1984 Book 2, Chapter 3 - Chapter 8
Winston and Julia begin to converse at the workplace, although their conversations are spread over several days since they are almost always interrupted due to their need for secrecy. They have sex several times more, but never in the same place more than once. Julia knows several parts of the city where they can get some privacy, and have conversations about their past. Winston learns Julia is a young twenty-six-year-old woman who is an extremely active member of the anti-sex league, yet she rebels against the Party by having several secret sexual partners. She works in the Ministry of Truth as a mechanic on the novel writing machines of the Fiction department. Winston grows frustrated with the little time that he gets to spend with Julia, and so he decides to rent the apartment above Charrington’s shop. Winston and Julia can meet in that room in secrecy since the room isn’t monitored through a Telescreen. Their relationship begins to deepen as the room becomes a haven for their love. Julia dresses up for Winston, as she abandons the blue overalls of the Party uniform and wears makeup as well as perfume.
They make love to one another and eat pilfered luxurious food from the kitchens of the Inner Party members, with real coffee and chocolate. They sleep in each other’s arms and share their dreams. Winston is roughly awoken one night by the nightmare of a rat, and he finds comfort in Julia’s presence. Winston spends a lot of time in the room and often thinks about the coral paperweight that he had purchased from Mr. Charrington as he observes a large Prole woman working at laundry through the room window. He comes to realize that the paperweight is a beautiful yet useless thing that he desires the freedom to own. At work, Winston isn’t surprised to learn of Syme’s vaporization as he had always known that he was too outspoken and intelligent for his good. The number of rocket attacks begins to escalate as Hate Week approaches, and Winston wonders at this odd correlation. Julia suggests that the Party could be responsible for the rocket strikes, and they were increasing them to build a deeper feeling of hate before Hate Week. The two of them are nearly in complete agreement about rebellion against the Party, and they often come together to wonder about the Brotherhood. Winston is more firmly convinced about the idea of open rebellion through membership in the Brotherhood, while Julia wants to continue rebelling in secret. The Brotherhood is a bogeyman that the Party rages about, a group led by public enemy number one, Emmanuel Goldstein.
Winston’s belief in the brotherhood increases as he comes to believe that O’Brien is a member of this secret organization. Winston runs into him in the corridor, when he compliments Winston about work. O’Brien tells Winston that he should have a look at the latest edition of the Newspeak dictionary which hasn’t yet been released. He invites Winston to come to his apartment, and Winston believes this is an invitation to the brotherhood because O’Brien refers to Syme, a vaporized person, now an unknown person. Winston shares O’Brien’s open invitation with Julia, who is just as reluctant as Winston to take it up. They spend the night together and he has a dream about his mother and younger sister. He wakes up with immense sadness and guilt, as he tells Julia about his childhood. Winston had been so hungry all the time, and his mother struggled to provide enough food for both her children and herself. Winston felt no empathy for his mother and sister’s starvation and took whatever food he could snatch for himself. He remembers a particular instance when he had stolen what little chocolate the government had sanctioned from the starving girl’s hands, and how his mother had covered his sister in a protective embrace. The image of his pained mother holding his sister’s starvation-stricken simian face haunts him. That had been the last he had seen of them, for they had both disappeared when he had returned home, uncaring about the damage he had wrought upon them and himself. Winston concludes that Party members like him are not humans anymore, and only the Proles are humans because they still have emotions as he recounts the time he had kicked a severed hand into the sewer after missing a rocket strike.
Winstons decides that he is going to accept O’Brien’s covert invitation into the Brotherhood, and he suggests that they part ways since Julia isn’t interested in rebelling against the Party in this manner. She surprises him with her refusal to leave, and her willingness to commit this rebellion with him. They go to O’Brien’s moderately luxurious apartment, where they find out that he has the privilege of switching off his Telescreen for a short time. He accepts them into the brotherhood after asking them difficult questions about the things that they are willing to commit in their attempt to overthrow the Party. Both of them agree to do horrible deeds against people but they refuse to ever betray one another. O’Brien accepts them into the brotherhood and tells them to expect a book written by Emmanuel Goldstein that would introduce them to the Brotherhood.
Analysis
The relationship between Winston and Julia becomes the central focus in this section of the book, as the two Party workers begin to fall in love with one another. The addition of love in their life has an overall positive effect on their outlook, as suggested by Winston’s realization of the world around them. Winston’s relationship with Julia, and their shared room above Charrington’s shop, give him an outsider’s perspective on his world. He escapes into a secret room without the threat of surveillance in a place where he has access to love, which is a solace in the dystopian world. Winston begins to realize how the oppression of starvation and violence that the Party exerted on its citizens leads to the continuation of its rule, and how badly it wounds the citizens of the state. Winston comes to believe that Party members like himself are not fit enough to be called humans like the much more destitute, yet mostly free Proles. He thinks about how starvation had made him immune to the cruelty that he displayed towards his starving mother and sister. He also recalls the time he had been nearly killed by a rocket strike and had then discovered a severed hand, which he had kicked into the sewer without ever truly considering what he had been doing.
The author demonstrates the force of pure emotions like love in this section of the book, as Winston and Julia further abandon safety and comfort for the sake of love. Winston is motivated to rebel openly against the Party not only due to the love he feels for Julia but also because he realizes that he had loved his mother and sister. Similarly, Julia had been successfully rebelling against the Party through her means since before the time she met Winston, but when he tries to sever their relationship so that she could be safe, Julia decides that she would rather risk her life than be without Winston.
