1984. a pivot point

The book that I read for the first-quarter independent reading was 1984 by George Orwell. 1984 is about a dystopian society where the poster of a man's face and the caption "Big Brother is watching you" is plaster everywhere in the city of London. The story is a bout a man named Winston, who is a Party member and works in the Ministry of Truth where he alters history to fit party ideals and keep the people ignorant, and his love with Julia, who is also a Party member. The two of them defy the Party through their love and are arrested and tortured until they love Big Brother. They are released but they don’t love each other anymore. There is a pivotal moment in the novel when Winston is brought to room 101, which contains “the worst thing in the world” because it contains individually tailored torture methods according to the subject’s worst fear. In Winston’s case, they present a helmet that contains carnivorous rats on the other side of a small door across from Winston’s face. The purpose of the torture is to get Winston to ask for the torture to be done to Julia in place of him. After all the previous torturing that Winston has undergone and not breaking his will, he finally breaks from the fear of the rats and finally exclaims that he wishes that Julia would be tortured. “The mask as closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then- no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps it was too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment- one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically over and over: ‘Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’ He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He was still trapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars…He was light years distant but O’Brian was still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of a wire against his cheek but through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.” (287) This scene is important and pivotal in the novel ad a stark character change because previously, Winston had declared to Julia that when they are caught, and they torture them, if they can make him stop loving her and make him betray her, that they will have taken his soul.  This scene is the exact moment that he stops loving Julia and the exact moment when they take his soul. The falling backwards through the floor and earth described after he screams for it to stop is Winston’s feeling of losing which is the way that he lives out the rest of his life; without his soul and without love proving that the oppressive society has won.