What follows is a THOUGHT PROVOKING QUESTION that I would like you to address and debate online tonight. We will be talking in depth about this issue in class tomorrow, and this exercise will help clarify and deepen your own thoughts on the issue. You do not need to have read Goldstein's Book to answer or address this prompt.
So here goes.
Who is the better rebel: Winston or Julia?
[NOTE: Obviously, for this prompt to mean anything, you're going to have to think about what constitutes "better".]
Make an argument, back it up with text, think about how it relates to the bigger picture outside of Orwell's world. THINK!
I think that they are both rebels in different ways, but I think Winston is the “better rebel”. He is not as ignorant and loyal to Big Brother as the other Party members are, and he does not fully believe everything he is told especially since his job at the Ministry of Truth is rewriting history. He starts to perform little rebellious acts such as buying a diary at a black market shop to write down his thoughts and memories. In his diary he writes "Down with Big Brother" (18) repeatedly showing his hatred and truly disobedient behavior. He thinks differently then everyone which causes him to act like a rebel since he doesn’t agree with the party. Winston truly wants to bring down the government while Julia is just a rebel without a cause. Julia and Winston are both rebels set against Big Bother. However, Winston is the better rebel since he sincerely has the desire to join the Brotherhood and bring down Big Brother.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam that Winston is the "better" rebel. By better, I mean that his ideals are stronger and he would be willing to go further to sabotage Big Brother. Winston has memories of what life before the Party was like, making him feel that the party is denying him a more enjoyable way of life. This anger towards the Party fuels his desire to be a rebel, and makes him willing to risk his life to fight Big Brother. Julia on the other hand is just along for the ride. She dislikes the Party, but for reasons different than Winston. She feels that their rigid way of life is unreasonable, and enjoys skirting the system for fun. She doesn't have a personal anger towards the party, rather a general dislike. Since Julia loves Winston, and Winston hates the Party, Julia is willing to become a rebel, while Winston is obviously the "better" rebel.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I think that Winston is the better rebel. Unlike Julia, he keeps everything mostly to himself and gets excited when he is revealed to anything that goes against the Party. Julia, however, does everything openly and without thought, showing that she does not really take into account that shes actually going against the Party; but that she is doing because it excites her.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that Julia is the better rebel. You three make a good point about Winston's anger towards the party and how he is willing to do more to go against them, but remember who initiates every action they do to show rebellion. Julia gave Winston the note that said "I love you" which in turn started the personal rebellion the two of them share against the government. Unlike Winston, this is not the first time Julia has used a sexual relationship with another Party member as a form of rebellion. She is more experienced, and therefore better. Her experience brings with her the knowledge of hideouts to go to as well as directly why sex is against what the Party wants of its members. Winston knows that sex is against the rules for pleasure and not to have babies, but Julia knows that the reason is because "when you make love you're using up energy... They want you to be bursting with energy all the time... If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?”(133). Ultimately, Julia knows the real reasons behind her rebellious acts as well as why they directly impact the party whereas Winston only goes along with her carefully devised schemes and plans because he knows that they do hurt the Party but not why. Julia is more educated than Winston and therefore she is a better rebel.
ReplyDeleteTo me, a "good rebel" is one that knows what they are fighting for and are sure of it. A "good rebel" is able to focus on the bigger picture of their actions, rather than the today and the now. In that sense, Winston is the "better" rebel of the two. While they both share the passion for hatred of big brother and the party, Winston truly wants to bring down the party for the greater good of all and generations to come, yet Julia is more focused on her own selfish beliefs and does not even fully care or understand about what the government is doing. When Winston describes his feelings and the party's wrong doings, she is bored and often falls asleep. Even Winston despite his love for Julia, is able to identify that she is "only a rebel from the waist downward." Ultimately Julia is not able to fully understand the concept and motives behind her rebellion, while Winston however dreams and focuses on the disire to bring down Big Brother for generations to come.
ReplyDeleteWinston is a "better rebel" than Julia because he is able to focus on a bigger picture while Julia only rebels to make life better for herself. She "only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life." (153) Julia does not care about the fallacy of the history that the Party teaches them about and instead rebels for her own sake. Winston constantly thinks about how the Party hides the truth from them and worries that "every record has been destroyed or falsified." (155) Winston can see the danger in the Party's ability to alter history because it allows them to control the present and the future. He knows that the past events affect the fate of the people in the future. Julia seems to rebel in a more active and bold way, but Winston has more potential for a great rebellion because he has a more practical way of thinking and a stronger desire for freedom away from the control of the Party.
ReplyDeleteA rebel is one who opposes authorities rules and principles. A “better” rebel is one who makes efforts to oppose the authority and overcome it. Winston is a "better rebel" than Julia because he sees through the clever lies the Party spreads as truth and wants to oppose it while Julia breaks the Party’s rules in a rebellious manner but has no true desire to change its way of governing. His awareness and knowledge comes with his age and pieces of memories through his life he still partially holds. The idea that the world was once a better place helps inspire Winston to bring back a better world. He is more motivated, accepting all the risks O’Brein warns him about and he focuses on the future world. He delayed on the question where O’brein asked if Winston was prepared “to separate and never see one another again”(172). This delay was natural due to his emotions and love for Julia but she yelled out “No!” within seconds due to the discomfort it would cause her individually. He was considering suffering in order to rebel and make a change while she was concerned about her own well-being. Julia “hated the party and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it”(131). This is because she has yet to realize the Partys effect on the society as a whole. Julia only made general criticism “where it touched upon her own life” (131) showing her rebellious side to rather be a simple want for a better life for herself. When Winston holds possession of the book, at last, he offers to read aloud to Julia and she accepts. Winston keeps reading, learning the "how" of Oceania through lots of context, while Julia falls asleep. Her disinterest and lack of motivation establishes her as a rebel without cause. Winston is motivated and determined to give everything he has to change the future while Julia is more bold, confident, but has yet to realize the reality of the risk and hard work required to make any sort of change in the future world.
ReplyDelete-Rina Rabinovich
Although Winston and Julia are both rebels in their own way, I believe that Winston is the "better" rebel. For starters Winston knows the truth about the Party, and makes sure he doesn't get manipulated by them. Not only does he know this valuable information, but because he knows speaking the truth will lead to his death, he cleverly writes down his thoughts. If Winston was only thinking about himself he wouldn't bother to do so, but the fact that he does, shows that even though there might not be change in his lifetime, someone in the future can read his diary and be able to make a difference. Julia on the other hand, rebels for the sake of rebelling. She's like a teenager. When she doesn't get what she wants, she does something she knows is wrong to get back at the people, in this case the Party, who wont give her what she wants. She could care less about the others as long as she, and now her love, Winston, survive. Winston, unlike Julia, is rebelling for the greater good. He's rebelling to make a difference and make things right. Even though he knows he's going to be killed, he proceeds to write in his diary, to help towards changing the future society. As Hannah said above, Winston says Julia is "only a rebel from the waist downward." She IS rebelling but not for the right reasons. Winston try's to get her to see his point of view dozens of times, but she could care less. Also when O'Brien is asking Winston and Julia if they are willing to do several things, which are very violent, Winston is the only one who answers "yes" to all O'Brien's questions, NOT Julia. In fact, she only chimes in when O'Brien asks if they're willing to be separated. This is the only requirement that actually involves something happening to them. She responds wit "no". Again, here Julia is being told something she doesn't want to hear, so she "rebels" by refusing to separate from Winston, simply because she doesn't want to. Since Winston is the one who cares about the fate of society in Oceania, and will do anything to make a difference, and better people's lives he is the "better" rebel, rather than Julia, who is only thinking about herself.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I also think that Winston is a better rebel than Julia. For one Winston is rebelling against the Party to improve his and other people's lives. From the beginning he questioned the Party's authority and he showed this through his actions and writing a diary. Memories had falshed back into his memory of his life before the Party and he knew certain things didn't add up to what they were claiming. For example the Party had claimed that they built the first airplanes but Winston knows that it was the Wright Brother's who built it. When he brought this up withJulia, she didn't show any interest in anything he said, she just simply fell asleep. Thus showing that Julia doesn't really care what the Party does, she only cares about the rules the Party has. That is why she finds ways to break them. For example she has sex with men just for the fun and because she knows she can get away with it. So, when Julia and Winston had sex, she probably thought nothing of it because she had done so many times before but Winston thought of it as a "political act" against the Party. Julia is rebellious in a personal act, while Winston is rebelling through principle, making him the "better" rebel.
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