One recurring theme that I noticed in recent readings is
that Winston, Julia, and the other members of the rebellion all see their
deaths as inevitable. There are multiple
times when Winston think about how it is only a matter of time until the Party
discovers that he is committing thought-crime.
He will be taken to the Ministry of Love, where he will be tortured and
killed. He sees this for everyone who
does not have “discretion, aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity” that stops
the Thought Police from becoming suspicious of them (55). This theme also comes up in Winston and
Julia’s relationship. The both recognize
that it will not end well and they will eventually be discovered. They even plan for the occasion, and say that
even if they are captured and interrogated, they cannot betray each other. Julia says that “they can make you say anything…
but they can’t make you believe it” (166).
They will always have some power over the Party because they can still think
what they want. Finally, O’Brien says
that everyone who joins the Brotherhood will be killed sooner or later. When he describes it to Winston and Julia, he
says that “you will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and
then you will die” (176). He sees it as
part of the job. I would not be
surprised if Winston and Julia get caught before the end, as it seems to be
what the story is building up to.
It's interesting, though, because they do keep moving forward despite this apparent inevitability. Why do they hope? Why do they try to change their world? It seems that, to be willing to move forward, one must have the possibility of a future to move toward.
ReplyDeleteIn a lot of dystopian novels, it seems that the government always tries to make the people believe that something is inevitable, that there are things that are completely out of control of the general public. I guess for this book its death, but in Hunger Games, the inevitablity set up by the Capitol is that children will die, and that the Capitol is always more powerful than the districts. In order to remind them 12 districts, the Capitol chooses 24 children each year who will be sacrificed in the arena. I think that the one victor of the Hunger Games keeps the districts complacent. Because there is a victor, the districts keep believing that they have some small chance of escaping the Capitol, just like all the tributes have some small chance of escaping death. The sad reality is that they don't. Death is inevitable, and 23 of the children are doomed. I think that is why Katniss's plan to double suicide got such a reaction from the Capitol: if the Capitol allowed them both to die, the districts might rebel against the atrocity. But by allowing them to both live, the Capitol has given the districts a true sense of hope; Katniss and Peeta show that there are ways to get around the oppressing power of the Capitol.
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