Ib Written Task: 1984

Written Task

The downfall.

The cold pouring rain had finally stopped. The man who several years ago were used to be Winston Smith was walking down the narrow street closely to his apartment in Victory Mansions. It was the year 1989, or at least he thought so. It has been raining for days, or even weeks, it doesn’t matter. The noise of bombs turning buildings into dust was very often in that week, and they were dangerously close to the part of the city where most of the party members were relocated. While he was walking, his thoughts wandered in his head. Yes, he had thoughts again, and that scared him. It all started 3 days ago, when he was lovely staring at one of the few remaining posters of the Big Brother. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU read the poster. He loved Big Brother so much, but that day, he felt particularly loving, and while he was admiring his face, he started to wondering why did he loved him so much. He could not answer himself, and the doubt got stuck in head. It was too late; he knew what was going to happen.

The next day, in his path to the Ministry, he saw a woman, but not just a simple woman. He remembered her. It was the one he betrayed once. And maybe confusing her with Big Brother, the one who loved once. He started to use old words instead of newspeak ones; he didn’t know he remembers them. But he did know the danger of his actions, or in this case, his thoughts. Later that day, memories came back to him. He could see a diary, but not any diary. His diary. He thought he forgot all about his past life, his life with no love to the greatest, to the magnificent Big Brother. Suddenly, a diffuse image appeared to him when he where already in his job. It was a page of the diary he was recently thinking about it. It was a phrase on that yellowish sheet of paper, a horrendous phrase. He decided he will forget that memory as soon as possible, but it was too late. DOWN WITH THE BIG BROTHER. He feared.

The other day, the man finally blocked those thought but he knew it was too late for him. He walked down the street when a bomb exploded from a few meters. He died almost instantly for the shockwave that stopped his heartbeats. It was the best choice, all was lost for him.

His story doesn’t end here. Later that day, groups of the Ministry of Love were picking up the corpses of that day’s deaths. But they never expected Winston’s. He wasn’t supposed to be dead at that time, and they had no choice but carrying him to the deeper parts of the Ministry, were all the bodies were collected, and burned. He wasn’t a prole and had learned the lesson; his place couldn’t be in the sea of ashes where any normal and insignificant people were. He definitely was not that important, but still, the party had certain principles.

His body was cremated and placed in a small, black box. It had the size of a cup, and a symbol engraved on it, the symbol of Oceania, protruded on one side of the box. Once Winston was inside, the top of the box was sealed, and for two weeks, it stood in the 57th floor under the Ministry of Love. Finally, when they realized nobody would die in that month, they finally went to the coastline, and threw Winston to the ocean. It was a way different experience for Winston in his whole life; he was swimming for the first time in his life. He went through cold water, hot water, and after 1 day, or maybe 1 week, or 1 month, he felt the air again.

It was really strange to him. Was a bright sunny day in a shore, with sand, and people playing around. The kids were building sand castles; the girls, tanning; the boys, staring at the girls; the grown people, in the sea. That was a normal sunny day of spring, in the shore of Normandy, in France. For the inhabitants of Airstrip One, this was part of Eurasia.

One boy finally found Winston. He opened it, and with a sudden gust of wind, Winston flew over the south, directly to Spain in not much of time. The boy showed that box to his friends. “Hey, I think I’ve seen this symbol before. This is from that crazy country, England”, said one boy in Italian. “No, I heard they want to be called Oceania”, answered the other. “Those are the ones who never go out of their country, let’s do something”. Everyone agreed. They remembered the picture of earlier that day, in Paris, a street greatly crowded, with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

They placed the picture in the box, among with other ones, not so recent, from their tour to Europe. They managed to find a little fishing craft, from where in the middle of the English Channel later that day, dropped the box, accordingly to the currents. The box eventually arrived to English coastlines, being found by a slow party member, who just took it for its symbol. 4 days later, he returned to London, but by accident a bomb was dropped near his transport, and the box slipped away. A man, from the prole, grabbed the box, and opened it. Someone said before that the hope was in the proles, but the proles by themselves would do nothing. He was right; the hope lies in the proles.