodinville high’s room 101. Of course the torture in 101 is bad but Winston had withstood so much to fight the party to just give up. This is a weird plot turn but not every story should end with a happily ever after. No one every said a story had to have a happy ending.
"No, Winston, you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in that first act. Nothing happened that you didn't forsee" (Pg 225)
I think that this quote really reflects some of the ideas of 1984. And I feel that a lot of our class discussion circled around the idea that had Winston not made that first action of writing in the diary, he could have stopped so much. And in some ways i guess this sortof (maybe it's a stretch..) connects to the idea of existentialism. That Winston's one choice led to all of these other things. And perhaps this is some sort of other underlying theme in the book.
"All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary." & "It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version."
This quote reflects on 1984 because its basically summarizes the lies between big brother and Winston. The Party is always lying by changing and reinventing the past. By doing so the Party is able to manipulate and have its citizens believe anything that they say. Ironically, Winston is the one doing this for Big Brother and in return he is "lying (cheating)" to Big Brother by writing in a diary and having human emotions. How this reflects the book is that theres a constant battle between two embodiments that want to overcome one another with some sort of control. The Party wants empowerment over the citizens and wants to regulate and control everything while Winston wants to find those loop holes in Big Brother as well as to rebel against the party.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (chp 3.2)
In the book 1984 this quote shows how the party brainwashes its members. Meaning the party controls the present so they controlled the past and they can make up whatever they want to be the feature of the party.
This book and the discussions in class made me realize that there are things like this out there in our modern day world. Like polygmy and the clans in california
"A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police." pg. 216
This quote describes that the community is under the control the the thought police. They spend their whole lives being told what to believe, the way that the Party wants them to believe it. It makes it so they live in a world of fear. The Party controls their thoughts, and changes the past and future to whatever they want. I believe that this reflects a huge theme in the book and is mainly what our class focused on.
" A party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the thought police". Page 216.
I picked this quote becuase i think it makes a huge statement about the book as well as it lets you kind of make more statements about the book with the information if provides. First of all it definitly tells you that the community of oceania basicaly lives under the watch of big brother 24/7. As well as the control of the party. The society has been brainwashed to belive the party and in turn the power is kept. the idea of fear i think is also seen. The idea of room 101 and the brainwashing. To stay in power they must have conrol over the people and how else will they do that but alter what you believe as well as scare you into doing what ur supposes to. You will goto room 101 or else you will be vaporized. Of course when the people are being threatened that are going to respond by doing what they are told. The party uses fear for control. Also there is the brainwashing. the idea they can't have conrol without making you either believe you will be tortured or somthing bad will happen or making you belive what they tell you to do is right. In the end i think the idea of fear and making you believe somthing is huge in this book.
"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY...TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE...GOD IS POWER."
page 287
I feel like this quote is gives a representation of what Winston became at the end of the book. As I finished reading, it kind of disappointed me because I didn't want Winston to be taken over by Big Brother, I at least wanted him to die trying to stand up for what he believed in. This quote represents what the people of Oceania have ingraved in their mind. Freedom is Slavery, because is one is free, they will not know what to do, how to act, or where to go and therefore would be a failure in life. Two and Two is Four, because the Oceania government has a hold on the people and "brainwashes" them to think whatever Big Brother puts out is the truth, even if it does not make sense, or is not true at all. God is power refers to believing everything that Big Brother says. This shows how they can control your thoughts even after fighting so hard. I did not expect Winston to ever throw in the towel for one minute, and it disappointed me when he did, or when he gave up Julia. This books conclusion was a bit different than I expected, it really left you thinking, without a lot of closure in my opinion.
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