1984 Pages 37 - 81

In this week's reading of 1984 we find out a little more about Winston's work, are introduced to proles, and find out a little more about Wiston as he makes another entry in his journal.

We first learn that Winston's job is to rewrite history. He has to go back into articles such as the Times and rectifies whatever Big Brother had written prior, in order to make him correct. I found it very surprising when Winston sad that his "greatest pleasure in life is his work." I would have thought he would despise his work. It's an extremely tedious job that basically requires him to do nothing but tell lies. I guess perhaps he likes it because like any job it gives him a sence of pride in accomplishment and doing it well.

In this week's reading we are also intoduced to a new character, Syme, a writer of the new Newspeak dictionary. He is sort of a friend of Winstons that has lunch with him as he tells Winston of the new dictionary. We learn from Syme that the dictionary is becoming less and less as hundreds of words are thrown out everyday. At first I wondered what could possibly come of limiting vocabulary, but we soon find out that the Party is doing this in hopes that soon there won't be enough words to even commit thought crime. I thought this was a bit of a stretch, though, because people such as Winston and the Parsons and the Parson's children are always going to know all the words, regardless of whether or not they are in the dictionary, and these people are going to keep passing them on to new born children. It's impossible to make an entire society to completely stop using a large percentage of their vocabulary. Then again, who would thought it would be possible to make an entire society stretch together every morning?

A large part of the end of this week's reading had to do with proles. I do know proles are humans but a special or different kind because Syme had made the comment "The proles are not human beings". Winston, though, made me think that the proles are like a special group of people that government doesn't care about and therefore doesn't enforce rules upon. I'm not sure what their purpose is exactly, or why they aren't considered "human", but I think they will probably come up in later chapters because they seem awfully important to Winston. To Winston, they are the only people that can overthrow the Party. He made a comment about them that I think is true about all people. He said,"Until they become conscience they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot become conscience." This reminds me of something we read in Civil Disobedience, which reminds us that it really is just once big story, and no line is original.

As I was reading it occured to me that the only other countries we had really heard about was Eurasia, the enemy country. Why haven't any other countries or Parties been involved? This is similar to a Hitler Nazi situation and therefore when Orwell was writing this, even if he is thinking of the future, he should know that realistically other countries are going to be involved one way or another.

The final thing I tried to figure out as I was reading was what exactly is the "Party" trying to achieve by this control, what is the final goal. As in all dictatorships there has always been a certain goal or means to the control. For instance, the Nazi party wanted to create the "perfect race". So what does Big Brother want to do with this country, what does he want these people for. I predict that we will find out soon and this will be one of the themes of the book. As of now, it is too early in the book to tell and we are still trying to fully understand the ins and outs of life in Airstrip One. Which, by the way, where did the name "Airstrip One" come from? It has to mean something!

Winston continues to write in his journal and realizes at the end that he is really writing this for O'brien. It is sort of a relief for him to know who he is writing to and I think now he will write even more. In this entry he writes about a night he has with a prostitute. He also reflects on his marriage with Katherine years ago. It is difficult for him to write still, but it doesn't come rolling out in short sloppy sentences like last time. Each time i think it will become easier and easier to write. I personally like when we can read his journal entries, it gives us a glimpse into what he really thinks and sometimes a glimpse into the past.

Finally, Winston talks about those three men that confessed to something untruthfully and Winston knew they lied because of an article he accidentally saw in the Times. This part confused me a bit, but I think he was trying to get the point across that this could prove the Party wrong and could possible over throw it? I'm not sure, but I know it was quite significant, and hopefully we can discuss it in class.