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Hey guys, sorry this is a little late...
Here are a few more questions to think and blog about:
Could there ever be a rebellion against The Party or a similar government system?
Why did Winston betray Julia when he was facing the rats?
By releasing Winston, was O'Brien being generous for sparing his life, or is he causing him more pain by keeping him alive?
Thanks and see you tomorrow!
Ty
Zach
Riley
posted by TyC @ 7:51 PM
23 Comments:
I think there could be a rebellion against the Party. Winston and Julia were unfortunately very stupid and careless in the way they went about their business, consorting with strangers and whatnot. (Winston's first mistake was to get involved with Julia; he had no way of knowing whether she was in the Thought Police.) The hardest part would be to avoid being caught through the subtle "tics" that supposedly identify the rebels.
I'm going to say that Winston didn't betray Julia at all, but rather did what literally any person would have done faced with a similar situation. It was not a matter of betrayal, but rather an instinct of survival brought on by fears (albeit ones exacerbated by O'Brien).
As for O'Brien releasing Winston, I'd see it as a generous gesture. Winston is now able to delude himself into thinking that he's satisfied and life is grand, and, thus, as ignorance is bliss, he really will be a happy camper. My theory is that people are so ignorant of their own unhappiness that they really are happy. Doublethink, I guess?
I think that Winston betrayed Julia only because he needed to save his own life. He was terrified of the rats and was will to do anything so that he wouldn't get attacked by them. I think that might prove that he wasnt really in love with her to begin with. I think that it was just a little fling..if you know what I am saying there.
I also think that O'Brien didn't do Winston any favors by keeping him alive. He is now just floating through life with no purpose.
1. As we discussed in the fishbowl today, I do not think there is much chance of the party being overthrown. They have a system in place where they mold everyone into thinking the same way. Those who break the orthodoxy are reformed. There exists no one in the society who has any reason to rebel. That essentially guarantees the party is going to stay in power.
2. I think Winston betrayed Julia because he was afraid of what was coming next. It is human nature to betray someone when you are afraid.
3. I personally think O'Brien was being generous by sparring Winston's life. By letting Winston back into society O’Brien showed that he is willing to defy the rule that all thought criminals are vaporized. He letting Winston know that he still has a bit of rebel in him. I hope this makes sense. Feel to come at me on this one... I was already vehemently overruled in the fishbowl.
Hey everyone!
So, for the first question: I think that there could be a rebellion, but as Winston thought, it would have to come from the Proles. I don't think a Prole rebellion would be nearly as effective as the Party being defeated in war, but it would still cause the fall of Ingsoc.
I think that Winston betrayed Julia because, as he mentioned, when a person is put in such horrible, terrifying situations he is bound to resort to his most primal instincts, the most important of which would be the instinct of self-preservation. In the state of mind that Winston was in, he was willing to have them do anything to anyone else as long as they didn't do it to him.
For the last question: I don't think that O'Brien was being generous for sparing Winston's life, but I don't think that Winston realizes it. Winston was so brainwashed by his torture that he is no longer able to grasp what he wants and doesn't want in life. He has lost all concept of emotion and therefore has doesn't understand that he may be better off dead.
Well, see you all tomorrow! I hope your bus trip wasn't too painful, Riley and Tom! We missed you!
With everything that we know from 1984 and the failed rebellion of Winston and as far as we know, all others, I really don't think that anyone could break that down. But the Party is a reflection of Communist Russia and Nazi Germany, and although they were extremely strong, they were demolished in their respected areas. I think that the key is, like with these real world situations, is other countries interfering. If Eastasia or Eurasia intervened, I think that a rebellion could happen.
Winsotn betrayed Julia I think because his love was tested so much through the previous torture that by the time that this terrible torture happened, his love had been to weakened. I aslo think that he might have felt ashamed when he was scared by the rats and felt like a wimp for not being able to take the torture, and he probably thought that Julia deserved someone who was tougher and stronger.
Like we talked about in fishbowl, I definitely think that releasing Winston instead of killing him caused him more pain. Winston's beliefs and his whole spirit were crushed by this torture and I think that he felt like a total failure and after he stopped loving Julia, he didn't have areason to live anymore. Making him live after all of this, is the worst torture.
AS far as Winston's betrayal of Julia goes, I think that it got to the point where Winston could not handle the pressures that torture were placing on him. He was very afraid. (And not without due cause I might add) So he did the only thing that would save his life. Betray his love. However I really wanted to pose this question at the fishbowl however the opprotunitty didn't present itself,
Do yo uthink that the party has ever tortuored someone in room 101 or has the person lost their nerve before then? Why/why not?
If the party continues to effectively snuff out any sort of rebellion or ideas that differ from their own, then I think that a mass rebellion will never happen. There is no way for people to assemble and plan any sort of movement. For example, Winston and Julia couldn't even meet in public places and they are just two people.
Winston betrayed Julia when he was facing the rats because he is human and when facing the worst fear of his life, he truly wanted someone else, that someone beign Julia, to face the rats rather than him. Also, as Kenna said in our fishbowl today, it is human nature to value our own saftey over others. We may fool ourselves and say we could never hurt people we truly love, but when we face our worst fear, I think our feelings would change.
I think that O'Brien caused Winston more pain by keeping him alive. Killing Winston, whether it be painful or not, would still end all of Winston's pain mentally and physically. Keeping Winston alive is effective because although Winston is no longer being physically tortured, he still has to live with the mental demons that stayed with him after the experience. The mental effects of torture do not melt away when Winston is released. They live in his mind and terrorize his thoughts and dreams.
I think by releasing him o'brien caused more pain. He released him not out of generosity, but for his own publicity purposes. Once Winston's job is done, he will be killed.
I think he did betray her. We can see that it was real and important, ant that something deep inside him snapped because of the way he views her now.
I agree with what Tom said on rebellion. It could happen if enough people got together. However, I seriously doubt it would be significant or successful.
I shall respond to question two. In the end I think that it was ultimately selfishness that made Winnny betray Jules. He was so afraid of rats that he would rather have Jules', his love's, face eaten by rats instead of his own. From this statement it can be inferred that the Party tries to bring selfishness out of people because if people want what is "best" for themselves, and they have also begun to accept the party's lies, then they will accept the Party's "generous" offer of a better life by using doublethink.
In response to the last question:
I dont think that OBrien was being generous by letting Winston return to society. After all, Julia was released as well and we know that Winston was more involved with 'anti-party' sort of ideas, but he was still released after all he had done. For all we know, the release of thought criminals after room 101 may be frequent. I dont think that OBrien was being generous or guilty and I dont think those were reasons for letting him go. I think that he probably got what he wanted out of Winston and felt it was time to let him go. And, if he ever saw Winston betraying the party again, they could always just bring him back and torture him more, and then kill him. But as for this time, I think lettin him back into society was a way for OBrien to allow Winston to fully understand what he had learned from OBrien. I dont think OBrien would have spent so much time 'fixing' Winston if he was just going to kill him. Now, with Winston back in society, I think it is a sort of punnishment because Winston knows there is something wrong with the way things are but he knows he cant do anything to stop it; he has given up hope of changing things and has conformed to be like everyone else, and survive.
I think that O'Brein generally caused more pain on Winston by keeping him alive because he could have automatically killed Winston in the beginning,gotten rid of Winston's ideas, and saved himself as well as Winston a whole lot of trouble. In the process of making Winston undergo such torture as he did, O'Brien killed a part of Winston, his free spirit and his ability to think.
No, I do not think there could be a rebellion against The Party or a similar government system because, as Winston noticed, any power to overthrow such a government lies in the mass population, the Proles. Unfortunately, the Proles aren't effected enough to care wether the Party is in power or not. They also do not have the natural leaders that could start a rebellion, as the leaders would be brought down by the Party before they could actually start any kind of a rebellion against the Party.
I think that there could not be a rebellion against the Party. There are too many controlling issues and the people who started the rebellion would be caught and tortured and/or killed. The Party is so bent on making their part of the society secure, that they will have no one getting in the way of that.
I think that O'Brien was being generous for sparing Winston's life, but for the Party's and Big Brother's purpose. Winston is now just another person who loves Big Brother, and by keeping him alive, O'Brien furthered their cause.
I think O'Brien released Winston as a way to play one last mind game with him. Winston had been looking forward to and expecting the gunshot to the back of the head, and by releasing him, O'Brien showed that he had the final say.
Winston betrayed Julia becuase there comes a point when a human just can't endure anything. However, I don't think he betrayed her then, I think he had done it long before then, alhtough I wouldn't call it betrayal. He didn't have a choice in it, and he would have ended up incriminating her whether he wanted to or not.
I think that Winston betrayed Julia when he faced the rats because he knew that was the only outlet to getting eaten by the rats. He was more afraid of the rats than he was in love with Julia. I think that the fact that he hadn't seen her in possibly several years helped contribute to the fact that he betraye her.
I think that O'Brien was causing Winston more pain by keeping him alive. I think, because Winston wanted to die, that this was the worst punishment possible. It is just like the saying, "For the evil, it is worse to live".
I think there could be a rebellion against the Party, but it would have to be formed quickly and acted upon, otherwise it close to being virually impossible. Winston betrayed Julia I think for two reasons. The first is that he felt that it was the only way to get out of the situation. The second is that he kind of lost that love for her because they were separate for such a long time. I think realeasing Winston was generous, but the process was what really caused him the true pain so I am torn both ways.
I like the idea period 2 started...
What would be your own room 101?
Winston betrayed Julia because its human nature to, in the end, have the desire to save your skin, no matter how much you would love to believe that that is not the case. When you fear something that much, you will do anything to make it go away, just like the man in Winston's cell who said he would watch his own family be slaughtered, just so long as he didn't have to go to Room 101 and face his worst fears. Winston's worst fear, beyond anything in the whole world was rats, he feared them so much that he would betray the one thing he loved, just so that he would not have to endure such a horrid experience. Julia did the same, but its interesting to me, that even after feeling such a fear toward something, you would handover the thing you love most to the exact same fate. I think all of us would like to believe that we would fight it, and do the right thing, but when it boils right down to it, there are just some thing a human cannot endure, and in order to not have to endure it, we will give up even the things we love most.
My Room 101**a blanket over my body and face with someone holding it down so I can't breathe...I am ridiculously claustrophobic
I didn't answer my own question:
My room 101 would be filled with carbon monoxide and have alarms going off. I can't stand alarms and I would definately not want to die by carbon monoxide poisoning.
I do not think that there could ever be a rebellion. In the book we saw how even two people (Winston and Julia) were caught by trusting O'Brien. The level of trust in the society is so low that no one can tell who is against/for the Party. Even if someone seemed like they wanted to participate in a rebellion against the Party, one could never be completely positive they could trust them 100%. Winston experienced this by putting his belief in O'Brien and then ended up being caught by the Thought Police and tortured by O'Brien himself. If chances like Winston's have to be taken to form a group to rebel and bring down the government, eventually someone will catch on, either by deceit or the openness of someone in the rebellion, and the whole or at least part will be caught. We have seen Winston and Julia confess and betray each other. This leads to the thought that for most people, under a torturous situation, they will reveal other people involved. Therefore, I do not believe a rebellion could succeed in a society like 1984 for several reasons: a large group would not be able to be exist because it would be too easy to catch the “members”, one person would not be able to take down a power like the Party by his/herself, and a rebellion would not come from within the government because of all of the brainwashing/”curing”.
I don't think that it is possible for a rebellion to occur in the 1984 society. There is too much control over thought and over actions to make any rebellion possible. Before there is a close possibility of any type of rebellion it is squashed. We saw with Winston and Juliet that people who even seem like they will rebel are watched and watched and watched and then when they are just about to make a bigger move they are taken in and reeducation begins.
I agree with Kenna. When human nature is stripped down to its bare reality, past all the fake faces, it is natural to want to save yourself. Humanity is selfish and the majority of people want what is best for themselves. Winston was caught in this predicament, and even betrayed the one thing he had left: his love for Julia.
I like what Ben said in the fishbowl about why O'Brien released Winston. He said that the government does not want any maryrs, they want it to seem like they are always right and the people are always wrong. By killing Winston, it is almost like letting him win, and may encourage other people to try to rebel too.
Yes there could be a rebellion against the party but it would not suceed.
Winston betrayed Julia when he was facing the rats because he did not want to endure the pain of the rats. He wanted another body in between himself and the rats. Julia was the very first person who came into his mind. He would much rather have her be harmed than himself.
I think OBrien is causing Winston more pain because he has to go through with life being brainwashed and not being able to think what he wanted to think. He can never be the same as he was before, so I think it is not very generous sparing his life.
I dont think that there could ever be a rebellion against the party. This is because The Party is too strong and the inner members are too devoted to the cause.
I think that Winston betrayed Julia when he wasx facing the rats because he might have blamed her for everything that was happening. He wouldnt have rented the room if he wasn't hooking up with her and therefor he might have been able to get away with his thoughtcrime.
I think that e is causing him more pain becaue he has to live no only with this crap of a life, but also knowing that he had become a mindless robot.
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