Robert Walton vs. The Stranger!!

Robert Walton and the Stranger, two very interesting individuals with very unique opinions, but in a way these men are similar, but they are also very different. When Walton and the Stranger first meet, Mr. S, (I am calling the Stranger Mr. S now deal with it) was almost frozen to death looking for someone. This is already a contrast because even though Walton likes adventure and sailed to the North Pole, I am pretty sure he was not crazy enough to go alone, and not figure in rations and etc. Later on we find out how truly weird Mr. S is, as he just gives off that feeling of a crazy guy. The ultimate goal for both seem to be the north pole, but their ultimate goals are different, Mr. S looking for someone, and Walton looking for a passage. Their attitudes are very different, as Mr. S is so full of curiosity and amazement, while Walton, just sits and complains about not having a true friend on the ship. And their situations are completely different, without the luck of Walton finding Mr. S trying to fulfill his lifetime goal of becoming a fudgecicle, Mr. S would be dead, and Walton, well he would still be complaining about not having a friend.

1984, THE ENDING

During the majority of Book three, Winston was tortured for roughly half of the time, the rest was silent whimpering/crying and plot development. Discussing the forms of torture, there was the place where Winston was strapped to the table and stretched to the point of ripping when asked questions. Then there was room 101 where he was strapped down to a chair, and then they put a cage like thing on his head that has a separator with a cage of vicious and hungry giant rats ready to eat his freaking face off, which I still say was one of the freakiest things in the book. I am going off context here, I may like rats, but if there were hungry rats about to eat my face off, yeah I would get a phobia of rats as well. Then there is the end of the book, where everything is reversed. Winston now has left his whole ‘rebellion’ thing in the dust, and now starts to believe in Big Brother and the Party. Now I may personally love the ending, but WTF! Sorry for my harsh lettering but Winston did a complete 360 as a character, I know he was tortured but I have read this book twice and I still don’t get how Winston reaches his final conclusion.

Goldstein's Book, and all teh boring parts that go with it

Goldstein’s book, now that is something I wasn’t expecting. What I mean is that something so lengthy and such an anticipated point in the book and it is just so, boring. Not the entire section, the parts about the Eastasia and Eurasia and their forms of the Party, and how everything sort of started. That was really entertaining because since the beginning of the book I have been wanting to know how this world got this way, and how the rest of the world is working. And I know that was how it was supposed to go, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was trapped within London, and I wasn’t allowed to understand what was going on with the rest of the world. But back to the main topic, the three classes, the inner party, the normal party members, and the proles. Once again we have the caste system, but the big difference here from ‘Brave New World’ is that no one is made smarter or dumber through decanting centers, but the same principles apply. And that principle is that the best are in the Inner Party, and the worst are the Proles. So Winston might not get his wish of the future in the prole’s hands, since they are destined to stay in the dark.

Winston and his Dreams

The entire dream sequence was one big crazy happening, if you know what I mean. When looking back at Winston, and you don’t question the state of his mental health, there is something wrong with you. The whole meeting where there is no darkness dream is quite interesting, because Winston still feels like the person telling him things in his dream is O’Brien, who still seems a bit ludicrous, because he even thought that it was O’Brien before he had a conversation with the guy. So I believe that Winston just might be going crazy, and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Winston in a padded white cell with him saying, “Don’t worry Julia, everything will be fine!” to himself. And if that is not the case, then some therapist did a great job making him sane. But besides the whole crazy thing, this dream is becoming more and more important to Winston as it shows that maybe something good might happen in the end, but then again who really knows what Winston’s future looks like, you know, besides Orwell.

Foreshadowing and Winston, they just go hand-in-hand

The thing that Winston knows will happen is all thanks to O’Brien. Winston feels like this is fate, and that the only way to find out what will happen in the future, is if he finally finds out O’Brien’s true motives. When Winston says, “I knew sooner or later…” he is of course talking about that sooner or later his path would lead him to the Ministry of Love. The foreshadowing here has been building ever since Winston bought the journal and said, “I know one day I will be arrested by the Thought Police for this” and know that build up has gotten to the point of overflow. Winston knows he will be arrested, and he also knows that there is no way to prevent this because he knows that if he runs he will be captured, if he stops every rebellious act, all that will do is give him a stall at best, so his choice is to plow forward and hope that he will still be alive by the end. O’Brien has been a big question mark since the beginning, so anything goes when it comes to his real motives, all I can surmise is that something big is about to happen.

Julia and Winston, The Best relationship ever?

The relationship between Winston and Julia is one for the ages. If these two weren’t together in ‘1984’ and were together in the real world, everyone would wonder, “What do they actually have in common?” That is the real question here because they are almost polar opposites. Winston wants to down-right rebel against the Party, all Julia wants to do is stick it to the man, in the simplest of terms, and have as much fun as she can. The only conceivable thing that they have in common is that they both are different, and that they both want something more out of the dark, dirty, and passionless world of theirs. But looking at the circumstances, their relationship is rock-solid seeing as all it takes for Winston to change his mind from thinking, “I want to kill her” to, “How can I meet her again?” So when looking at their differences, they truly don’t matter seeing as Winston got what he wanted, a way to rebel, and Julia gets to have some fun out of this entire thing.

1984, the Fourth Post

At the end of this chapter Winston goes on a rant about him hating purity and what-not, and during the entire time I couldn’t help but think back to John in ‘Brave New World’ and his whole argument with Mond. These two statements really do relate because both Winston and John are outcasts in their own respective societies. John is a savage in the world state, and Winston is a Party member who just can’t stand the party anymore. These two really have more in common than just one argument, and that should be very obvious now. Winston really is saying here is that he hates all the superficial lies that he has to deal with, where everything is filtered for the good of the people, but that is just it, it should be the decision of the people on what they believe should be designated correct or not. That is why Winston is so furious, because he is treated like a child, and if he ever, and I mean ever tries to rebel than he will just disappear, and never be heard from again. Its either obey and live, or die.

Control the past, 1984 Third Post

Controlling the past is a huge part of what the party’s final goal entails. The way in which the party changes the past, or in real terms re-writing the past, is by using the Ministry of Truth they can change whatever they want about the past. Along with the belief that written documents are treacherous to the survival of the party, no books are left in existence, so no one can accurately tell what really happened in the past, since no history books are around anymore. So the Ministry of Truth can be free to say whatever they want about the past, and the people the live under the parties rule just have to accept the fact that what they say happened, really did happen. This method really is effective because with no books to tell them other wise, the party is free to say that they created the airplane, or that they have always been at war with Eastasia or vice versa. This leaves them with absolute control of what people believe actually happened, and what the party wants them to believe happened. That is exactly how the party has chosen to use its vast resources to lead their masses.

1984, Second Post!!

The reason why Winston is writing in his diary is that he knows that the party has not always been around, and that times before the party were better. So he writes in his dairy, even though he knows he is going to be arrested by the Thought Police, because he feels like that is the only way he can feel like he has left at least something that can not be changed by the Ministry of Truth. The Thought Police are going to arrest him for writing in his diary because any form of free thought or individuality is a thought crime, and also writing “Down with big brother” over and over again doesn’t help either. But when looking at the bigger picture in 1984, newspeak is destroying language piece by piece, and the Ministry of Truth is re-writing history, so anything that isn’t considered ok by the party is destroyed, and re-written to their liking. That is exactly why Winston is writing in his diary, because he wants the English language, and people to understand that what they know of the past, is all wrong.

1984, The First of many to come

The world of 1984 is a strange and dark place. The focus is in the city of London, Airstrip 1, formerly England. The first major thing to note is that the world has now been separated into three superstates, Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia. Oceania is pretty much all of the Western Hemisphere and a few countries in Europe, Airstrip 1 included, Eurasia is the rest of Europe, some of the middle east, and I believe Africa, (It is not very well described), and Eastasia is Asia, (or so we know). The government of Oceania revolves around the party, which includes the inner party, outer party, and everyone else. The party is separated into four main ministries, the Ministry of Love, Plenty, Truth, and Peace. The Ministry of Love is basically the police force that keeps any person in check, because in this world, everyone thinks the same, and any form of individuality or free thought is considered a thought crime, so the Thought Police arrest you. The Ministry of Plenty pretty much handles all the rations, the Ministry of Truth handles all the news, but really they are rewriting history, and the Ministry of Peace handles all war-related issues. Peoples lives in 1984 are crap, because all party members have things in every room in their house called a telescreen which watches you all the time, making sure you aren’t committing thought crime. Now imagine an iMac, you know those apple desktop computers with the iSight cameras and built-in microphones, well that is pretty much what a telescreen is, except you can’t turn a telescreen off. This is what the world of 1984 is really like.

Huxley's Perfect Society, Now Let The Rebellions Commence!

“Brave New World” has a very interesting society, where everyone is happy, and if you get unhappy for any reason, all you have to do is take some of the miracle drug soma and you instantly because happy, based on the dose you take. And everyone belongs to everyone, meaning men and women have sex with whomever they want, whenever they want, and that is normal. Then there is the fact that everyone is born in bottles, and is separated from decanting, birth from their bottles, into one of five castes, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon, alpha’s being the smartest and best and epsilons being the opposite. All in all, looking at this society in the ethical way, it is a nightmare. People are destined to be something from the moment they are even created, and if they are meant to be an epsilon they have alcohol put into their bloodstream to make them dumb. And the fact that no one can be unhappy is just crazy. But when I look at this society, I also see something that is just begging to be overthrown. Human beings, no matter how conditioned they are, will forever reject the idea of a perfect world because all humans are flawed, thus their lives and world must also be flawed, and that is how it has always been. So I definitely believe that this society is bad, because if you can’t experience and understand every emotion you have, then you might as well be dead.

Huxley: Man, Author, and can Freaking Predict the Future!

Throughout "Brave New World" we have seen many different elements of this futuristic society. But even though this book was written in 1932, if someone didn’t tell me that this book was that old, I would think that it was recently released because there are definitely many things that around today. The first element that is actually in our world today is the synthetic music. The only difference is that we still can make real music, but take a listen to any rap or hip-hop song and that right there is synthetic music that is definitely artificial music. Next element that is in our world today are test tube babies, sure they aren’t bottle babies, but it is sure close, and the scary thing is that it is close at all. Back in the 1930’s the thought of making babies in a bottle or test tube was completely ridiculous and also an impossibility for anyone in that time to comprehend, but apparently that was false, because someone did, and that was Huxley. Then there are elements that are just so far out there that they are obvious. The biggest, and the most notable is soma. Now just the concept of a drug, that makes you happy, and has no side effects at all. Now doesn’t that just sound like pure fiction. A drug with no consequences is just so silly. I mean you ask anyone about what side effects you get after doing cocaine and they will know them, but ask them if there is a drug with no side effects and they will stare, and then burst out laughing at you. That is why soma is just so unreal.