Dialectic Journal 1

PAGE 15

"Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why he hated her."

In this quote, Winston is participating in Two Minutes Hate by thinking all of these hurtful things about the dark-haired girl. It's an example of how he thinks that people all join in the feeling of hate, but they can transfer that hate from one concept to another or to an entirely different person. It seems sort of ironic though because the way in which he intends to hurt the dark-haired girl seems very masochist-y. As if, he will enjoy inflicting pain on her. It makes sense, that he realizes he hates her because of the sexual being that she is. He even imagines her naked, although he's supposed to be hating her. From here, we see an example of how Orwell portrays women in this society. Additionally, the fact that he calls the hallucinations beautiful also raises the question about Winston's perception of beauty.