Winston Smith skipped lunch in the cafeteria of the Ministry in which he worked and decided to spend his free hour at home. He lived in a complex of grey buildings that looked the same and most of the members of the Outer Party lived there.
They were ordinary, lower positioned workers that barely made enough to survive. Winston worked in the Ministry of Truth which was dedicated to writing news, history and the present of the Party. They were involved in education, entertainment and programmed art.
Winston’s job was to correct historical facts, news paper articles or any kind of documents that opposed to the opinion of the Party. There was also the Ministry of Love whose duty was to enforce the law and find and kill all of the bad members of the Party.
From all of the ministries this one was the cruelest. The other two were the Ministry of Peace, which was involved in warfare and the Ministry of Plenty that dealt with the economy. Winston had a special reason to go home and to skip lunch which will cause his hunger until breakfast.
Recently he bought a notebook formed as a diary and it was an antique that he found in the suburbs while he was buying razors. The suburbs were the home to the proles – the lowest layer of society that lived estranged from the Party’s society. They lived in poverty and lawlessness.
Despite that Winston and others Outer Party’s members went there to buy what they needed and couldn’t find in the Party’s stores. Mostlythey would buy razors, soap, socks… Winston bought the notebook even though it was forbidden. The members of the Party weren’t allowed to have any personal possessions and definitely
Not those that served to write down their thoughts because the right to think was unknown in the Party’s regime. Winston came to his small apartment and sat in the corner of the room from which he could see the Telescreen.
Winston only had basic furniture in his apartment but he had to have a Telescreen in every room. Nobody knew when they were being watched so they had to be careful always because one wrong move could get them deleted – taken away and killed.
Winston, in spite of fear, bought the notebook, sat behind the table and decided to write. At first he didn’t know what to write so he wrote all sorts of thing which later became thought of hate towards the Big Brother. Door knocking stopped his writing.
He was scared that it was the police but luckily it was only his neighbor that asked him to unplug her sink. She was a tired, old lady whose a bit stupid husband worked in the Ministry and her biggest fear were her kids.
As all of the other kids her kids were also in the Spies. They were created by the Party and often they would turn on their own parents because they were encouraged to do so by the Party. When he’s back at work Winston went through the preparation for the Two Minutes Hate.
In those two minutes people would look videos that show their enemies and all the wars they’re going through and all of the members of the Party would sear, spit, yell and hate as loud as they could. During that ceremony Winston saw a young and beautiful female member of the Party but Winston
Felt repulsed by her just because she represented everything he started to hate and it was the Party and all of its principles, including Big Brother. He saw O’Brien, a man he thought could have the same thoughts as him.
Winston couldn’t know it for sure but judging by his look he even concluded that O’Brien could be a member of the Brotherhood, a movement established by the hated Goldstein – the biggest state’s enemy. Tomorrow Winston was awaken by a female voice calling him to do his daily exercise.
Winston was 39 years old but he already felt like an old man so that morning stretch was hard for him. He went to work, which he neither liked nor disliked, but sometimes he did it with love because he would get creative.
He had his tasteless lunch in the cafeteria while his colleague told him all about the new way of speech that will eliminate all unnecessary words and limit the Party member’s opinion even more. Almost every night Winston would have to attend some kind of organized activity, that is supposed
To be fun, but Winston found it rather boring. The activities were called free and they weren’t obligatory but the ones that would attend them would be seen in a different light. If Winston missed any activity in his daily routine he would be considered suspicious.
The less freedom he had the more he thought about it. In the regime only animals and proles were free. As he thought about freedom he started thinking about history and its instability so he tried to remember his life as the only remaining, unchanged facts.
Once, as he was walking down the suburbs, he entered a bar. He met an old man, bought him a beer and started questioning him about the past. He wanted to know everything – any little detail that the old man could remember about
The past but unfortunately the old man’s recollections were corrupted by the Party’s constant history modifications. His memory was full of holes that he couldn’t fill. The disappointed Winston kept walking down the street and then he found himself in front of the antique shop where he had bought his notebook.
When he walked in the salesman recognized him. They started talking about old times and that conversation spurred all memories of his childhood. He bought another forbidden thing – a small red coral and he placed it in his pocket. The store owner showed him a small room above the store.
It was small and cozy but the most shocking thing about it was that it had no Telescreen. Winston was determined to come back here. While he was leaving the shop he noticed a black haired girl following him. It was the same girl he saw at the Two Minutes Hate.
She was physically attractive but Winston knew that she, as all of the other loyal Party members, found sex repulsive because the Party promoted asexuality. Winston managed to run away from her and as soon as he got home he had the sudden urge to write.
For days after he saw the girl walking towards him in the hallway. He started sweating and he thought he would be exposed but while walking by him the girl tripped and fell down. Winston helped her but she just got up saying that she’s fine.
When Winston was helping her she put a piece of paper into his hand. When he was sure nobody was watching Winston read the note. It said: “I love you”. It was hard to approach a girl without looking suspicious but in spite of the fear Winston
Dared to sit next to her in the cafeteria. They arranged a meeting in the crowded square. They will have a chance to talk without anyone noticing that they’re a couple. On the square they agreed to meet in the woods outside town – far away from the police, where
The chances to be eavesdropped where the smallest. The girl and Winston finally had a chance to meet. She was Julia and she also hated the Party and its rules because she discovered that the most loyal members of the Party belonged to the Inner Party.
During their time together they indulge in physical pleasures, which was a sign of revolt against the body purity ideology that the Party imposed on people. Julia and Winston meet up on different locations and then Winston called her to meet him in the room in the antique shop.
He knew it was mad to meet more than once in the same location and he knew they would eventually get caught but he couldn’t resist her. When Julia came to their meeting she would bring food stolen from the Inner Party’s member.
She would bring the unobtainable real sugar, white bread, jam, tea and the rarest of all, real coffee. The adventure with Julia changed Winston’s life. He didn’t feel like an old man anymore, he felt no physical or psychic pain. It seemed like he had a hope for a better future.
He worked more and regularly attended the activities so nobody would find him suspicious. He felt less fear and desperation. Love towards Julia made him better and happier and gave his life more meaning. One day he had another important encounter. O’Brien approached him – the man he hoped was a part of the Brotherhood.
O’Brien mentioned him that he had done a few mistakes while modifying the latest article because he didn’t use the new dictionary. He told Winston to come to his place and pick up a copy of the new dictionary, that is about to be published, so he wouldn’t do any further mistakes.
Winston consider his invitation an excuse that O’Brien used to get Winston alone and convince him to join the fraternity. Julia and Winston went to O’Brien’s knowing it was insane to show themselves as a couple anywhere. O’Brien was strict at first but then he got up and turned off the Telescreen.
Winston and Julia couldn’t believe it. They never saw anybody turn it off but O’Brien said it was one of the privileges of the Inner Party members. He sat them down and gave them some wine that they never had a chance to drink before.
O’Brien told him about the existence of a Brotherhood that worked against the Party. He asked them if they wanted to be a part of it and Julia and Winston agreed to everything except for breaking up their relationship. O’Brien even promised Winston to get him the book of the biggest public enemy Goldstein.
Winston enjoyed his time spent in the room above the antique shop. He would lie down and read with a sense of security because the Telescreen wasn’t watching. He read the forbidden books about the real world history. He learned about the event that preceded the current world situation.
He would read and Julia would sleep next to him. Once, during reading and sleeping, they discussed music when they heard a steel voice behind them telling them they’re dead. They were petrified and realized a camera, hidden behind a painting, was staring at them. The Party was onto them.
They ordered them to kneel down and put their hand behind their back so that they could be arrested. Winston found himself in the cruel Ministry of Love. He had to sit motionless in one of the isolated rooms and wait. He could even move without a voice from the speaker yelling at him.
He thought about O’Brien and whether he knew that he was arrested. Winston hoped he would somehow save him. After a long wait a man walks into the room. Winston was astonished when he saw it was O’Brien. At first he thought that he was captured too, but then O’Brien hit him.
Before he passed out Winston realized that O’Brien worked for the Big Brother. Winston woke up in a bed and different machines and injections were plugged into him. He was kicked and tortured in various ways but so cruel that, in some brief moments, he became immune to the pain.
After many tortures O’Brien approached him. He told him about the Party, the way it rules the world, history and present because she writes it. The one that has power over the past and the present can control the truth, no matter what it was.
He negated the reality that individuals remembered because the only reality was the one that the Party approved. It was the law for all, and it included Winston so, for example, if the Party told Winston that he sees 4 fingers and O’Brien showed him five he had to tell he saw four.
O’Brien said that Winston wasn’t brought here to be killed but to be improved and turned into a new and accurate Party member. He told him that the Party’s enemies weren’t even real and that the Party invented them so that the people could have someone to hate.
He also told him that Big Brother also didn’t exist and that he was only a system that reflects himself in the elimination of those who endanger him. They even created a Brotherhood that served them to discover the bad Party members because those interested in the Brotherhood are dangerous to the system.
After an undetermined time span of torture they finally stopped. They took him to recover and it seemed Winston accepted all of the Party’s rules. Before they let him go they had to break him completely. They took him to the notorious room 101. He was faced with his biggest fear – a rat.
They threatened to let the rat out if he didn’t betray Julia. Winston fought with himself as much as he could but in the rush of fear he yelled that they should do this to Julia and not him. That was the way they knew he was broken.
After Winston was set free, he remembered everything but he didn’t even consider to turn against Big Brother. He saw Julia once and they confessed to each other that they both betrayed each other during the torture. Winston was disgusted by the thought of being with a woman again and breaking the law.
Even though he remembered everything he confessed to himself that he loved the Big Brother now.
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