Trust is Death
When reading these two quotes,
(1) "At any rate, one question was settled. There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometers distant from any quarter where Party members lived. It was too great of a coincidence. Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough that she was watching him. Probably she had seen him go into the pub as well"(104-105)
(2) "He could keep on her track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cobblestone. The piece of glass in his pocket would be heavy enough for the job. But he abandoned the idea immediately, because even the thought of making any physical effort was unbearable. "(105)
- What do you think about trust between the people in the Party?
- Do you think it is an over reaction of Winston or do you think this is foreshadowing something?
- What else comes to your mind when reading this? (Think of the amazing title I wrote)
I think this is a major comment to the stress filled and secretive lives that the people of the party have to live. Just being mentioned to the thought police for unorthodoxy will get you a minimum of 5 years in the salt mines is a serious risk that Winston is taking. Basically he can't and won't take any chances if he can prevent them. But I still found it so horribly blatant that he goes straight to bluntly smashing her skull in as if he would have no other choice. What a scary world it must be that merely seeing someone on the street is grounds for potentially killing them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tristan for the most part but think that there is more to add to it. No only do the people in Oceania live in a world filled with stress and secretive lies, but the thought police actually prohibits 'ownlife', which basically includes every single attempt to individualize your life and distinguish yourself from the big, homogeneous block.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is anything foreshadowing about Winston's thoughts or that it is an overreaction, after all he only has the idea and almost immediately drops the thought. However like Tristan I do believe it is revealing in a way, that is, it makes it clear again how quickly agony will rise up between different people and how the life in solitude might be throwing back the people on the evolutionary scale and promotes a primate-like way of thinking.