For Christians...

[tyat4ever]

Do you think that Winston's outcome may have been different, if he was a Christian?

Do you think Orwell's fears would be different if he took into account Christianity and God?

[IJustMadeThatUp]

I'm curious, how would Christianity have changed Winston's fate?

[The Atheist]

Do you think that Winston's outcome may have been different, if he was a Christian?

Only insofar as he wouldn't have been by the end of the book. God is thoughtcrime, BB is god.

Do you think Orwell's fears would be different if he took into account Christianity and God?

Nope.

Aside from his personal beliefs on religion, Orwell and western christian churches were pretty much in accord with their views on totalitarianism.

Orwell was extremely clear that his later work was solely directed at totalitarianism, so I don't think religion would have changed his outlook.

[Leonard_K]

...except that love enters into this discussion. Winston, Julia and the proles remain among the living as long as they can love. The Party are the "dead." If he were Christian he would know that despite the torture, God, though omnipotent, cannot not love man. If he as Christian loves god then he would know that god would stay with him. Yet there is no essential difference between a Christian Winston's ability to love God and his ability to love Julia. It is the same emotion and O'brien's ultimate target. No doubt... sorry to say... the same result in the end.

[The Atheist]

I find this incredibly confusing:

...except that love enters into this discussion. Winston, Julia and the proles remain among the living as long as they can love.

The book is about freedom; love doesn't really enter into is, apart from Winston needing to be in love with Julia as a plot device. Orwell just didn't do love - poor bloke never knew what it was, I don't think.

Note that the very last bit of the book has Winston loving BB as the final scene. He's still capable of love, no matter that the means and target are perverted. It's his free will as a man being gone that kills him.

The Party are the "dead."

Exactly the opposite - Inner Party members are the only ones truly alive. They choose what to do and recreate themselves as god/s.

If he were Christian he would know that despite the torture, God, though omnipotent, cannot not love man.

Didn't the christian god so lovce man that he let his son be nailed to a tree?

I think you have this backwards.

If he as Christian loves god then he would know that god would stay with him.

Unless he's an unrepentant sinner, the christian god takes a dim view of them. In the Party's eyes, that's exactly what Winston is - a sinner.

Yet there is no essential difference between a Christian Winston's ability to love God and his ability to love Julia. It is the same emotion and O'brien's ultimate target. No doubt... sorry to say... the same result in the end.

I agree with all that, which is why I find the previous bits somewhat confusing.

[Leonard_K]

Thanks "Atheist"

I've read your other posts about 1984. I agree double plus with your interpretation of many of Orwell's concepts particularly the analysis of O'brien's "doublethink." I'm astonished though that you dismiss Winston's love affair with Julia as device.

I'll set aside your comments that god does not love sinners and the other thing about nailing to the cross. That's just thoughtless sneering; the reaction of a bright mind that is yet truncated in places of his choosing.

I don't think Orwell was a Christian. But 1984 is all about love, truth and, yes, freedom. Orwell does suggest, maybe unintentionally, elements resonating with one well worn Christian interpretation, that love and truth are the same thing.

In fact one of the last things Winston thinks to himself in the company of his love Julia is that to be alive in the mind is to know truth in reality as symbolized by "two plus two make four" and he complements the fat hipped woman as beautiful because it is the proles who are alive in the body. The proles are the salvation of man 1000 years from now.

I interprete the sensual affair in Part 2 between Julia and Winston as prole-like if you will. Winston's body even heals and his mind is happy as his love grows. That love for Julia is what O'brien is after when he interviews him at his home and what he destroys in Winston in Room 101. "Plot device?" I don't think so.

This may seem as nonsense to you Atheist, there is an interpretation of Christianity merging Greek reason with a Judean god who is Logos, the merging of truth and love in one existing outside nature. It is an interpretation holding the world and man as essentially good creations that are contingent .. not needed by god. The creative act is then out of god's love and evil is the logical consequence of gods creation of free beings who can choose.

The christian god could have made men like Orwell's Party members; as obediant puppets or brainwashed robots. However, a god who loves and desires to be loved could not. This contrasts with the Party (a pagan god as it were) that seeks not love, but submission.

Orwell does not seem to intentionally relate a christian message -- still, his, in my opinion properly elevates sensuality -- However he also affirm freedom as you say and love and most especially truth.

[The Atheist]

Thanks "Atheist"

I've read your other posts about 1984. I agree double plus with your interpretation of many of Orwell's concepts particularly the analysis of O'brien's "doublethink." I'm astonished though that you dismiss Winston's love affair with Julia as device.

It shouldn't do; I think it's only necessary to the story to give Winston someone to betray. If you look at Orwell's other attempts at inserting love into his stories, he just didn't understand it at all, and while the effort in 1984 isn't too bad, it never seems to me to be all that real.

I'll set aside your comments that god does not love sinners and the other thing about nailing to the cross. That's just thoughtless sneering; the reaction of a bright mind that is yet truncated in places of his choosing.

Not really. It's more cynicism born of a lifetime watching religion. I'll stick by the parts about sinners and love, because those are core christian beliefs. I just like using that kind of language to describe it. I'm not actually anti-religion, but I like to play it a bit.

I don't think Orwell was a Christian.

You can put the bank on that - he never admitted to atheism, but he wrote enough on the subject that we're pretty clear on his beliefs.

But 1984 is all about love, truth and, yes, freedom. Orwell does suggest, maybe unintentionally, elements resonating with one well worn Christian interpretation, that love and truth are the same thing.

I just don't buy the love bit - I don't see it as a central tenet in the story. That some of the morality resonates as christian is no surprise, it's where most of our morality comes from.

In fact one of the last things Winston thinks to himself in the company of his love Julia is that to be alive in the mind is to know truth in reality as symbolized by "two plus two make four" and he complements the fat hipped woman as beautiful because it is the proles who are alive in the body. The proles are the salvation of man 1000 years from now.

Except that was a false belief.

I interprete the sensual affair in Part 2 between Julia and Winston as prole-like if you will. Winston's body even heals and his mind is happy as his love grows. That love for Julia is what O'brien is after when he interviews him at his home and what he destroys in Winston in Room 101. "Plot device?" I don't think so.

O'Brien only needs it so that Winston can be broken by renouncing her. To get Winston to where O'Brien wants him, he must deeply love Julia. Given the telescreen in the flat, it's obvious that the Thought Police have had the pair under constant surveillance and that the affair is allowed to flourish for reasons of the Party, not Winston. Had it not been to the Party's ends to let the love grow, it would've been nipped at the start.

This may seem as nonsense to you Atheist, there is an interpretation of Christianity merging Greek reason with a Judean god who is Logos,...

And I thought she was a moderator!

...the merging of truth and love in one existing outside nature.

I'm a pragmatic materialist and don't buy a word of it. Whether Orwell did is debatable, but he was pretty much a pragmatist as well.

The christian god could have made men like Orwell's Party members; as obediant puppets or brainwashed robots. However, a god who loves and desires to be loved could not. This contrasts with the Party (a pagan god as it were) that seeks not love, but submission.

This is about the nature of gods rather than anything Orwell wrote, so I don't really see the connection.

Orwell does not seem to intentionally relate a christian message -- still, his, in my opinion properly elevates sensuality -- However he also affirm freedom as you say and love and most especially truth.

This seems to contrast badly with the love W has at the end for BB, but I don't think it's a terminal error.

[jorgis]

great thread.

[Gladys]

To get Winston to where O'Brien wants him, he must deeply love Julia.

Love between Winston and Julia lacks substance for much of the novel. Love seems little more than infatuation, lust and rebellion. But after more than six long years together, there is clearly more, though I wouldn't use the adjective 'Christian'. Winston and Julia need each other.

At the end, Winston needs Big Brother.

[The Atheist]

Love between Winston and Julia lacks substance for much of the novel. Love seems little more than infatuation, lust and rebellion. But after more than six long years together, there is clearly more, though I wouldn't use the adjective 'Christian'. Winston and Julia need each other.

At the end, Winston needs Big Brother.

Where do you get the six years from?

W & J's love affair was months long - not entirely sure how many, but four or five from meeting to capture is how I see it. Met in May, met many times in June, probably took the flat in July/August and captured a month or so later.

[Gladys]

Where do you get the six years from?

Sorry! Until today, the chronology of 1984 had confused me. Particularly the timing of the 'seven years'.

And once -- Winston could not remember whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness -- a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't worry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.' He was not sure whether it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to him, 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' in that other dream, seven years ago.

My basic 1984 timeline is now as follows.

1944-5: Winston is born.

circa 1960: Ingsoc begins. All earlier books will be destroyed.

1973 Winston separates from wife Katharine. He unrolls the wad of documents on Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford.

1977: O'Brien subliminally mentions 'the place where there is no darkness', and the comprehensive surveillance of Winston begins.

1981: Winston has an 'encounter with the prostitute'.

4 Apr 1984: The narrative begins. Winston buys a 'quarto-sized blank book' from the empty 'junk-shop' of Mr Charrington. A week later Winston meets Julia. They make love in a wood.

May 1984: They meet but make love only one.

June 1984: Winston rents Mr Charrington's room where Winston discloses his fear of rats. He meets Julia seven times.

August 1984: They meet with O'Brien. They are arrested and months of torture begin.

March 1985: Winston is released and meets Julia for the last time.

Mid 1985: Winston, sitting in the Chestnut Tree Café, 'loved Big Brother'.

Are there inaccuracies?

[The Atheist]

Sorry! Until today, the chronology of 1984 had confused me. Particularly the timing of the 'seven years'

....

Are there inaccuracies?

That looks pretty good!

[Leonard_K]

Love between Winston and Julia lacks substance for much of the novel. Love seems little more than infatuation, lust and rebellion. But after more than six long years together, there is clearly more, though I wouldn't use the adjective 'Christian'. Winston and Julia need each other.

At the end, Winston needs Big Brother.

Dear Gladys:

Don't you think that infatuation, lust and rebellion are all about being alive? It is not good to think that they lack substance.

Obviously the affair is rebellion. At one point Winston teases Julia telling her she's only a protestor "below the waist." and she laughs. I loved it!

During the affair, Winston is happy. His ankle ulcer heals. Later when O'brien asks them to betray each other and Julia is emphatic in her "No," Winston hesitates, thinks of her and says the same. It has become a profound commitment; what O'brien wanted to know.

Even if the affair only involved lust, laughter and longing it would still be one of main themes making Julia and Winston come alive contrasting to the Party which are among the "dead."

I agree with you and would not use the word Christian to describe Julia and Winston. But everything they do is good (including the erotic part) when placed in the context of their agony. There are edifying elements about what that means if god as a good creator actually exists that then also involve love, truth and freedom; Orwell's themes. But that's about all I care to say unless you or others are further interested.

[Gladys]

Don't you think that infatuation, lust and rebellion are all about being alive? It is not good to think that they lack substance.

Perhaps.

Except love, particularly Christian love, implies self sacrifice rather than infatuation, lust and rebellion. By August 1984, three months since they first met, Winston and Julia show glimmers of such a love. Even so, this love cannot survive months of sustained physical and psychological torture.