1984 Winston Encounter With Big Brother

Paranoid but fanciful, Winston imagines an encounter with O’Brien that might deepen their rebellious tie. Although Winston is portrayed as being intelligent, his cause blinds him, he is overly eager in finding alliances, and as a result jumps to conclusions. Briefly following the aforementioned excerpt, Winston uses writes in his diary, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER. DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” (36-37). In his own small way of going against society, Winston purchased his diary, however, the larger act of rebellion here is the release of Winston’s built up fury against Big Brother, and his triumph against the fear in doing so. By which point in the novel, Winston is becoming more autonomous and less restrained by the authoritarian system designed to govern his every action and thought. Of course, since the beginning of the novel, Winston has questioned Big Brother, along with the existence of certain rules, and he was never truly a brainwashed member of society, this first written act of resistance characterizes him beyond the more typical person he was first introduced to be. As the plot progresses, Winston’s thoughts seem to revolve around Julia, a fellow Party
worker. Initially, he hated her justifying his loathing “because of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general clean mindedness which she managed to carry about her. He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.... who were the most bigoted adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy." (12) However, Winston thought there was something more dangerous about Julia than most women. Later on he realizes his hatred for her stems from the fact that she represented things he could never have: youth and beauty. In a fashion typically reserved for third-graders, Julia slips a scrap of paper to Winston with three words – “I love you.” At first, their relationship is merely a political act of rebellion. Their entire purpose of being together is for them to express their anger and frustration with the Party and its repressive tactics. Being together is a way for them to feel like live, real, human beings with emotions and instincts that exist, contrary from what the party offers. “Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act,”(63) says Orwell. The Party strongly discouraged intimate relations, to the point where having children was seen as a duty.
Julia offers Winston something outside of this. She gives him physical and emotional comfort, contrasting what the Party offers. However, their beliefs in the opposition to the Party differ greatly, Winston rebels in hope that future generations will be free of the Party. Julia, being younger has no memories of a time before the Party and therefore can't imagine a time without them in control, she rebels more for simply the sake of doing so. Julia believes that the only way of opposing the party is with secret acts of disobedience or at the most isolated acts of violence because she doesn't believe that anyone or anything can defeat
them. The relationship between Julia and Winston escalates beyond political defiance and into what they believe to be love. For a long time now, Winston has believed their elicit affair while ultimately end in both of their downfalls. He has accepted that their relationship will come to an end, so with this conclusion, he becomes fatalistic, and resultantly, his actions become increasingly bold, ultimately leading him to O’Brien. O’Brien offers Winston and Julia the chance to join a revolution, and they take him up on the opportunity a little too quickly. He asks them a variety of questions pertaining to their loyalty to the Brotherhood, until it appears they would be willing to do almost anything for the cause. Finally, he questions, “You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another again?”(19) Julia jumps in with an forceful “no,” while Winston waits to respond he ultimately gives the same answer. Julia, as a character, has not only forged a deep bond with Winston, but also led him closer to the rebellion and more distant from his original self. Ultimately, both Winston and Julia are captured by O’Brien, and brought to the Ministry of Love as Winston initially predicted in his diary. As Winston sits in his prison cell he believes Julia is suffering more than he is, and decides he would take double the pain she receives if she could instead be spared, but even then Winston realizes this is an intellectual decision with no real pain at stake. His love for Julia is transforming into an intellectual exercise rather than a feeling of the heart O’Brien begins to torture Winston in the most inhumane ways imaginable. At the start of the novel, Winston differentiated himself from the rest of society with his constant questioning of laws and policies, as recorded in his diary, but this now comes back to haunt him. The equation that Winston writes in his diary, 2 + 2 = 4 is the one objective truth that Winston cannot give up. The equation is the sticking-point between Winston and O'Brien and ultimately becomes the proof of Winston's reintegration. If Winston can believe that 2 + 2 = 5, then the Party has gotten inside of him. Later on it is revealed to Winston that Julia betrayed him, in a way, this is not unexpected for the reader; Julia was a survivalist more than anything else, however, for Winston the news is crippling. Julia was the only thing keeping him human, keeping him apart from society, without the hope of her, he has nothing worth fighting for. Winston holds out a little longer and becomes healthier, however, after calling Julia’s name out during a dream, O’ Brien brings him to the dreaded Room 101. Winston there faces his biggest fear: rats.
The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left – to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odor of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats.
(21)
As The Party capitalizes on fear very proficiently, and Winston finally breaks under the weight of psychological fear. “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me,”(24) Winston screams. He was willing to endure pain for her, however, the fear is debilitating, he loses all sight of his cause, not by choice but by instinct. After weeks of torture, he is at his weakest, and no longer can he endure. As the book concludes, Orwell describes “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.” This depressing ending utterly obliterates any hope the reader had for a rebellion against the government. What is truly tragic though, is the complete loss of Winston’s original character. He has fully succumbed to the Party and is brought to tears by the joy that Big Brother’s face brings him because his mind has actually been re-routed to love the thing he once hated. He may have the same body, but he is not the same person anymore. Winston's character depicts individualism as a radical political act, the necessary antidote to totalitarian rule. Thus, the character helps us to understand what's at stake when we are confronted with a choice between individualism and agency on the one hand, and blind or fear-based obedience to authority on the other. Orwell shows the reader how an everyday man could be turned into a hero, and then completely broken within the confines of a totalitarian society.