Ending of 1984

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Originally Posted by Richier

Why Orwell made Julia's character do this I can't quite fathom out, is there a point being made or was it due to the poor attitude towards women in the early 20th century?

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I don't think it shows a poor attitude towards women as being honest about the difference between men and women. Men are idealists, women realists. Julia knew that there was nothing any putative "brotherhood" could do and that their only option was to go on until they were caught, while Winston held hopes of overthrowing the Party.

Julia being right tends to emphasise Orwell's respect for their pragmatism rather than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Richier

In what sense is Goldstein's book a fraud (I'm not suggesting it is or isn't)? The party controls what is truth and what is not, and O'Brien explains that Goldstein's book is fictional while he is convincing Winston that 2 + 2 = 5, if the party says it is.

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Interesting. The narrator of 1984 is omniscient and infallible, but what of O'Brien? Can we believe anything, or should we believe everything, he says to Winston in Room 101?

For instance, did O'Brien really write Goldstein's book, and is there really no Brotherhood in Oceania? Winston 'trusts' him, should we?

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Originally Posted by Richier

Mollie, I do apologise for the time delay in replying, and hope I don't confuse the thread as it has moved on since your post...
In what sense is Goldstein's book a fraud (I'm not suggesting it is or isn't)? The party controls what is truth and what is not, and O'Brien explains that Goldstein's book is fictional while he is convincing Winston that 2 + 2 = 5, if the party says it is.

My point about the difference between Julia and Winston's rebellion is that both were led to believe that Goldstein's book was the key document for the brotherhood and surprisingly, Julia wasn't interested in it. Why Orwell made Julia's character do this I can't quite fathom out, is there a point being made or was it due to the poor attitude towards women in the early 20th century?

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I'm sorry, I hadn't been checking this thread, so I apologise for the delay in replying to you!

By "a fraud", I mean that I think that Goldstein's book has been written by the Party, as O'Brien suggests. If a book existed which had been genuinely written by Goldstein, I do not think that O'Brien would have given a copy to Winston. I think it makes more sense that he would give Winston material that the Party had produced. If Winston had managed to get hold of a book allegedly written by Goldstein from another source, and O'Brien had claimed that that was written by the Party, I might be a little more suspicious of whether or not O'Brien was speaking the truth there. But since Winston has been given the book by O'Brien himself, I think it more likely that the book is a product of the Party.

I agree with Atheist, I think Julia's lack of interest in the book reflects a nature which concentrates on the practical rather than the theoretical, and I do not construe this as a criticism of women or of Julia.

How much of O'Brien's words can be trusted is a good question though!

Julia and Winston were able to express their feellings and thoughts by loving and caring for each other using different hideouts

They enjoyed the fact of sharing the vision that the present "was wrong" and that by making love was a rebeld act that could change the terrible present into a more human future.

Since the torture tranformed them and made them betray each other, they both became different persons, making loving each other imposible

Since both probably loved the way they felt and share in the past, but there was no hope to feel any of that in present, it was better to "move on"...and convincing your self that you "love the big brother" was like geting shot in the head and just stop thinking.

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Originally Posted by mauriciogracia

Julia and Winston were able to express their feellings and thoughts by loving and caring for each other using different hideouts

They enjoyed the fact of sharing the vision that the present "was wrong" and that by making love was a rebeld act that could change the terrible present into a more human future.

Since the torture tranformed them and made them betray each other, they both became different persons, making loving each other imposible

Since both probably loved the way they felt and share in the past, but there was no hope to feel any of that in present, it was better to "move on"...and convincing your self that you "love the big brother" was like geting shot in the head and just stop thinking.

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Not bad, but you're missing one important point:

It wasn't a case of "better to move on", they had been completely re-programmed and were incapable of doing anything unorthodox.

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Originally Posted by The Atheist

Not bad, but you're missing one important point:

It wasn't a case of "better to move on", they had been completely re-programmed and were incapable of doing anything unorthodox.

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That is true !! they were not themselves after seeing that no matter how many precautions the took the "hand of the big brother" reach them and torn them apart

I think that if anybody feels that their actions are not going to have any positive effect in the present or near future..is better to live in oblivion loving the Big Brother and fofgeting about using your memory to remember an always changing past

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Originally Posted by Richier

.....My point about the difference between Julia and Winston's rebellion is that both were led to believe that Goldstein's book was the key document for the brotherhood and surprisingly, Julia wasn't interested in it. Why Orwell made Julia's character do this I can't quite fathom out, is there a point being made or was it due to the poor attitude towards women in the early 20th century?

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There might be many factors here
- Julia worked producing books not by means of human intervention, but by means of machines that had a few "history lines" avaible. So maybe she could not apreciate as much as Winston a "normal" Book
- Since Julia was a lot younger than Winston she did not live in the time before the Big Brother existed, and reading about a past that was part of her Granfather past but not her past is not as significant since it does not bring her back memories
- She seemed to be more insterested in cheating the rules of The Party "just for another day" and enjoying her few minutes/hours of aparent freedom than to produce big changes in the whole world/country
- I think since the beggining Winston was the one interested in getting a copy of the book and she just agreed

to whom ever it may concern. if we are not allowed to discuss politics on a topic like this than that completely defeats the purpose of the book in question. it is a futuristic dystopian novel that functions as warning. it begs for analogies and comparison with contemporary situations. I believe Karl Marx is on this website? would it be allowed to talk of ideologies? capitalism vs communism or even fascism perhaps. I understand that this should by no means serve as a political platform but explain to me how one could discuss July's People but not mentioning apartheid? or to draw examples from the real world? Thank You Big Brother for watching us.... apart form this 1984 does present hope> read the footnote on page 6 and the prologue it refers to and one can read perhaps the one objectively expressed part of the book. a hint Orwell gave us right at the start.

you state that the narrator is omniscient but is that true? we only see what he wishes to describe. though in third person singular and in past tense but there is no reason that the narrative is omniscient. how much can this narrative be trusted?

I think that Winston was so converted because the party's schemes had already began to act upon him. Because we have lived in the free world, we can't understand how he feels. I think that solipsism is what really broke Winston. After that he just fell apart.