Novel Project - Third Entry for "1984"

! Spoiler Warning: This entry contains spoilers that could potentially ruin the story "1984" for anyone who has not read it. I suggest you read the story before you read this. !


o---Disappointed Satisfaction---o

During Winston’s torture, I kept thinking: come on, rebel, rebel! I knew he would! But he never did. He gave in, and gave up, easily at that. I was really upset yet pleased that Winston gave in and in the end succumbed to the Party’s power. As the reader, of course I want Winston to rebel and change the world, ending the Party’s reign, but as a criticizer of stories I was satisfied that Orwell didn’t end the story with a cliché. Sure, it would have been great if Winston had won and destroyed the party and gone off to live happily ever after with Julia, but it would have been terribly cheesy. The fact that he didn’t, and the fact that the Party won all the same, made the story’s ending more enjoyable for my criticizing mind, but a bit sad for my general viewing mind. It’s just a natural instinct for readers to want the hero in a book to always win.


o---O'Brien = Ingsoc = O'Brien---o

When Winston was being tortured by O’Brien, I began to get the distinct feeling that O’Brien was Big Brother. In the world of the Party, Big Brother’s stern, silent expression is always the same, and probably will be forever. However, I have the feeling that they change leaders when the oldest dies or is killed off for thoughtcrime or some other wrongdoing. Perhaps the original Big Brother, the founder of Ingsoc was the man on the poster, and as time went on, new and newer leaders were chosen to take his place. If that were the case, O’Brien could definitely qualify as the new leader. He doesn’t just repeat and understand the principles of Ingsoc, he is the principles of Ingsoc, so much so that he can manipulate anyone’s minds with the powers of crimestop, doublethink, and blackwhite. Whenever a rebellious thought passed through Winston’s mind, even one that was tiny and fleeting, O’Brien knew exactly what he was thinking and how to reverse it. O’Brien deceived him and helped him, killed him and saved his life. Just as doublethink works, O’Brien blessed Winston and doomed him at the same time. To explain this theory: he saved Winston the grief and stress of being a rebel of the Party, yet doomed him because Winston will be shot, eventually. He deceived him and helped him by being his friend and his enemy at the same time.


o---Winston's Changes---o

The way I picture Winston: When he was being tortured, he described himself in the mirror and I pictured a frail, sticklike body, like an anorexic person. I saw his skin gray as smoke, and his face sunken in with dark, depressed eyes. After he began to recover I pictured him coming slightly back to normal but not looking quite right, like trying to put a puzzle back together after a few crucial pieces had been lost. And when he finally evened out and got out of the Ministry of Love, I pictured him looking like one of the round, beete-like men he had often described throughout the book. These changes were very drastic in my mind, but in reality I’m sure he would’ve looked somewhat the same through it all. Inside himself, however, his drastic changes really made a huge impact. Mentally, he had become someone else. Outside that, he was still Winston, but inside he was just another man among many who believed in Ingsoc and loved Big Brother.


o---The Party is Indestructible---o

In the end, everyone betrayed Winston and he basically betrayed himself. The story, when you look at it in a nutshell, is very mind-bending and intricate. The Party, if it were real, really could be indestructible. With the way Orwell describes it, the Party can never be defeated. In Ingsoc, no traitor goes unnoticed. It has become so strong and clever that it can detect any kind of betrayal to the system. Winston may have thought he was safe for a small time, but he was doomed from the start. Ingsoc is so powerful that even if it itself were to rebel against its own principles, the principles, which have the capability to run forwards and backwards, would stop it and restore order. It’s almost as if doublethink and blackwhite are invisible entities keeping Ingsoc going. Now the question remains in my mind: how often is our own government using these principles against us? What are our wars doing for us? Making peace, or destroying it? Will the world end up being something like Oceania one day?