DJ: Book 2 Chapter 3-6
"When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?" (110-111)
This scene Julia is talking to Winston about what the Party wants when sex is involved. Julia explains to Winston about how the Party does not like for its citizen to feel any type of pleasure when having sex. She thinks that when having sex or making love you are wasting energy and not putting enough into what the Party wants which are: Big Brother, Three-Year Plans, Two Minutes Hate and others. Sex does take a lot of energy and also gives you a lot of pleasure. I feel that the Party doesn't want its citizen to feel that happiness because when they do they will realize that they can feel that happiness towards other things not just what the Party wants them to. They feel that by feeling happiness that they will find the truth that they can feel emotions towards other things and by doing that a rebellion will arise and bring their twisted system down.
"'My grandfather, He used to say it to me when I was a little girl. He was vaporized when I was eight--at any rate, he disappeared. I wonder what a lemon was,' she added in consequently,.'I've seen oranges. They're a kind of round yellow fruit with a thick skin.'" (121)
For some reason when reading this I felt really bad for Julia for two reasons. One because when talking about his grandfather being vaporized. It made me feel that she said it like it was nothing just another normal thing to happens in Oceania. Although, I also feel that she started talking about and then changed the topic all of the sudden because she doesn't want Winston to see that side of her, she probably wants to show him that she doesn't have any type of feeling or the damage that the Party has done to her. Reason two why I feel bad for her is because she doesn't know what a lemon is... Makes me feel that the Party got rid off them because lemons and oranges are similar. What I see is that the Party thought that by its citizen looking at the similarity they will do the same among each other or even to the Party and makes them self equal.
I think that when you said that Julia was talking to Winston about what the Party wants when sex is involved is kind of a weird way of putting it. I think she was just talking about what sex does to people and elaborating why the Party wouldn't like it. Either way, you elaborated on the quote quite well. I felt the same way you did when it came to Julia; it was saddening when she would easily talk about her grandfathers vaporization. When she could not differentiate between an orange and lemon, it showed me a sample of how much the Party had taken away from the people.
ReplyDeleteThat second quote was very disheartening to me as well. To talk about the vaporization of her grandfather like it meant nothing is saddening because it just shows how this is all considered normal in Oceania. But it does also show how she is in reality affected by it, because of the way she changes the subject very quickly. Her grandfather is obviously something she doesn't bring up often and isn't something she wants to discuss. I really enjoyed you analyzation of both quotes, I agree with your points.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of how the Party does not want its citizens to feel pleasure from sex because if they do, then they will realize that they can feel happiness from other activities that the Party has deemed as not okay. I do think that if the citizens of Oceania do figure out that they can feel happy emotions from doing things that the Party does not want them to do will transpire into a rebellion. Maybe this could be the key for Winston to start his own rebellion against the Party.
ReplyDeleteI really like you analysis of the second quote. When talking about vaporization of people, it seems like a normal aspect of life for the people of Ocenia. It does seem like she was changing the topic, either because it isn't normal to talk about vaporization or like you had said because she didn't want Winston to see that side of her. Overall, I really enjoyed the quotes you chose and the analysis you gave of those quotes.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree on your analysis of how the Party doesn't want the people of Oceania to have pleasure from sex. I believe its not only about not wanting to to get pleasure, but also that it would create a private connection between people. That connection would end up becoming loyalty and having the citizen not completely loyal to the Party would destroy the Party.
ReplyDeleteHi Guillermo! I like the first picture you chose, it relates to the quotes you have picked very well. I also agree with how you analyzed your quotes and broke them down in your own words. I think Julia is my favorite character so far because she is always rebelling against the Party. I liked the quotes you picked, and I also like the theme you have!
ReplyDeleteHey Guillermo! Anyways, going off of the whole having sex without feelings or pleasure, that just seems so weird because that's not how it usually is today, usually people feel something towards it. He's practically saying the women in the book are just objects to make kids. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteEven if the citizens could feel happiness, would they know what the feeling was? This comes to mind since they have no idea how to process feelings since they practically don't know what they are if they are being kept from them. Also, why does the government not want the citizens to feel something from these actions, it's not like they're going to rebel because they feel an emotion such as happiness or love.
Hey Guillermo, I personally agree with the emotion you described for Julia in regards to the second quote. The structure of society in Oceania makes the citizens emotionless, yet they clearly have feelings but don't know how to show them. It's unfortunate that they can't have emotions. Good job.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation of the quotes are really well done! I agree with your interpretation that the Party doesn't like sex due to the happiness and pleasure people get from it. The Party just wants all focus on them and doesn't want anyone to form loyalties to anyone else which is probable in 1984 since most of the people tend to ignore their feelings, but sex could potentially draw those emotions to the surface.
ReplyDeleteTo be completely honest, the first picture is the first thing that caught my attention lol. I agree with your analysis of the first quote on how the party fears its citizens feeling pleasure from sex and losing their citizens full energy and loyalty.
ReplyDelete