Chapters 13-18

So much happened in this week’s reading! Winston finally talks to O’Brien; learns about that the Brotherhood, an underground rebellion, is real; reads the Brotherhood’s handbook on the society of the Party; and gets caught for thought crime. 

While this reading was action-packed, it certainly wasn’t gripping the entire time-- reading “the book” was just plain boring because as Winston said it “had not actually told him anything that he did not know; it had merely systematized the knowledge that he possessed already” (217). I completely agree with Winston’s evaluation of the book because I feel like it just explained aspects of the Party that an observer would naturally pick up on. For example, the book explains the ironies of the four ministries, saying that “the Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation” (216). The book explains that these are contradictory because, believe it or not, peace is the opposite of war, truth the opposite of lies, love the opposite of torture, and plenty the opposite of starvation. I hate to say it, but these contradictions are addressed (albeit more subtly) on the fourth page of the novel and are built upon in the 212 pages between. The book also reaffirms Winston’s beliefs about war with either Eurasia or Eastasia (it switched to Eastasia in this reading). The book added literally nothing to my understanding of the workings of the Party; it just synthesized the conclusions I’d reached into more easily quotable ideas. 

From this, I’m wondering if the book is even really from the Brotherhood. I’m starting to think that O'Brien isn’t actually part of the Brotherhood (it seems like too big of a coincidence that Winston talks to O’Brien and is quickly caught), and he gave Winston the book almost as a test of unorthodoxy. Looking back at the reading, O'Brien didn’t seem to feel worried at all by the fact that the Party is watching, giving Winston his address “immediately beneath the telescreen, in such a position that anyone who was watching at the other end of the instrument could read what he was writing” (158). Winston also describes O’Brien as giving off “an impression of confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony” (175). My mind immediately went to dramatic irony-- O’Brien knows something that Winston does not. Unfortunately, the reader also only knows what Winston knows, so I can’t be sure that O’Brien is truly hiding something. I mean, after meeting O’Brien, Winston had “the sensation of stepping into the dampness of a grave” (159), and although Winston doesn’t link this to O’Brien, I certainly do. 

There are two options: either I’m right in not trusting O’Brien or this book has made me incredibly paranoid. I know the latter is true because I completely distrusted Julia, and she got captured along with Winston, so she cannot have betrayed him. In the next reading, I guess I’ll figure out whether I had a valid reason to distrust O’Brien. 

Another distinct element of the most recent reading was Orwell’s use of symbolism, especially with the glass paperweight and St. Clement’s. Both symbols are used in prior sections, but their meaning was unclear until now (although to be honest, I’m not sure I understand them completely now, but it is clear that I should at this point.

Winston buys the glass paperweight at the same shop that he buys his diary and the same place from which he later rents a room. The paperweight is “a heavy lump of glass” with a piece of pink coral from the Indian Ocean embedded inside (95). Winston admires the paperweight because it is incredibly beautiful yet serves no real purpose. He then keeps this paperweight in the room he rents, looking at it from time to time with Julia and contemplating the world from which it came. He sees the paperweight as its own mini-world: the glass itself as the room he rents “and the coral [as] Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal” (147). The paperweight is a symbol of hope; to Winston, it embodies what he wants from life: privacy, freedom, and love. The mini-world of the paperweight (where he is truly free and unobserved, happy with Julia) is what Winston is hoping for in his acts of rebellion.

This is why it is incredibly significant that the paperweight is shattered when the Thought Police finally catch him and Julia in the room. 

A member of the Thought Police “[picks] up the glass paperweight from the table and [smashes] it to pieces” (223). As the fragments roll across the floor, Winston realizes how small the paperweight was. In this moment, the paperweight’s demise symbolizes Winston’s shattering of hope-- now, he will never achieve that dream of a peaceful, happy life with the woman he loves.

The symbol of St. Clement’s appears first as a rhyme, which Winston learns line by line, first from Mr. Charrington (the man who rented Winston the room and turned out to be a member of the Thought Police-- Yikes), then from Julia, and finally from O’Brien. I am going to quote the entire rhyme although it is revealed on multiple pages:

“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s,

You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s,

When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey,

When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!” (146) (178)

At first, like the paperweight, the rhyme is a reminder of the world of the past. It’s no longer remembered by many, and even the idea of oranges and lemons is foreign to Winston. Julia doesn’t even know what a lemon is. In trying to discover the entirety of the rhyme, Winston is uncovering the world he longs to go back to.

St. Clement’s could also be a symbol of Winston’s downfall. The first and last lines are first told to Winston by Mr. Charrington (the evil Thought Police guy), and without Charrington knowing his curiosity of the past, Winston may never have been caught. Similarly, Winston learned the remainder of the lines through his acts of rebellion, whether sleeping with Julia or conspiring with O’Brien. It was this rebellion that led to him being caught. As he learns more of the poem, he is opening himself up to more risk of eventual torture and death.

Winston also focused largely on the section of the rhyme about the churches, ignoring the ominous ending. As he is captured by the Thought Police, the last line comes over the telescreen saying “here comes the candle to light you to bed, here comes the chopper to chop off your head!” (222). Winston is so focused on the beauty of the past that he doesn’t notice the horrifying, and possibly warning, message the rhyme truly has.

Ultimately, the Thought Police catch him through a telescreen hidden behind an engraving of St. Clement’s church. This completes my theory that St. Clement’s symbolizes Winston’s failure because it is the means through which his downfall arrives. Hidden behind the church (in both the poem and the engraving) is the Party, ready to torture him for his crimes, but Winston was so distracted by the beauty of the past to even notice.

St. Clement’s combines all of the mistakes Winston makes in his rebellion leading to his downfall.

Having been left on a cliffhanger, I am very excited to finish 1984! 

~ Georgia