To Orwell Today,
re: WINSTON DIES INSIDE

Dear Jackie Jura,

I've read some of your website and find it fascinating. Since I read it for the first time at a very young age, "1984" has never ceased to interest me.

Sadly, I don't agree that Winston was able to keep his hatred of Big Brother any more inviolate than his love of Julia. The book is meant to have a frightening rather than a hopeful ending. This man, who tried so hard to cling to his emotions and to the evidence of his senses, has been completely broken by torture and brainwashing.

He remembers the happy scene with his mother and sister, playing Snakes and Ladders, but pushes it off as a false memory, without questioning why in the world he would have such vivid false memories. He meets with Julia and though he attempts briefly to pursue her he soon gives it up, realizing that he no longer cares enough about her to be bothered. They say they will meet again, but their words are empty and it will never happen.

At the end, he expresses his love for Big Brother, internally, with deep remorse that he has "self-willed exile from the loving breast." These are not the thoughts of a man hiding his little kernel of hate even from himself. They are the thoughts of a man who has had the humanity burned out of him, and is now nothing but an empty shell full of Party slogans. Yes, he'll be tracked down once more and executed, but he has really already died.

-Celeste

Greetings Celeste,

In various articles on "Orwell Today" I've given my reasons for believing that Winston, even after torture and brainwashing, still HATED Big Brother (even though in all outward and conscious appearances he LOVED him).

Literature is always open to interpretation by the reader, and a reader can gain insights into the author's meaning by studying the literary work in depth, looking for symbolism etc, and also in studying the author of the literary work.

As I've mentioned elsewhere on the website, George Orwell himself is in disguise as Winston Smith, and Winston's inner thoughts are Orwell's.

And without a doubt - when he died - Orwell hated BIG BROTHER with a passion so strong and a hate so large that he willingly expended his life-energy to express his hate by exposing the secret plans of BIG BROTHER in an attempt to save people born, and not yet born, from a fate Orwell considered worse than untimely death.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

ORWELL LAST MAN IN EUROPE and WINSTON HID HIS HATE

WINSTON & JULIA and WINSTON DIES INSIDE and WINSTON EXISTED, STILL EXISTS and WINSTON HATES BIG BROTHER

TORTURING TO FIND GOD and ORWELL SAW GOD IN MAN and THE SPIRIT OF MAN

ORWELL SPEAKS THRU MAJOR and CHESTNUT CAFE & DIARY SYMBOLISM and WHY ORWELL WROTE 1984 and ORWELL'S PERSONA

To Orwell Today,

Thanks.

-Celeste