I disagree with the premise of the statement. I think it
is clear that 1984 shows that FEAR has a more powerful effect on
Winston's actions, ultimately, than love.
While it could be
argued that Winston was made to fear out of hatered, I do not think that the text
clearly shows that O'Brien, the personification of Big Brother, acted out of hatred, I
think he was actually dispassionate and acted merely out of political
corectness.
While Winston did confess to crimes that he
committed and even some that he did not, and while he did implicate his love Julia, he
did not give up loving her until he was confronted by his greatest
fear.
When they encounter each other later on, they both
confess to having betrayed the other. Julia confesses
that:
"I
betrayed you," she said baldly.
"I betrayed you," he said.
She gave
him another quick look of dislike.
"Sometimes," she said, "they
threaten you with something — something you can't stand up to, can't even think
about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do
it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards,
that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really
mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think
there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that
way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a
damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself."
"All you care about is
yourself," he echoed.
"And after that, you don't feel the same toward the
other person any longer."
"No," he said, "you don't feel the
same."
No comments:
Post a Comment