1984: Book 3 Chapters 4-6

Passage:
"The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.

It was a common punishment in Imperial China,' said O'Brien as didactically as ever.

The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then -- no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment -- one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over.

'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"' (Book 3 Chapter 5 Page 286)

Response:
I chose this quote particularly due to the fact that this event in the book really tested Winston's loyalty, not only to the party, but towards his love for Julia. This quote primarily dealt with the Inner Party taking Winston into Room 101 in which O'Brien states that the worst thing in the world would happen in this room. That worst thing in Winston's case was rats, which are his greatest fear. Being rats to be Winston's greatest fear, the party used this fear of his to test his loyalty to people he most associates with. Unfortunately, this fear of his expressed a betrayal to his private love relationship with Julia. His love for Julia always seemed so sacred, but with his life at risk, he expressed his betrayal towards his love for Julia.

When reading this part of the book, I was very surprised with what O'Brien had in store to threaten Winston's life. Unfortunately, his threat was so good that Winston had to betray. I was impressed that O'Brien used Winston's fear of rats to get out his betrayal, but in my opinion, I think Winston didn't have to express his betrayal. I feel that Winston should have sucked up his fear and take one for the team, rather than having another person being involved in the Party's torture. Also, if he really loved Julia, he wouldn't want her to be tortured. I feel that his betrayal was sort of selfish since in my own life I would take partake in anything just to save the lives of my family and loved ones. I feel that if Winston was truly a gentleman and really cared for Julia, he wouldn't have shown this betrayal.

In my opinion, I related this scenario regarding Winston, Julia, and the Party with Julius Caesar. I related this to Julius Caesar since Brutus, one of Caesar's good friends betrayed Caesar just like Winston just betrayed Julia. Brutus betrayed Caesar in hopes to save the Roman Republic, and after all we can see that Winston sort of betrayed Julia in hopes to save his life, and save the Party. This expressed his loyalty towards the Party rather than Julia. From here, another connection to Julius Caesar is the death of Caesar since Brutus was involved in the stabbing of Caesar, and in this case Winston is sort of involved in the torturing of Julia since he was the one that motioned for them to get her rather than him.

Questions to ask Winston:
1) Was betraying Julia always in the back of your mind?
2) Since you have now expressed your betrayal towards Julia, are you now accepting the morals of the Party?
3) Was this selfish act all for show, and you want to further rebel to the Party?
4) Do you realize that throwing Julia under the bust will make her experience what you experienced?
5) By now getting set free, will you continue to rebel or now obey Big Brother?

Questions to ask Julia:
1) Did you ever realize that Winston had the nerve to betray against you?
2) Was betraying each other always a plan for both of you?
3) How were you able to escape the Party's confinement?
4) Do you think Winston's betrayal a selfish act that's why you also betrayed him?
5) Like Winston, do you now obey the Party and look up to Big Brother?

Questions for Big Brother/Party Members:
1) Are you content now that Winston and Julia, two who often rebelled, are now obeying you?
2) How was Julia able to escape confinement with only a few scars?
3) Do you always use people's fears for them to accept the Party?
4) Will Oceania change for the better or for the worse?
5) Do you fear that Winston and Julia will link up once again to rebel even more since they know how the system works?

1984: Book 3 Chapters 1-3

Passage:
"Do not imagine that you will save yourself, Winston, however completely you surrender to us. No one who has once gone astray is ever spared. And even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, still you would never escape from us. What happens to you here is forever. Understand that in advance. We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves." (Book 3 Chapter 3 Page 256)

Response:
I chose this quote due to the fact that it hits home to me since it is sort of a summary of partly the whole book as of now. This quote is as significant representation of how the book is going along in the lines of being controlled by the Party. I feel that this quote is special due to the fact that O'Brien is now explaining the dystopian society that they live in Winston is in captivity due to Mr. Charrington acting as a normal citizen, but in reality he is a Thought Police member. O'Brien explains explicitly that Winston should have no more hopes, dreams, and aspirations since the Party controls everybody especially if you are arrested. Also, O'Brien then explains to Winston that the past is not ever present anymore only the present is, due to the fact that the government has there ways to manipulate not only thoughts but also records from the Records Department. The government has the ability to write their own history at all times. The government has so much power over everything that nobody can basically do anything since to them anything is seen to be a crime.

In this quote O'Brien explicitly explains to Winston that once he has been arrested, Winston cannot do anything to help others or even help himself. This is due to the fact that even though the government has such control over their citizens, they have much more control over their prisoners as well. As O'Brien describes to Winston, he is basically worthless now since any rebellion or any hope for joy is impossible to receive from now on. This to me is related to modern-day prisoners especially those in solitary confinement. There is a common relationship with prisons in Oceania and today's world since when one is in prison, they have no control over themselves, that they are only filled by the governments perspective on them. This entails that prisoners both in Ocean and today, all feel that they are worthless and have no right for anything possible.


Also, as this quote sort of explains a summary of the whole book. We can see that the government of Oceania have total control over their citizens. Also, Party members such as O'Brien have much more power than any normal citizen in Oceania. The part in which explains that: "Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity" shows the factors that the citizens of Oceania live by. It is sad that these factors in our modern world are commonly abused in our society. It is sad that the citizens of Oceania don't have the ability to live a free life, which entails the quote presented before of "Freedom of Slavery." The citizens of Oceania don't have the ability to live a totally free life since it is completely not possible due to all the constraints they have on themselves.  It is sad that we can connect to this freedom of slavery in our modern world since it is true that advancements of our technology put us at risk to become slaves for our own freedom. Also, we are "currency slaves" due to the fact that we must have a suitable job that is good enough for us to pay all our bills and live comfortably. This entails that from this quote freedom is definitely slavery.
Questions for Winston:
1) Are you going to try to escape the prison?
2) Do you think that you have the ability to still rebel against the party?
3) Do you believe everything that O'Brien is telling you?
4) Will you allow for them to squeeze everything out of you and have them fill yourself with themselves?
5) Don't you just hate people from the Party that abuse their power such as O'Brien?
Questions for the Party/ O'Brien:
1) Why do you guys want to squeeze every criminal out of all their powers and fill them with yourselves?
2) Why do people have to suffer from just committing a crime that is not a crime anywhere else except Oceania?
3) Do you realize that you guys are abusing your power as a party member?
4) In your opinion, do you believe in Freedom is Slavery?
5) Why doesn't the government just have everybody be equal so nobody rebels and everybody abides to all rules?

1984: Book 2 Chapters 7-10

Passage:

"Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs -- all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it involved could not be called by their true names. Everyone in the Records Department worked eighteen hours in the twenty-four, with two three-hour snatches of sleep. Mattresses were brought up from the cellars and pitched all over the corridors: meals consisted of sandwiches and Victory Coffee wheeled round on trolleys by attendants from the canteen. Each time that Winston broke off for one of his spells of sleep he tried to leave his desk clear of work, and each time that he crawled back sticky-eyed and aching, it was to find that another shower of paper cylinders had covered the desk like a snowdrift, half burying the speakwrite and overflowing on to the floor, so that the first job was always to stack them into a neat enough pile to give him room to work. What was worst of all was that the work was by no means purely mechanical. Often it was enough merely to substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even the geographical knowledge that one needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable." (Book 2 Chapter 9 Page 182)

Response:

I chose this quote due to the fact that it shows how much work is being done when the government wants past history to be rewritten. This quote is a small snippet of the actual stress and tension it takes for the Records Department to be able to change all the "obsolete" history and change it with present history that aligns with their initial claims. I particularly stopped at this quote due to the fact that it showed how much work must be put on the employees of the Record Department to obey the governments' policy to change whatever data that contradicts their own current claims regarding the issue. Also, this description that Winston establishes is just after Hate Week in which the citizens of Oceania just realized that the government made Eurasia the scapegoat to have the citizens blame them for the war, but in reality Oceania is really in war with Eastasia, and Eurasia is just an ally. 

From this quote as well, Winston describes that the employees of the Records Department in this time of switching up history, has to stay at the Records Department for 24 hours a day, and work 18 hours total throughout the day. The 6 hours of not working consists of 2 three hour breaks that are used to rest by trying to sleep. However, Winston describes that in the Records Department it is tough to sleep during this hectic and chaotic time of working since the employees desks are full of paperwork. So, the only way to sleep is to make enough space to lay your head on the desk, or to sleep on top of all the paperwork. However, the Records Department did provide some mattresses that were laid around the building for the employees to sleep for their 3 hours break. These 3 hour breaks may seem to be luxurious for the employees, but in reality the 2 three hour breaks is just not enough for the employees to be able to properly rest. Also, it is discouraging to go to sleep since the employees already know that once they come back to their desk, paperworks would fill their desks. This working situation in my case is not ideal since in our modern times, it is illegal for an employee to stay at work for 24 hours each day and work 18 hours of that day. It is a job that I would never want to do due to the chaos involved with the history, the citizens, and the government. Also, this job is very demanding since it makes the employees of the Records Department use their own imagination and thought to rewrite the history that the government wants to revert. This job is not ideal for me and I would never want to work in a situation like this. This job in my opinion is dehumanizing since it makes the employees stay at work, and work tirelessly so history can be written at the fastest rate possible. This job to me is a way of suffocation for the citizens since they are entitled to work countless hours for the governments' own good and the government however is still watching over them that they do their work sufficiently and also for them to not tell others of the previous history.

Another reason why this quote was a special part to the plot of the story is that it shows how that the food that they were given while at the job were just sandwiches and victory coffee. These sandwiches and victory coffee are not enough for what the employees of the Records Department is doing for the government. It does not quite cut it for food since this is Oceania, and the citizens don't get the same common luxuries as the Party members. Everything that the citizens get is a complete downgrade to luxuries that today we take for granted. For example, they don't really get the same sugar that we take for granted and this is a common luxury that most of us can't live without. Sugar is sort of peoples ways of life since it brings out sweetest which spikes up our tastebuds. In the case of the employees, it is quite disturbing to realize that the victory coffee that they are getting is a poor accommodation since anything that involves victory is a complete downgrade of what we have in modern times. For example, victory cigarettes are seen to be completely poor in quality and the tobacco just falls out if tipped in one way. By this, the coffee that they are getting is very poor and it is even more poor since they can't drink it with the commonality of sugar inside our coffee. Also, this poor quality goes along with the sandwiches as well since we would only expect that the government would give only the poorest quality to their citizens. 

Questions to ask Winston: 
1) Are you able to quit your job?
2) If you were able to quit your job, would you?
3) How do handle being controlled by such controlling employers?
4) How was the food provided in your own opinion?
5) By the way you always rebel, did you input any rebellion material while rewriting the history books?

Questions to ask the government:
1) Do you realize that in today's world, your putting yourselves in an illegal situation as an employer?
2) Why do make your employees work such long hours, couldn't they just gradually change history?
3) Do you realize that they don't get sufficient food and sleep while on the job?
4) Why did you want people to hate of Eurasia when in reality they are your allies?
5) Do you realize that any employee may rebel through the manipulation of history?

1984: Book 2 Chapters 3-6

Passage:

"A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier, three or four meters high, striding forward with expressionless Mongolian face and enormous boots, a submachine gun pointed from his hip. From whatever angle you looked at the poster, the muzzle of the gun, magnified by the foreshortening, seemed to be pointed straight at you. The thing had been plastered on every blank space on every wall, even outnumbering the portraits of Big Brother. The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism. As though to harmonize with the general mood, the rocket bombs had been killing larger numbers of people than usual. One fell a on a crowded film theater in Stepney, burying several hundred victims among the ruins. The whole population of the neighborhood turned out for a long, trailing funeral which went on for hours and was in effect an indignation meeting. Another bomb fell on a piece of waste ground which was used as a playground, and several dozen children were blown to pieces. There were further angry demonstrations, Goldstein was burned in effigy, hundreds of copies of the poster of the Eurasian soldier were torn down and added to the flames, and a number of shops were looted in the turmoil; then a rumor flew round that spies were directing the rocket bombs by means of wireless waves, and an old couple who were suspected of being of foreign extraction had their house set on fire and perished of suffocation." (Book 2 Chapter 5 Page 149)

Response:
This quote was very unique and made me stop since it shows how the Party prepares for Hate Week. Hate Week in 1984 is the week in which it is an organized event to show and express the hatred of the Party's enemy. This quote was spectacular to me since I felt some connections to this quote with the personal lives of people living in our war periods. This quote is very similar to our own American life, and it is quite scary visualizing that a book that was published in 1949. This quote depicted, in great detail, the poster that was being hung around town depicted the Eurasian soldier. This Eurasian soldier in this quote in my opinion can be seen to be just like an Uncle Sam poster. Both were similar in the ways in which whatever angle you looked at the poster, some part was always looking towards you. In Uncle Sam's case, it was his finger, in this case, it was the muzzle of the gun that was always following anybody that was looking at the poster. Also, another aspect in which the poster was similar to an Uncle Sam poster is that the poster was hung up to increase patriotism towards its citizens. This poster was for citizens to show patriotism for the Party, and in Uncle Sam's poster, it was to show patriotism for the United States. Both for the patriotism in times of war. The ways in which Orwell described the poster, and the ways in which it was hung all around London seems to be almost identical to a description of the Uncle Sam poster. Also, the poster in this case and in Uncle Sam's case, the poster was used for war propaganda for people to join the war, and for people to go against the enemy of the Party. Below is pictures of the Eurasian soldier poster hung all around London next to the Uncle Sam poster hung all around the United States.

This quote also embodies the rocket bombs that were dropped in the Party's territory for a sort of encouragement in preparation to Hate Week. This preparation is not a usual thing many will suspect as war propaganda, but unfortunately this was the Party's way for their citizens to go even more against the Party's enemy. It seems as if that the Party was setting up their own bombs to make their citizens believe that the enemy is doing it so their hatred for the enemy continues to grow. It is unbelievable to think that the own government of Oceania will be the ones dropping the bombs in their own territory, but if we think about the situation it is true that it is reasonable for the government to do such an act since it makes it seem to the citizens that their territory may very soon diminish if they didn't have a strong hatred for the opposing enemy. This is an unusual way of propaganda, but itworks in my opinion. However, in our own modern life, I hope that this would never happen in our case since it is kind of crazy for innocent lives to be taken away. 

Questions:

Question to ask Winston/ all the citizens of Oceania:

1. Do you guys look forward in participating for Hate Week or are you forced to participate in it or else you would be arrested by the Thought Police?
2.  If you had the choice, would you not participate in Hate Week?
3. Did the picture of the Eurasian soldier have an effect on you to increase your hatred towards them? Did the rocket bomb attacks have an effect on you to increase your hatred towards them?
4. Are you aware that the government is the one setting off the bombs in their own territories?

Questions to ask INGSOC (the Party/government of Oceania in 1984):

1. Are you guys aware that you are killing innocent lives when you set out another rocket bomb?
2. Why exactly are you committing wrongful crimes against your own citizens for other citizens to increase their hatred towards your enemy?
3. Is there any citizen that knows that you are attacking your own territories for them to thing that it is your enemy doing all the acts?
4. Is “Big Brother” still watching the citizens since by Orwell it seems that the Eurasian soldier poster is taking over and outnumbering the posters of “Big Brother?”
5. Do you think that the acts that you are doing will certainly increase the citizens hatred towards your enemy in preparation for Hate Week?
6. What other wrongful acts do you have in store for the Hate Week preparation?

Questions for George Orwell (the author of the book):

1. Were your intentions while describing the Eurasian solider supposed to be related to Uncle Sam, a prominent figure in periods of the United States?
2. If not, did you ever realize the connection to Uncle Sam?
3. Did you ever realize that this quote has similar relation to modern times?
4. What else do you have in store for this war propaganda and Hate Week preparation?