"Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrapping of cigarette packet- everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your brain." (pg. 26) This passage was a description of the surrounding protagonist Winston Smith was consistently in. He was surrounded by watchful eyes that where everywhere. Furniture to small pocket items, there were images of eyes stitched into items creating a sense that there was always something watching where ever he would go. There was no privacy, except for the confines of your mind, and even that had its limits. The thought police was created to prevent people from having their own ideas. Another way to interpret this (excluding that last sentence) is that the...
Winston took a stroll out one night and visited the proles. After a brief encounter with a bomb, Winston brushed off the explosion and the deadly consequences and continued his walk. He eventually found himself at a bar. There, Winston met a deranged-old man. He thought that this older gentleman could help him unlock the past. After offering the old man beer, Winston conjured up these questions to explore the past, however, the old man was far to strange with his answers. Winston did not receive his desired answer and left the man alone.
I like your analysisof the excerpt and now that I read that it does seem like the old man could be acting. He is way to casual answering questions but he does it so well that it tricked winston and me upon first glance
ReplyDeleteI like your analysisof the excerpt and now that I read that it does seem like the old man could be acting. He is way to casual answering questions but he does it so well that it tricked winston and me upon first glance
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting interpretation of the old man. Though it does seem possible that the old man was acting, considering that the Party has little to no overlap with the proles, it seems unlikely that they would have enough pressure on them to force that sort of acting. The proles are "beneath" party members and get to live how they like so I don't know if they feel like they owe something to the Party because they live free, or are angry with the Party for treating them as lesser citizens.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting way of see the actions of the old man. While it maybe possible that he was acting, it could had also been the result of what speaking out of the party could do. The old man could had spoken out before and in doing so caused him to become estranged from the Party's actions. The Party does seem to have a motive and reason to do these terrible things to outspoken people.
ReplyDeleteI like that idea of the old man acting crazy to protect himself. I honestly think that's really smart of him to do that if that was his original intentions. I'm not even sure if i can pull of the same stunt that he did to fool Big Brother. It's rather creative.
ReplyDeleteThats actually a great theory. This puts me in a dilemma. Before I read your blog, I simply accepted the fact the old man might have been deranged. But now I'm in a 50-50 position. You proved pretty good points but then again, he is an old man, assuming he is at least in his early 70's. He could be dealing with a lot of health problems especially when he lives in the Proles and has experienced wars.
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