Dialectic Journal 3

PAGE 175

"For a moment he was violently angry. During the month that he had known her the nature of his desire for her had changed. At the beginning there had been little true sensuality in it. Their first love-making had been simply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different. The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to. When she said that she could not come, he had the feeling that she was cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd pressed them together and their hands accidentally met. She gave the tips of his fingers a quick squeeze that seemed to invite not desire but affection. It struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular disappointment must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him. He wished that they were a married couple of ten years’ standing. He wished that he were walking through the streets with her just as they were doing now but openly and without fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends for the household. He wished above all that they had some place where they could be alone together without feeling the obligation to make love every time they met."

Understanding why and how Winston feels the way he does throughout the whole book is crucial to understanding the state that he's living in. From the very beginning, with Two Minutes Hate and when Winston first meets Julia, there's a strong feeling of anger and hatred. We see this again in this quote, but I feel as though it is more passion than actual hate, but that brings to the table the question of what Winston truly feels for Julia and what she feels for him. It's possible that the Party only views sex as important for procreation because of the feelings that sexual acts might incite between if used for more than that, as we see with Winston. All of these considerations of feelings seem to connect with the idea that Freedom is Slavery. The Party is against all of these pleasures because of the fact that they would be so strongly controlled by them; although they'd be free to feel these things, they wouldn't truly be free in that sense. Additionally, keeping people from feeling strong feelings for others might be a way of keeping them hopeless. Winston sees himself or wants to see himself married with Julia for 10 years, in such a society these are pretty long term goals. If you want to keep a whole society down you probably want them to think there are very few things for them to want to live for. Also, he mentions that he wants to do the things they do now without fear. This might make him want to make that a reality, allowing people to feel this way would give way more people motives to have a revolution. This quote brings up a lot of great examples that explain why feelings are repressed and how the Party uses these repressions to keep the people down and stay in power.