Wednesday, April 10, 2013

1984 Exploration

"It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its great atmosphere complete. He had the feeling that he was inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal."

I picked this passage because of how ironic it is. In the end the Thought Police destroy the paperweight, which destroyed Julia and his life together. It shows how much that room meant to him, and it was the first time that Winston had felt alone, and it actually felt like a home. It was the only place that Winston and Julia could be who they wanted to be, and talk to each other.

"We are the dead," Winston said. "We are the dead," echoed Julia dutifully. "You are the dead," said an iron voice behind them. They sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all around the irises of Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow."

This passage marked a turning point in the book from Winston and Julia being happy, and thinking they were apart of the Brotherhood to finding out they had been watched for quite some time. It is a moment of deceit from Mr. Charrington, who ended up being a member of the Thought Police. It's one of those moments where you don't know what to do, and it was a complete twist in the story.

I think that you read this book as a warning of what could happen eventually if we let government slowly take away more and more of our freedoms. It is also a warning of what could happen under a totalitarian, communist, or socialist country. I think the biggest thing we should take away from this book is how lucky we are as Americans to have all the freedoms that we have today, but that we need to continue to fight for them, and not give any up. I learned how a country like this in the book really could be possible by taking over people's minds. It is really kind of scary to think about living like that.

The issue I take away from this is using hate and fear to persuade citizens against eachother or to create certain divisions. The divisions in our country is political parties-democrat or republican. As of right now, it's not like people of both parties do not get along, but I think it has gotten worse since earlier in history. Instead of negotiating peacefully, and trying to get compromises that work for both parties they do not budge and call the other party all kinds of things to press hate towards the other party. Eventually if this hate continues, it  could eventually escalate into complete hate of the people from the other party because of much more peaceful issues.

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