1984- George Orwell: Journal No.1

"To be killed was what you expected. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everyone knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and the bloody clots of hair. Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? (...) Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to lie embedded in a future time?"-Orwell pg 107

This passage speaks to me personally because of a social justice course I took last semester in which we were given the honor to hear from a Rwandan genocide survivor. For me, this passage showed striking similarities to that of the survivor. It looked to me that both had learned the evident fate of most people in their positions, yet the last struggle as it seemed would prove to provide the will to live, for the love of each other. The fear of death was frightening for both, yet the fear of the unsaid things before death were much worse. In the Rwandan genocide, they would often rape, burn, and terrorize the people before actually killing them. In this passage of the story, Winston is debating suicide over being tortured. Yet without knowing the time of your eventual demise, or if you will even be killed or not, time is the one thing both people had to fight for.

This aids me in the understanding of my novel simply because I have been explained the emotion and fear both people were feeling. One by genocide, and one by an oppressive government. The author describes human nature perfectly. In what happens to people when they live in fear, or oppression, or genocide. The measures Winston takes to seem normal, and his thoughts about going against the party that rules over the remnants of London. The constant fear that lingers over everything Winston does, and the constant struggle to find a safe place where he and Julia can momentarily escape the oppression. Their brief encounters, give Winston the courage and will to go on. As did hope for the survivor of returning to his family. Winston's development throughout the story revolves around his love for Julia, and his slow rebellion against the party, as does the risks he takes by doing both. He changes with a new hope to no longer to be controlled, and fights much like the survivor did for his freedom.