Write out a quotation from whichever book you are reading. Explain how the quote develops a central idea of the book and then explain what aspect of our society the author is commenting upon.
"There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol... But they used to take morphia and cocaine(53)."
This quote just further proves that the book is bashing on our society as it is now. I see this book so far that I have read, as being a Communistic book because everyone is created equal and different 'types' of people wear different colors of clothing, etc. Everyone is open it one another and there is no exclusive relationship.
Brave New World - "'Ford, how I hate them!' Bernard Marx was thinking... 'Like meat, lie so much meat'....'And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat.'" pg. 53
This quote is key to the idea that sexuality is overtly present in society. That women and men are raised from a young age to be sexually active. Bernard Marx is the only character (Besides Lenina slightly hinting to it) to show good judgment to go beyond seeing people as objects to satisfy sexual desires. I think this comments on our society today because a lot of people view sexual activity to be meaningless and do not have a problem with having sex with multiple partners with no commitment to them.
"when the individual feels, the community reels" Lenina pronounced. "well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?" "Benard!" (pg.94)
Benard like to think outside of the box, he tries to imagin what life would be like if he could have more control and be free to do what he really wanted. Lenina is shocked that he would go against the rules and talk about things like passion and feelings. This hints to the societal pressure that we must supress our feelings to fit into regular society. Lenina and the majority of the others believe that feelings are bad and should not be explored.
"Winston's heart was thumping so hard that he doubted whether he would be able to speak. They had done it, they had done it at last, was all he could think." pg 138 This just shows that no matter what people in power try to do or limit people in a certain area people will always find a way to do what they want. Peoples freedom can't be completely taken away, eventually they will risk their lives to do what they desire and long to do. In this passage Winston is going over to O'Brians house.
"The preparations for hate week were in full swing,and the staffs of all the ministries were working overtime. processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumors circulated, photographs faked." This quote represents a central theme of the book because the community is all about making yourself happy. Thats why they are faking pictures and writing songs for a certain occasion instead of using old traditional ones or something. I believe he's trying to show how our society today doesn't put enough effort into their work. how when we get stuck with something we turn to the quickest solution, cheating or copying to make ourselfs look good. When instead we should just put in the time and effort to do a good job and that way we get the grade we deserve. Society today is lame and people dont know how to motivate themselves to do a job they all ready committed to do
"There were evenings when the reached their rendezvous and then had to walk past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come around the corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it was less dangerous, it would still have been difficult to find time to meet" pg 107 I think this quote really is expressing how controlling that George Orwell thought that the world would be in 1984 after communism had taken over the world. When there are helicopters and patrols on the streets watching you in the middle of the night, it has gotten a little bit put of control. This really expressing alot about the book though and explains maybe why the characters are so afraid to do something on their own because people are actually always watching them.
"I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones."p-104
This quote basically is saying that the idea that everyone should conform is crazy. It is turning people crazy and the idea of rebelling appears to be an appropriate escape. In comparison to society i would say that this particular quote is the exact opposite of what society is like today. Everyone nowadays want's to be different then everybody else.
"And when memory failed and written records were falsified-when that happened, the claim of the party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested." Pg.79 (1984)
This quote carries out the teme that nobody truely knows what life was like before the revolution when the Party took over. All history books and information was rewritten by the party to make it look like they were doing everyone a good deed, and nobody can prove anything different. It also follows the theme that why you remember in the past reflects on how you think about the present and future. Without a proper understanding of the past, nobody can realize the wrongdoing of the party.
Jenn Hergert "By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird." -1984
This quote describes the general mindset of most people living in the world of the book. All they are ever shown is falsified stories and politics that change daily, and only to make their oppressive government somehow appear admirable to them. They live in a world they cannot possibly understand because everything they know is a blatantly told untruth. According to Winston, the only way they survive is by ignoring the fact that they have no control over their own lives and simply living day to day.
1984- “No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.” (105)
This quote helps develop the idea of the amount of power there is in this civilization. Winston thought that being with Julia was a way of rebelling. It seems that the realization of this concept would detract from their relationship since it is no longer about their feelings for each other, rather, a statement against the government.
"From the cuts on his wrist the blood was still oozing."
This is when Linda's natural born son (a savage) is hit with rocks because people of their society are brainwashed to think the savages are inferior to them. I feel that as a society today we do this but with mentally ill, deformed and just different from the cookie cutter person of today and we as a society persecute these people because in our minds we are superior to them
“They could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.” 1984 page 138
This quote helps to explain a central theme of the book by explaining that no matter how great the people of this totalitarian society believe that they exclusively support the Party and everything the Party wishes them to believe, deep down they have feelings of doubt that not even the worst kind of torture could cover. This thought glimmers a bit of hope for Winston in that he isn’t alone with regards to his internal desire to rebel. This thought process even leads him to meeting with O’Brien and expressing his direct views, once O’Brien turned off the telescreen, about his opposition towards the party. This was the first time Winston had really declared is opposition clearly and to others. The aspect of our society that this quote is commenting on is that no matter how we may all try and conform to what is accepted by society, we still hold an internal belief of what is right or what we really believe. That even the most ridiculous conformist hold a sense of right versus wrong. This makes me question whether people like Francisco Franco, a former, extremely crude dictator of Spain, really doesn’t have any morals or feelings of wrong doing when he forces 400,000 Jews out of Spain as a result to them not conforming to his Catholic ways… Also, how fellow and dedicated were his right-wing men? They must have had some sense of grief for the pain that their leader caused hundreds of thousand of people!
“Yes, that’s just it.” The young man nodded. “If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely. (137)
This quote definitely proves that the reality today of each different society. If you are different than you are lonely and a lot of people wont’ talk to you. They are judging you because you are different from others. That’s basically how cliques work at school and society where you come from.
Samielle Foltz “He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another in the world, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Everyone, in a word, who’s any one.” (Brave New World pg 227)
“Well, I’m kind of mad at the world right now so I’m just going to say that both Brave New World and 1984 suck because they’re so depressing.” That’s something I would say but if I lived in either the civilization from either book I would be forced into isolation or annihilation. In both books the government has gained so much control over people that any kind of individual thought or anything considered other than government sanctioned results in some form of imprisonment, isolation, or annihilation. This quote demonstrates this idea it also comments on the kind of control the government has over society.
“Very likely the confession had been rewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance. The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken.” (1984, pg. 68)
In this quote Winston is complaining about how there is no evidence of the past. Everything in the fasted was burned or rewritten. There was no past because no one remembered anything and the past could easily change with burning evidence. This is a theme in the book about Winston trying to figure out what happened in the past and what it was like. He tries many different ways to figure it out but does not understand why the past was taken away in the first place. This reflects our society today a little by evidence that happened in certain situations in the government is being keep away from the rest of the people.
The central idea of this quote is the idea that these people are conditioned a certain way and if they are afflicted in any way they can't handle it, like children. The aspect of our society it is commenting on is that people in our world are like this a lot when it somes to thier medication. They act like they need it when really they cant actually need it, considering its not a natural substance of the earth. It shows our generations strngthening dependance on chemicals to survive in our society when our basic needs used to just be food, shelter and water.
"...and the ravages of the atomic war of the Nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired." (1984, 156)
The book 1984 as we now was written in 1948 and published in 1949, while it's true it was just after WWII it was writen during the red scare. I think this quote is directly related to the red scare in that George Orwell might have thought that Soviet Russia was going to bomb America and then a full out nuclear war would occur in the 50's like many people thought. The book is then all the event after that war, with the creation of Big Brother and the three super states. In a way Orwell commented on our society right now because the US still has 5,113 nuclear warheads as our government just disclosed last week. This number however is way down from the peak 31,255 warheads in the 60's.
“When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history” (136) ~1984
This quote proves just how insignificant individuality is in the world of 1984. People in Winston’s world live for the moment because at any given time you could be vaporized and never heard from again. This is a result of the Party’s ultimate control of people’s minds, continuously changing historical events and forcing people to accept the changes without question. People are not allowed to have minds of their own; they are alive solely for the benefit of the Party.
" 'Smith?', said the woman. 'Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why.' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!" (page 188, 1984)
I thought this quote was interesting because it shows how much control the Party has over the lives of the others in their community. Winston doesn't even know who or where his own mother is anymore and doesn't seem to show any emotions other than it could possibly be his mother. The comments made on our society throughout the whole book is rather extreme but during the '50's, when this book was written, people feared the wide spread of communism and I think the point the author is trying to get across throughout the book is what the lives of the people would look like if a communist society did, in fact, become a reality.
"For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure the words were really there." (1984, page 90)
I found this quote really added to the central idea of the book by the idea that the people are living in such a repressed world that even the simplest ways of society such as in this quote saying 'I love you' is frowned upon. It's amazing how much control the government has over the lives of its people and how much is not allowed in their society. The author is only bringing something as simple as relationships with others in our world and showing the difference of how they are meant to feel and live in their world.
“How many fingers am I holding up Winston? Four. And if the party says that is it not four but five – then how many? Four.” (pg 206)
This quote is when Winston is getting interrogated by O’Brien and every time Winston says something that is against the party O’Brien inflicts pain upon him. The party controls all the records and memories of people and they don’t allow people to think freely if it is against the Parties beliefs. Winston gets in trouble because O’Brien holds up four fingers yet tells him that the Party says there are five fingers so Winston must lie and say that he is holding up five fingers but he won’t do that. The Party wants to control the world and control each person’s mind so that no one will be against them.
"Every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful. We couldn’t do without Epsilons. Every one works for every one else." Brave New World
This quote illustrates the power of repetitiveness of the hypnopaedic rules and beliefs that form the basis of World State society. The people are conditioned to believe certain things and they are told this in a very repetitive and simple way. This quote shows this exactly. The message also shows hypocrisy of the conditioning: it may be true that “every one works for every one else,” but there is huge amounts of separation and discrimination towards the lower castes, and no one wants to be seen out of caste.
"But in effect it was unanswerable evern now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another." pg. 79, 1984
This quote shows how the government has control over everyone, even the old people before the Revolution. This is because since recordings of history have been thrown out, the old forget their past and whatever the government says is suddenly true. This comments on how our government tries to change our history in schools in our text books. They try to make the US look as good as they can with out stretching the truth to the point where most people will notice. Such as leave some events out that doesn't make the US look good.
"Go away little boy! Go and do your erotic play somewhere else." (pg. 56)
This is what the DHC says to a child as he is interrupting his discussion with the controller. It seems that in this strange society, child sexuality is encouraged rather than considered immoral. Children are actually set up to engage in sexual activity with each other. This fact is both very odd and disturbing. What's odd to me though is that sex is encouraged but having children naturally is not.
"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted... Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?" (Brave New World, p 148).
This quote is said by the Director, as he is explaining how Bernard’s behavior threatens the stability of the society. What I found interesting is how he says that there is no importance to one individual. This is because a sacrifice is not a big loss since the Hatchery can make so many new babies. The author is trying to show how our society does not care for individuals, because there are always more that come. Of course he is being more drastic in the context of this book.
"'Oh, that reminds me,' she said, as she came back from the bathroom, 'Fanny Crowne wants to know where you found that lovely green morocco-surrogate cartridge belt you gave me.'" (BNW 78)
I feel as thought this quote relates to our world because, like BNW, we live by (or alike to) society's standards of us. All in all, we are unable to fully escape it, and others fall in. Like our lives, the idea of conformaty is prominent. It reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” To me, all of it is entwined and connected in some way.
"We preserve them from diseases... We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don't look like that." (Brave New World, 111)
Upon seeing an aged savage, Lenina questions why savage elderly look so different from the elderly in her society. Bernard explains that they have ways to preserve their age so they appear young forever. In explaining this, Huxley is commenting on how our increasingly superficial society uses artificial methods to reverse a the normal process of aging. In a more modern context, Huxley would consider an anti-aging procedure such as plastic surgery a struggle against nature that should not be messed with.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This Party slogan appears twice in the novel. The slogan is an important example of the Party’s technique of using false history to break down the psychological independence of its subjects. Control of the past ensures control of the future, because the past can be treated essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals: if the past was idyllic, then people will act to re-create it; if the past was nightmarish, then people will act to prevent such circumstances from recurring. The Party creates a past that was a time of misery and slavery from which it claims to have liberated the human race, thus compelling people to work toward the Party’s goals. The Party has complete political power in the present, enabling it to control the way in which its subjects think about and interpret the past: every history book reflects Party ideology, and individuals are forbidden from keeping mementos of their own pasts, such as photographs and documents. As a result, the citizens of Oceania have a very short, fuzzy memory, and are willing to believe anything that the Party tells them.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This quote is one that really got me thinking, not only about the book, but also about life in general. Because what this is saying is something that we generally accept to be true; that he who controls the present controls the future. However, by saying it in this roundabout way, it shows corruption. It shows that by controlling the past, kind of like how it was attempted to in the past when rulers tried to have all books and records of the past burned. In doing so, they got rid of the history they wanted to and created the history that would be best for them to change the future for their benefit. To be able to do this though, they have to already be in power because if they weren't they wouldn't be able to omit and create the different pieces of history that they wanted to. It really is a scary thought, at least for me anyways. The central idea of the book that this builds on is the idea that those in power can use force to stay in power and make the things the way that they want them.
"There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol... But they used to take morphia and cocaine(53)."
ReplyDeleteThis quote just further proves that the book is bashing on our society as it is now. I see this book so far that I have read, as being a Communistic book because everyone is created equal and different 'types' of people wear different colors of clothing, etc. Everyone is open it one another and there is no exclusive relationship.
Brave New World - "'Ford, how I hate them!' Bernard Marx was thinking... 'Like meat, lie so much meat'....'And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat.'" pg. 53
ReplyDeleteThis quote is key to the idea that sexuality is overtly present in society. That women and men are raised from a young age to be sexually active. Bernard Marx is the only character (Besides Lenina slightly hinting to it) to show good judgment to go beyond seeing people as objects to satisfy sexual desires. I think this comments on our society today because a lot of people view sexual activity to be meaningless and do not have a problem with having sex with multiple partners with no commitment to them.
Bridget Cook
ReplyDelete"when the individual feels, the community reels" Lenina pronounced. "well, why shouldn't it reel a bit?" "Benard!" (pg.94)
Benard like to think outside of the box, he tries to imagin what life would be like if he could have more control and be free to do what he really wanted. Lenina is shocked that he would go against the rules and talk about things like passion and feelings. This hints to the societal pressure that we must supress our feelings to fit into regular society. Lenina and the majority of the others believe that feelings are bad and should not be explored.
Crystal Nybo
ReplyDelete"Winston's heart was thumping so hard that he doubted whether he would be able to speak. They had done it, they had done it at last, was all he could think." pg 138
This just shows that no matter what people in power try to do or limit people in a certain area people will always find a way to do what they want. Peoples freedom can't be completely taken away, eventually they will risk their lives to do what they desire and long to do. In this passage Winston is going over to O'Brians house.
Craig Thomas
ReplyDelete"The preparations for hate week were in full swing,and the staffs of all the ministries were working overtime. processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumors circulated, photographs faked." This quote represents a central theme of the book because the community is all about making yourself happy. Thats why they are faking pictures and writing songs for a certain occasion instead of using old traditional ones or something. I believe he's trying to show how our society today doesn't put enough effort into their work. how when we get stuck with something we turn to the quickest solution, cheating or copying to make ourselfs look good. When instead we should just put in the time and effort to do a good job and that way we get the grade we deserve. Society today is lame and people dont know how to motivate themselves to do a job they all ready committed to do
Erik Enselman
ReplyDelete"There were evenings when the reached their rendezvous and then had to walk past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come around the corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it was less dangerous, it would still have been difficult to find time to meet" pg 107
I think this quote really is expressing how controlling that George Orwell thought that the world would be in 1984 after communism had taken over the world. When there are helicopters and patrols on the streets watching you in the middle of the night, it has gotten a little bit put of control. This really expressing alot about the book though and explains maybe why the characters are so afraid to do something on their own because people are actually always watching them.
"I hate purity, I hate goodness. I don't want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones."p-104
ReplyDeleteThis quote basically is saying that the idea that everyone should conform is crazy. It is turning people crazy and the idea of rebelling appears to be an appropriate escape. In comparison to society i would say that this particular quote is the exact opposite of what society is like today. Everyone nowadays want's to be different then everybody else.
Garrett Johnson
ReplyDelete"And when memory failed and written records were falsified-when that happened, the claim of the party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested." Pg.79 (1984)
This quote carries out the teme that nobody truely knows what life was like before the revolution when the Party took over. All history books and information was rewritten by the party to make it look like they were doing everyone a good deed, and nobody can prove anything different. It also follows the theme that why you remember in the past reflects on how you think about the present and future. Without a proper understanding of the past, nobody can realize the wrongdoing of the party.
Jenn Hergert
ReplyDelete"By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."
-1984
This quote describes the general mindset of most people living in the world of the book. All they are ever shown is falsified stories and politics that change daily, and only to make their oppressive government somehow appear admirable to them. They live in a world they cannot possibly understand because everything they know is a blatantly told untruth. According to Winston, the only way they survive is by ignoring the fact that they have no control over their own lives and simply living day to day.
Gina Chenoweth
ReplyDelete1984- “No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.” (105)
This quote helps develop the idea of the amount of power there is in this civilization. Winston thought that being with Julia was a way of rebelling. It seems that the realization of this concept would detract from their relationship since it is no longer about their feelings for each other, rather, a statement against the government.
Lexy Kaftan
ReplyDelete"From the cuts on his wrist the blood was still oozing."
This is when Linda's natural born son (a savage) is hit with rocks because people of their society are brainwashed to think the savages are inferior to them. I feel that as a society today we do this but with mentally ill, deformed and just different from the cookie cutter person of today and we as a society persecute these people because in our minds we are superior to them
Sarah Hale :)
ReplyDelete“They could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.” 1984 page 138
This quote helps to explain a central theme of the book by explaining that no matter how great the people of this totalitarian society believe that they exclusively support the Party and everything the Party wishes them to believe, deep down they have feelings of doubt that not even the worst kind of torture could cover. This thought glimmers a bit of hope for Winston in that he isn’t alone with regards to his internal desire to rebel. This thought process even leads him to meeting with O’Brien and expressing his direct views, once O’Brien turned off the telescreen, about his opposition towards the party. This was the first time Winston had really declared is opposition clearly and to others.
The aspect of our society that this quote is commenting on is that no matter how we may all try and conform to what is accepted by society, we still hold an internal belief of what is right or what we really believe. That even the most ridiculous conformist hold a sense of right versus wrong. This makes me question whether people like Francisco Franco, a former, extremely crude dictator of Spain, really doesn’t have any morals or feelings of wrong doing when he forces 400,000 Jews out of Spain as a result to them not conforming to his Catholic ways… Also, how fellow and dedicated were his right-wing men? They must have had some sense of grief for the pain that their leader caused hundreds of thousand of people!
Jaina Shah
ReplyDelete“Yes, that’s just it.” The young man nodded. “If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely. (137)
This quote definitely proves that the reality today of each different society. If you are different than you are lonely and a lot of people wont’ talk to you. They are judging you because you are different from others. That’s basically how cliques work at school and society where you come from.
Samielle Foltz
ReplyDelete“He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another in the world, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Everyone, in a word, who’s any one.” (Brave New World pg 227)
“Well, I’m kind of mad at the world right now so I’m just going to say that both Brave New World and 1984 suck because they’re so depressing.” That’s something I would say but if I lived in either the civilization from either book I would be forced into isolation or annihilation. In both books the government has gained so much control over people that any kind of individual thought or anything considered other than government sanctioned results in some form of imprisonment, isolation, or annihilation. This quote demonstrates this idea it also comments on the kind of control the government has over society.
Christine Nafziger
ReplyDelete“Very likely the confession had been rewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance. The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken.” (1984, pg. 68)
In this quote Winston is complaining about how there is no evidence of the past. Everything in the fasted was burned or rewritten. There was no past because no one remembered anything and the past could easily change with burning evidence. This is a theme in the book about Winston trying to figure out what happened in the past and what it was like. He tries many different ways to figure it out but does not understand why the past was taken away in the first place. This reflects our society today a little by evidence that happened in certain situations in the government is being keep away from the rest of the people.
Breanna Taylor
ReplyDelete"That blood! oh I wish I had my soma."
The central idea of this quote is the idea that these people are conditioned a certain way and if they are afflicted in any way they can't handle it, like children. The aspect of our society it is commenting on is that people in our world are like this a lot when it somes to thier medication. They act like they need it when really they cant actually need it, considering its not a natural substance of the earth. It shows our generations strngthening dependance on chemicals to survive in our society when our basic needs used to just be food, shelter and water.
"...and the ravages of the atomic war of the Nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired." (1984, 156)
ReplyDeleteThe book 1984 as we now was written in 1948 and published in 1949, while it's true it was just after WWII it was writen during the red scare. I think this quote is directly related to the red scare in that George Orwell might have thought that Soviet Russia was going to bomb America and then a full out nuclear war would occur in the 50's like many people thought. The book is then all the event after that war, with the creation of Big Brother and the three super states. In a way Orwell commented on our society right now because the US still has 5,113 nuclear warheads as our government just disclosed last week. This number however is way down from the peak 31,255 warheads in the 60's.
Savannah Guillen
ReplyDelete“When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history” (136) ~1984
This quote proves just how insignificant individuality is in the world of 1984. People in Winston’s world live for the moment because at any given time you could be vaporized and never heard from again. This is a result of the Party’s ultimate control of people’s minds, continuously changing historical events and forcing people to accept the changes without question. People are not allowed to have minds of their own; they are alive solely for the benefit of the Party.
Anna Billmaier
ReplyDelete" 'Smith?', said the woman. 'Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why.' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!" (page 188, 1984)
I thought this quote was interesting because it shows how much control the Party has over the lives of the others in their community. Winston doesn't even know who or where his own mother is anymore and doesn't seem to show any emotions other than it could possibly be his mother. The comments made on our society throughout the whole book is rather extreme but during the '50's, when this book was written, people feared the wide spread of communism and I think the point the author is trying to get across throughout the book is what the lives of the people would look like if a communist society did, in fact, become a reality.
Laura Ahlrep
ReplyDelete"For several seconds he was too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole. When he did so, although he knew very well the danger of showing too much interest, he could not resist reading it once again, just to make sure the words were really there." (1984, page 90)
I found this quote really added to the central idea of the book by the idea that the people are living in such a repressed world that even the simplest ways of society such as in this quote saying 'I love you' is frowned upon. It's amazing how much control the government has over the lives of its people and how much is not allowed in their society. The author is only bringing something as simple as relationships with others in our world and showing the difference of how they are meant to feel and live in their world.
Tori Weisel
ReplyDelete“How many fingers am I holding up Winston? Four. And if the party says that is it not four but five – then how many? Four.” (pg 206)
This quote is when Winston is getting interrogated by O’Brien and every time Winston says something that is against the party O’Brien inflicts pain upon him. The party controls all the records and memories of people and they don’t allow people to think freely if it is against the Parties beliefs. Winston gets in trouble because O’Brien holds up four fingers yet tells him that the Party says there are five fingers so Winston must lie and say that he is holding up five fingers but he won’t do that. The Party wants to control the world and control each person’s mind so that no one will be against them.
Mark Galambos
ReplyDelete"Every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons are useful. We couldn’t do without Epsilons. Every one works for every one else." Brave New World
This quote illustrates the power of repetitiveness of the hypnopaedic rules and beliefs that form the basis of World State society. The people are conditioned to believe certain things and they are told this in a very repetitive and simple way. This quote shows this exactly. The message also shows hypocrisy of the conditioning: it may be true that “every one works for every one else,” but there is huge amounts of separation and discrimination towards the lower castes, and no one wants to be seen out of caste.
Leslee Fall
ReplyDelete"But in effect it was unanswerable evern now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another." pg. 79, 1984
This quote shows how the government has control over everyone, even the old people before the Revolution. This is because since recordings of history have been thrown out, the old forget their past and whatever the government says is suddenly true. This comments on how our government tries to change our history in schools in our text books. They try to make the US look as good as they can with out stretching the truth to the point where most people will notice. Such as leave some events out that doesn't make the US look good.
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ReplyDeleteBrody Hovatter - Brave New World
ReplyDelete"Go away little boy! Go and do your erotic play somewhere else." (pg. 56)
This is what the DHC says to a child as he is interrupting his discussion with the controller. It seems that in this strange society, child sexuality is encouraged rather than considered immoral. Children are actually set up to engage in sexual activity with each other. This fact is both very odd and disturbing. What's odd to me though is that sex is encouraged but having children naturally is not.
Katie Martens
ReplyDelete"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted... Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?" (Brave New World, p 148).
This quote is said by the Director, as he is explaining how Bernard’s behavior threatens the stability of the society. What I found interesting is how he says that there is no importance to one individual. This is because a sacrifice is not a big loss since the Hatchery can make so many new babies. The author is trying to show how our society does not care for individuals, because there are always more that come. Of course he is being more drastic in the context of this book.
Kirsten Zoba
ReplyDelete"'Oh, that reminds me,' she said, as she came back from the bathroom, 'Fanny Crowne wants to know where you found that lovely green morocco-surrogate cartridge belt you gave me.'" (BNW 78)
I feel as thought this quote relates to our world because, like BNW, we live by (or alike to) society's standards of us. All in all, we are unable to fully escape it, and others fall in. Like our lives, the idea of conformaty is prominent. It reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” To me, all of it is entwined and connected in some way.
April Dick
ReplyDelete"We preserve them from diseases... We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don't look like that." (Brave New World, 111)
Upon seeing an aged savage, Lenina questions why savage elderly look so different from the elderly in her society. Bernard explains that they have ways to preserve their age so they appear young forever. In explaining this, Huxley is commenting on how our increasingly superficial society uses artificial methods to reverse a the normal process of aging. In a more modern context, Huxley would consider an anti-aging procedure such as plastic surgery a struggle against nature that should not be messed with.
Jade Baumann
ReplyDelete"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This Party slogan appears twice in the novel. The slogan is an important example of the Party’s technique of using false history to break down the psychological independence of its subjects. Control of the past ensures control of the future, because the past can be treated essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals: if the past was idyllic, then people will act to re-create it; if the past was nightmarish, then people will act to prevent such circumstances from recurring. The Party creates a past that was a time of misery and slavery from which it claims to have liberated the human race, thus compelling people to work toward the Party’s goals. The Party has complete political power in the present, enabling it to control the way in which its subjects think about and interpret the past: every history book reflects Party ideology, and individuals are forbidden from keeping mementos of their own pasts, such as photographs and documents. As a result, the citizens of Oceania have a very short, fuzzy memory, and are willing to believe anything that the Party tells them.
Maxx Forde
ReplyDelete"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
This quote is one that really got me thinking, not only about the book, but also about life in general. Because what this is saying is something that we generally accept to be true; that he who controls the present controls the future. However, by saying it in this roundabout way, it shows corruption. It shows that by controlling the past, kind of like how it was attempted to in the past when rulers tried to have all books and records of the past burned. In doing so, they got rid of the history they wanted to and created the history that would be best for them to change the future for their benefit. To be able to do this though, they have to already be in power because if they weren't they wouldn't be able to omit and create the different pieces of history that they wanted to. It really is a scary thought, at least for me anyways. The central idea of the book that this builds on is the idea that those in power can use force to stay in power and make the things the way that they want them.