Markie Moyer Exploration-1984

"For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl:
theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother" (pg.20)

This passage is important because it goes to show how bad things really are for Winston to know that writing in this book can get him killed and its a risk hes willing to take. He felt ashamed of himself and soon after there was a knock at the door and he automatically assumed it was the thought police there to take him away. "Down with big brother," this is such a powerful statement. He's willing to die to honor what he believes is right.

"He gaved up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless min understanding! 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" (pg.245).

This is such a powerful passage because it's as if the fight of the entire book is wrapped up in this last paragraph. We had been fighting and rooting for Winston to make a change and not give in to Big Brother and he did. He had no choice to. This is such a contrast passage from my first one. His struggle was finished and he had won the victory over himself. He had been brainwashed.

I read this book as a warning to show how much power the government  can have over our actions and our thoughts. I think we need to appreciate our freedoms that we do have and not take them for granted because we never know who could happen and the control we could be under in the future.

This book has a main focus on the loss of privacy amongst the people which we can easily apply to our own world. Especially with the use of technology it seems that we have no privacy. All of our land line phone calls can be recorded, anything we do on our computers can be brought up again and identity theft and hacking crimes are increasing. All of these contribute to many people feeling as though we have no privacy. However, this doesn't even compare to the loss of privacy the people in 1984 experienced. It just makes me wonder if our world could ever come to how it is in the book where we REALLY have no privacy.