Thursday, April 27, 2017

Book Three Chapter 5

In Book Three Chapter Five, O'Brien strapped Winston to a chair and then clamped Winston's head so that he could not move. He had told Winston that Room 101 contains "the worst thing in the world." He reminded Winston of his worst nightmare, which was being i a dark place with something terrible on the other side of the wall, which just so happens to be rats. O'Brien picked up the cage of enormous, squirming rats and placed it near Winston. He said that when he presses a lever, the door will slide up and the rats will jump onto Winston's face and eat it. With the rats only inches away from his face, Winston cracked and he screamed to O'Brien that he wanted to subject Julia to the torture rather than him. O'Brien, satisfied by the betrayal, removed the cage away from him. 

In this chapter, I feel that Winston just wanted to live a normal life and that he couldn't take being a rebel anymore. The fact that he was willing to allow Julia to take the torture rather than him shows that he doesn't want to deal with the pain and will just submit to make it stop. I feel like the message behind this story is that no matter how much you want to rebel, there will always be a force that will make you submit to their will. But I don't necessarily believe that because if someone is steadfast on something, then they will be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that they get what they want or to make themselves known

Monday, April 17, 2017

Book 3 Chapter 3 and 4

In chapter three, after weeks of interrogation and torture, O'Brien tells Winston about the Party's motives. Winston speculates that the Party rules the proles for their own good. O'Brien tortures him for this answer, saying that the Party's only goal is absolute, endless, and limitless power. Winston argues that the Party cannot alter the stars or the universe; O'Brien answers that it could if it needed to because the only reality that matters is the human mind, which the Party controls. O'Brien then forces Winston to look in a mirror. Winston then sees that he has completely deteriorated and looks gray and skeletal. Winston begins to wep and blames O'Brien for his condition. O'Brien replies that Winston  knew what would happen the moment he began diary. O'Brien then acknowledges the fact that Winston has held out by not betraying Julia, and Winston then feels overwhelmed with love and gratitude toward O'Brien for recognizing his strength. However, O'Brien tells Winston not to worry, as he will soon be cured. O'Brien then notes that it doesn't matter, since, in the end, everyone is a shot anyhow.

In chapter four, after some time, Winston is transferred to a more comfortable room and the torture eases. He dreams contently of Julia, his mother, and O'Brien in the Golden Country. He gains weight and is allowed to write on a small slate. He comes to the conclusion that he was foolish to oppose the party alone, and tries to make himself believe in Party slogans. He writes on his slate "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY," "TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE," and "GOD IS POWER." 
One day, in a sudden passionate fit of misery, Winston screams out Julia's name many times, terrifying himself. Though he knows that crying out in this way will lead O'Brien to torture him, he realizes his deep desire to continue hating the Party. He tries to bottle up his hatred so that even he will not recognize it. Therefore, when the Party kills him, he will die hating Big Brother which would be a personal victory for him. But he cannot hide his feelings. When O'Brien arrives with the guards, he tells O'Brien that he hates Big Brother. O'Brien then replies that obeying Big Brother is not sufficient and that Winston must learn to love him. After that statement O'Brien instructs the guards to take Winston to room 101

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Book Three Chapter 2

In chapter two of Book Three, O'Brien oversees Winston's prolonged torture sessions. O'Brien then tells Winston that his crime was refusing to accept the Party's control of history and his memory. As O'Brien increases the pain, Winston agrees to accept that O'Brien is holding up five fingers, though he knows that O'Brien is actually holding up only four; he agrees that anything O'Brien wants him to believe is true. He begins to love O'Brien, because O'Brien stops the pain; he even convinces himself that O'Brien isn't the source of the pain. O'Brien then tells Winston that Winston's current outlook is insane, and that torture will cure him

Book Three Chapter 1

Chapter one of Book Three is an alright chapter. In a nutshell... Winston sits in a bright, bare cell in which the lights are always on. He had been transferred there from a holding cell in which a huge prole woman who shares the last name Smith wonders if she is Winston's mother. In  his solitary cell, Winston starts to lose it and he imagines being beaten down by the guards.

Also in this chapter, Winston hopes that the Brotherhood will send him a razor blade so that he can commit suicide. After Winston sees O'Brien, O'Brien reveals himself to be a part of the Ministry. After Winston realizes this, a guard smashes his elbow and he then thinks that there is no one who could become a hero in the face of physical pain because it is too much to endure.


Thursday, March 2, 2017

Book Two Chapters One and Two Summary and Analysis

In the first chapter of Book Two, Winston was walking towards he men's room and he noticed a dark-haired girl with her arm in a sling. She fell and Winston rushed to help her. When she walked away, he realized that she had passed him a note which had said "I love you." Winston seemed confused since he did not know whether to believe her or not. He had seen her around and had always suspected her of being a political spy who was monitoring his behavior. But before he could think about this any further, Parsons interrupted him with talk about his preparations for Hate Week.

Winston was hesitant to talk to her for a couple days but he finally gathered the courage to sit at the same lunch table with her. Once they started talking, the dark-haired girl had suggested meeting in Victory Square where they would be able to hide from the telescreens amidst the movement of the crowds. Once they were in Victory Square, she told Winston that there was a place that they could meet so that they can have their tryst. At the end of the chapter, they managed to hold hands briefly

In the second chapter of Book Two, Winston and the girl execute the plan and they meet up in the country. Winston still felt a little lost but he no longer believes that the girl is a spy. The girl tells him that her name is Julia, and soon they move into the woods where they go make love. Winston feels that this experience is nearly identical to the passionate sexual encounter that Winston had dreamed of . He tells Julia he loves her more because it meant that more Party members are committing crimes

I feel that Winston's rebellious streak has taken a bit of a darker turn since he is now willing to do more "illegal" things that the party would disapprove of. It was already bad enough that Winston had wrote down "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" in his diary since he was already paranoid with the fact that the Thought Police were after him. If this was causing him issues, why would Winston go and pull something like this? Being rebellious is fine as long as you don't take it too far when you already know what the consequences are going to be.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Chapters 7 & 8 Summary

In chapter seven, Winston writes in his diary that "any hope for revolution against the Party must come from the proles". He says this due to the fact that since the proles make up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, they could easily gather the strength and manpower to overthrow the party. The thing is, the proles are ignorant and they don't even know or understand why the Party is oppressing them. Also in chapter seven, Winston tries to learn about the past through a children's history book. Lacking a reliable official record though, it seemed as if Winston didn't know what to think about the past. He does not believe that the party has done all of the things that it says it has done but he cannot know for sure since the history was written entirely by the Party.

In chapter eight, Winston decides to go for a walk through the prole district and he observes the simple lives of the common people. He walks into a bar and he sees an old man. Believing him to be a possible link to the past, Winston decides to ask him a couple questions but then realizes that the old man's memory seems to be quite vague. Winston laments that the past had been left to the proles since they will ultimately forget.

Communism vs. Socialism vs, Ingsoc

Communism is defined as a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Its an economic theory favoring a classless society and the abolition of private property.

Socialism is defined as a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Ingsoc is the political ideology of the totalitarian government of Oceania in the book 1984.

Communism is related to socialism because of the fact that socialism is the back bone of communism. Socialism and communism are alike in that both are systems of production for use based on public ownership of the means of production and centralized planning. Socialism grows directly out of capitalism; it is the first form of the new society.

This relates to Ingsoc because everyone has to wear the same articles of clothing and they are not allowed to say anything bad about Big Brother. The way Ingsoc is set up, it is a mixture of communism and socialism. Everyone has a specific duty and has to abide by those rules.



Sunday, February 19, 2017

Character analysis

This character analysis will be between the characters Winston and Parsons, who is Winston's neighbor. As far as physical characteristics goes, to put it bluntly, Parsons is fat and Winston isn't. Also Winston has an ulcer that he can't seem to get rid of even though he is taking pills for it. As far as personalities go, Winston is a thoughtful person as well as paranoid. Underneath all of that though,  Winston is a rebellious individual who wants to get rid of Big Brother. This is shown when Winston writes in his diary "Down with Big Brother" several times. Parsons on the other hand is a little bit different. Parsons is a man who knows almost nothing and he blindly follows what he is told to do and doesn't ever rebel. Since Parsons doesn't really think for himself, it's hard to determine what his personality is since he blindly follows. Winston on the other hand, as stated before, is a rebellious individual and it is seen all through out the chapters.  His anxiety and paranoia are understandable since he knows that at any given moment, someone from the government could be watching his every move. An example of his paranoia was when Mrs. Parsons knocked on Winston's door and he thought that it was the Thought Police. It surfaced again after Winston saw the children and they accused him of a thought crime. All throughout the chapters Winston gets more and more paranoid due to him not being obedient and following the rules like he is supposed to. This is very different from Parsons considering all Parsons ever did was promote Big Brother and follow orders to the letter.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Language and Truth

All throughout history, it has been shown that society dictates who is educated and who isn't. Those who speak using proper English (i.e. proper grammar, correct sentence structure, larger words), are more educated than those who do not speak properly. This is because throughout the ages, those who were a part of the upper class, namely the aristocrats and the wealthy, were the ones who had control of the country and they were the ones who made the rules.
In the book 1984, the government controls the way people speak  by using Newspeak. In this new "language", regular sentences are dumbed down to the most vague of levels. The reason for this is that the government in 1984 feel that if they control the language of the average joe, then they can control how they think. By controlling the way that the people think, the average Joe will have no choice but to just do as they are told.
Translating my article into Newspeak made it less reading but it also made me feel as if I needed to write more. Just writing one sentence that was dumbed down made me not actually want to read the rest of the article. I felt that there was no point. I think that this is what the government in the book 1984 was trying to accomplish.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Chapter Three

In Chapter Three, Winston dreams about him and his mother on a sinking ship. Although he doesn't know why, he feels responsible for her disappearance which was almost twenty years prior. He also dreams of a naked girl and then wakes up with the name "Shakespeare" on his lips but he doesn't know where it is from. He is then signaled that it is time to do Physical Jerks. While doing the exercises, Winston thinks about how not having any photographs or documents makes one's memory a little fuzzy. He then considers Oceania's relationship with other countries, namely being Eurasia and Eastasia. He remembered that according to official history, Big Brother hadn't been heard of before the 1960s but now Big Brother had supposedly been there since before the 1930s. But before Winston could continue thinking, a voice on the screen tells Winston that he isn't working hard enough and he loses his train of thought.

Now, I think this is a sign that Winston definitely feels that there isn't something right with this whole picture. But in this environment, he doesn't actually have the time to think about the information he has thoroughly because he keeps having interruptions and he always feels that he is being watched at all times. I feel that Winston should challenge the authority because in that environment, nobody ever gets challenged. Seeing as that is kind of an issue, and I myself am an outspoken individual, sometimes a challenge can lead to a revolution and you can figure out what is really going on. If you look back into the sixties, during the Vietnam War, you'll find that the government had been keeping secrets away from the people as far as advancements and what was happening on that side of the world. Just as they didn't like the government lying to them, neither should Winston. If he has a gut feeling that something is wrong, he should act upon it and try to find out what is going on.

Chapter Two

In the beginning of chapter two, Winston fears that the Thought Police were at the door since he wrote the phrase "Down With Big Brother". He was relieved to see that it was only his neighbor, Mrs. Parsons. He goes over to help with the sink plumbing but becomes fearful again when her kids, who happened to be Junior Spies, accused him of thought crime. Back in his apartment, Winston writes in his diary that thought crime made him a dead man and then he hid the book.

Now, since the setting of the book is one in which anything you say or do could be monitored, I didn't think that it was such a good idea for Winston to be writing that, especially where it could be found. I say this because he could have been seen writing that down and sooner or later, someone could show up to take him away. It was a wrong decision for him due to the fact that he is going to live in fear of someone knowing that he did that which isn't a healthy way for him to live.


Wednesday, February 8, 2017

George Orwell Time Line

June 25, 1903- George Orwell, originally named Eric Arthur Blair, was born

1927- Blair retires from the Indian Imperial Police and decides to become a writer

1933- "Down and Out in Paris and London" was published. Blair changes his name to George Orwell
This particular book was written in the time in which George Orwell wasn't receiving much luck in his writing career and all so he just wrote his experiences which became this book.

1934- "Burmese Days" is published; this is his first Novel

1936- Orwell was recruited to write about poverty among unemployed minors in Northern England; Orwell travels to Spain to fight for the Republicans against Franco's Nationalists

1937- "The Road to Wigan Pier"

1943- Orwell becomes the literary editor for the Tribune

1945- Orwell's "Animal Farm" gets Published
This book talks about Stalin's betrayal in the Russian Revolution. The reason that this book is such an important part of Orwell's life is that it is what first got Orwell's name out there. This also ensured that Orwell would be financially comfortable for the first time in his life.

1949- Orwell's "1984" gets published

January 21, 1950- George Orwell dies of tuberculosis
In this stage of his life, Orwell's health was starting to deteriorate after merely a year after his famous "1984" got published.