I Wanna Go Play BioShock Now

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." -- Page 266

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really liked 1984 (by George Orwell).  The more that time passes since I've finished reading it, the more I find myself enjoying everything about it.  Sure, it takes a little while to pick up a pace, and sure, most of the conflict is internal, and sure, it's all a bunch of political philosophies tied up in jargon within Winston's chaotic brain and O'Brien's bold statements and the Party's haunting aphorisms and the Book, but what can I say, I like that stuff.  I would like to think that Orwell's vision hasn't come true, but sometimes the amount of information documented of individuals and filed out there is scary to think about.  However, while having a discussion with a scholarly friend over Spring Break about 1984, we both agreed that a society such as the one Winston Smith lives in during the novel is unrealistic in today's world, mostly because of the obsessive use of the Internet.  With so much information able to be uploaded, processed, shared, downloaded, and synthesized so rapidly anywhere on the globe, a society where the populace is entirely closed off from the outside world is unthinkable.  Oceania relied on lies about the wars and the destruction of excess goods through continuous warfare to keep its citizens in the dark, and this would be virtually impossible in today's world because of the Internet.  Recently in the Middle East, the suppressed classes have revolted against their governments, and these revolutions in short were made possible because of networking sites that exist today like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, none of which were even conceptualized ten years ago.  Orwell could not have foreseen the Internet when writing 1984, let alone the thought of mass social networking.  On the same thread, websites like WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, will reveal ridiculous amounts of information that governments keep from its people.  Documents that aren't even withheld for power-hungry reasons, as in 1984, but for issues of national security.  Because of the inconceivable power and capacity of the Internet, and, I think, because of the existence of the book 1984 itself, George Orwell's vision of the future, at least at present, is in no danger of eventuation.

2007, Form B

"'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something- something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, 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.'" -- Page 261

During the flashback Winston experiences in Book Three, Chapter VI, he sees Julia in a park and talks to her for a brief time about what happened to them in the Miniluv.  I think the quote above really sums up their whole conversation.  By betraying one another in Room 101, they will never think about each other in the same way, because they both truly wanted the other to take their place and experience the fear and pain they were about to face.  Winston reflects on this brief meeting while in the Chestnut Tree Café, where he is now a regular at his corner table, "with the newspaper and the chessboard and the ever-flowing gin."  The Party's complete lack of follow-up surveillance on Winston and his ability to drink bottomless gin and be undercharged shows just how successful O'Brien and the Miniluv were at 'curing' him.  The interrogation and torture that took place while Winston was in the Miniluv comprises most of Book Three, and was in itself captivating.  A large part of the dialogue that takes place during O'Brien and Winston's 'sessions' consists of philosophical and political banter between the two, mostly dominated by O'Brien.  It is through these playful repartees that the values of the Party are fully vocalized, and the extent of the lunacy of O'Brien (or is Winston insane?) is fully realized.  The larger goal was for Winston to a) accept and practice doublethink and crimestop, and b) deny the notion that objective reality exists, that if the Party says 2 + 2 = 5, then it is so.  I think these 'sessions' were meant by Orwell to be the most frightening part of the book, and they certaintly make the reader want to prevent authoritarian governments (and for that matter, given the historical context of world politics during the '40s, i.e. Red Scare, any form of communism).  In other words, George Orwell was pretty cool.

Noooooo! Not Mr. Charrington!

"'We are the dead,' he said.
'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully.
'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them."
-- Page 197

First of all, when I read that part I seriously got goosebumps.  Didn't know books could do that to you.  Second, for a book that centers itself around conflict and plot development that is internal, the scene where Winston and Julia are arrested by the Thought Police (and, alas, a biker gang leader-looking Mr. Charrington) is a breath of fresh external conflict air.  In all seriousness, Book Two, Chapter X of 1984 was probably my favorite, because...it contained so many literary terms, of course!  Besides internal and external conflict, there was also a spooky line of foreshadowing on page 194, "She picked the stove up and shook it. 'There's no oil in it.' / 'We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.' / 'The funny thing is I made sure it was full. I'm going to put my clothes on,' she added. 'It seems to have got colder.'"  Creepy, no?  Unfortunately for me, my sister, whose copy of 1984 I'm borrowing to save a quick buck, had highlighted this exerpt in my book, with an arrow and the word FORESHADOWING written in all caps outside the margin.  Thanks for ruining good literature, Kaylee.  I was really disappointed when Mr. Charrington ended up being a leader in the thinkpol because I really liked his character.  Even though it's only Mr. Charrington and O'Brien, because there are so few characters in 1984, it really seems like everyone around Winston ends up not being who he thinks they are.  Even Julia betrays him in the end, but to be fair he betrays her too.  How romantic!

No, Really, WAR IS PEACE.

"The effect would be much the same if the three superstates, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. ... A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This ... is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE." -- Page 177

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein is probably the only book I've ever read within a book, and I must say that it didn't disappoint.  I would certainly suggest to anyone reading 1984 that he read this section of the novel rather than skip it (as Mr. Costello has allowed classes to do in the past, psh) for two reasons:

1. It gives valuable insight into the reasons for the way Inner and Outer Party members live through the historical background and significance of the wars against Eurasia and Eastasia, thus leading to a more immersed reading of the rest of the novel, and
2. It contains some interestingly deep thoughts on collectivism, corporatism, and, of course, communism, all of which, among others, contain principles that Orwell was trying to prevent by writing of the potential dangers they imposed.

Basically, this is some pretty scary stuff.  In the context of the novel, it's even scarier to realize that this 'heretical' book was written by none other than the Party itself.  Once again, this idea requires doublethink.  For O'Brien, and the others, to have been able to write a book that, to my best judgement, truthfully objects to the values of the Party and lays out substantial reasoning supporting that argument, they had to acknowledge that its sole purpose was to be an entrapment device and that the logic contained therein was unorthodox.  As O'Brien tells Winston later in the Miniluv, regarding the truthiness of the book, it is "[a]s description, yes. The programme it sets forth . . . is nonsense".

Jesus Walks

"We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party. We want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are also adulterers. ... If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are ready." -- Page 150-151

So at the start of the second half of the book (which I read over Spring Break, mind you), Winston and Julia are visiting O'Brien in his home, discussing the possibility of The Brotherhood and their future places in it.  Naturally, this entire conversation is incredibly ironic now that I've finished the book and know the true nature of O'Brien.  In one specific line O'Brien says to the eager duo, "I think it is fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To Emmanuel Goldstein."  As I sit here re-reading that, it gives quite the eerie feeling to be honest.  O'Brien wrote the book that expresses the supposed 'views' of Emmanuel Goldstein, so for him to toast to the ideals of a man that he, and others in the Inner Party, created riffles me with doublethink and leads to so much irony looking back.  This scene is also slightly sad to me, because it represents the first time Winston and Julia, together, take responsibility for their thoughtcrimes and declare their personal heresies pertaining to the Party, also together.  The last three words of the above quote, "we are ready" rings as especially pathetic, because neither of them were, in fact, ready for the betrayal that would take place in Room 101.  The confidence displayed in the paragraph where Winston essentially hands himself and Julia over to the Party through a complete confession is almost touching, knowing that at that exact moment the Party was listening and O'Brien's work, seven years in the making, was about to come to fruition.