1984 - George Orwell - Part 6

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 12

 January 12, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 6 - Pages 341-407

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Winston's re-education is almost complete. He likens it to a shift in perspective. Rather than swimming against the current and fighting it, he simply turns around and goes with the flow of the current. His intellect has been subdued. He can believe that 2+2=5. He can recognize his "false" memories from the past and not dwell on them. But deep inside his heart, he still harbours a deep hatred for Big Brother. He visualizes the day when he will be executed and how he will be able to let his hatred shine in that split second before the bullet takes his life. In that way, he will have won.

Alas, for poor Winston, he has a dream in which he cries out "Julia, I love you, Julia". He is taken to Room 101 where he faces his most abject terror - rats. At the crucial moment, when he believes the rats will be released to devour his face, he cries out "Let them have Julia, not me". His emotional submission is complete. He is a destroyed man, a burnt out husk with nothing remaining. He is released back out into the world. At some time in the future, when the Party feels the time is right, he will be re-arrested, re-tried and executed.

What a depressing end to the story! Good does not triumph over evil. It is a true dystopian future in which hope is gone. According to O'Brien, the Proles were never rise up. The Party will survive for hundreds/thousands of years. Sounds rather like one of Dante's levels of hell - "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". O'Brien told Winston that the reason the Party will survive is because it craves Power simply for the sake of Power. Not to make a better world or to care for the less fortunate. Power for Power's sake will ensure it's survival. And yet... there is another quote that comes to mind - "Power corrupts and absolute Power corrupts absolutely". At one point... one would think... something would crack within the Party. Perhaps. But in having wiped away all traces of the Past, of destroying and rewriting books and plays and histories... one would wonder if humanity would be able to recover. It would almost have to be a complete reset... starting from Level 1 so-to-speak.

In Unity is Strength - Aesop

The message I take away from this is... a human being is a frail thing... on their own. It is only in numbers that we are strong. Like the story of the bundle of twigs. It's easy to break a single twig, much, much harder to break a bundle.