Thoughts on the Brotherhood Pre-Capture and Post-Capture
NOTE: I STARTED WRITING THIS POST ON MONDAY AND WE HADN’T
GOTTEN TO THE END OF THE BOOK SO THESE ARE MY PREDICTIONS FROM THE BEGINNING OF
THE WEEK
Is the Brotherhood even real? I don’t think so.
At first, like a majority of
people I spoke to, I believed that it was real. I believed that there was a
secret underground resistance, headed by Goldstein or some other guy that was
plotting to topple Big Brother. For a brief moment, I thought that Mr.
Charington was part of it since he had a room without a telescreen. I was
ecstatic when O’Brien revealed himself to be part of the organization. I thought
to myself “yes! Winston was right!”
And after a few minutes of
celebration at the possibility of a revolution and overthrow of Big Brother, I
started to doubt O’Brien and his intentions.
Isn’t it a little fishy that he
would be Winston’s only contact, and that he would never know the higher-ups of
the organization? And the questions he asked Winston, like would he be willing
to kill for the organization or would he be willing to accept the fact that he
might not see any progress in his lifetime, were a little strange. They seemed
almost…incriminating. And I thought to myself that there was no way he actually
turned off his telescreen. However, I wanted to look past these minor details.
So I did.
I looked for other proof of the
Brotherhood. The book handed to Winston seemed to be all the proof needed to
believe in the organization. At least it was enough for Winston. That book gave
the readers a good understanding of the history behind the party and its reasons
for existing. But in doing so, it justified the methods of the party, which
sounds like propaganda to me. The book also didn’t cover how the Brotherhood
would topple the government or what it really stood for. If anything, it was
more of a history book, not a manifesto to inspire rebellion.
Lastly, Mr. Charington is a little
sketchy, how does he happen to have a room without a telescreen? Maybe that
paperweight is some sort of spying device since Winston keeps mentioning it.
Maybe it’s a metaphor for how precarious the situation is, since it’s made out
of glass it can shatter in one drop, so maybe it will take one small mistake
for Winston and Julia to get caught.
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So now that we have gotten to the
end of the book, look who was right! Big Brother uses the concept of the Brotherhood
to sniff out traitors of the party. And can I say, what a dick move! Throughout
the entire book, Winston had hope and a spark of rebellion; he wanted O’Brien
to be part of the Brotherhood, and he himself wanted to be part of the
Brotherhood. He was genuinely willing to die and do despicable things for the
cause, and he was robbed of a chance of escaping this society.
Did you have your doubts before the end of the book that the
Brotherhood wasn’t real? What evidence did you have against/for its existence?
Now that we know Winston has been thoroughly brainwashed to be on the side of
the Party, do we think that he will start helping the Party find other traitors
in the same way O’Brien did?
I also thought the Brotherhood was fabricated. As you said, everything was too perfect. Julia (even though she turned out not to be a bad guy) showed up in his life to fufil the role of somebody from his dreams. Then the same thing happened with O'Brian. He got exactly what he wanted out of him. The one part I thought differenly from you was that I thought the proles district could have been a trap for members of the party. There were rooms to rent, no telescreens, and even relics from the past which Oceania otherwise tries so hard to erase.
ReplyDeleteNice predictions, Tori! I like how you pointed out the different details that sort of foster doubt about the validity of the Brotherhood. I'm glad you brought up the paperweight. I wish we'd discussed it more in class, come to think of it. I like your points about it.
ReplyDeleteGreat predictions! While the Brotherhood seemed a bit shady to me, I never really thought about the details, and just went along with information that Winston was presented. However, as you've highlighted, there were actually a ton of hints and details that built up to O'Brien's big reveal - I think that Orwell did a great job with foreshadowing in a way that was subtle without being too obscure. Your analysis of the paperweight was also really interesting and insightful.
ReplyDeleteYay you got it right! I definitely was a lot more naive than you were, and totally trusted O'Brien up until the scene where Julia and Winston get caught. For some reason, it made a ton of sense to me to keep Winston and Julia so in the dark about the Brotherhood. But looking back at everything now, the Brotherhood definitely seemed fishy from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteWow, now that you mention it, the whole Brotherhood thing really was quite sketchy from the beginning, wasn't it? I also started doubting the existence of Goldstein and the Brotherhood after we got through the book excerpt section, but wrote it off as it being Goldstein and the Party's original goals when the Party was first founded. I even thought O'Brien was just being cautious, and completely didn't suspect him!
ReplyDeleteYou bring a few highly intriguing ideas to the surface of George Orwell's 1984 novel. The people who are asking Winston questions seem to be trying to trick him, and it appears to be a lose lose scenario for him. If he agrees to kill for them, they could say that he is evil. In this case, they must eliminate him. Otherwise, he is not loyal to the party. In this case they must also kill him.
ReplyDeleteMany of the ideas that you wrote about in this post really got me thinking about the rehabilitation program within the Party.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, I strongly agree with what you wrote about the questions that Winston was asked. I think that they were strongly incriminating, and that the Party interrogators were just waiting for Winston to mess up so that they could jump on him. Tripping him up and sentencing him on purpose is a really dirty tactic - it must be horrible for poor Winston.
The only thing that makes me thing that the Brotherband is real is the fact that O'Brien didn't say anything when Winston asked. I feel like if the Brotherband wasn't real he would have this opportunity to rub it in Winston's face, further psychologically torturing him. We as readers are like Winston in this case; we also will never know if it's real or not.
ReplyDelete- Anna
Yeah, the whole thing seemed kind of fishy to me, too. There were a lot of things I doubted, it all seemed a little too perfect and I kind of got the vibe that maybe the Brotherhood wasn't actually real. Additionally I was kind of suspicious of Julia at the start. Also the questions they asked Winston seemed like they were setting him up to say the wrong thing, which was strange.
ReplyDeleteIf the brotherhood has the manpower to completely rewrite history just to validate statistics given in a speech, they have the power to monitor Winston better than he thinks. I found it extremely unlikely that he wasn't being watched the whole time, and my only question was why they waited so long and let him get so far into it without catching him.
ReplyDeleteI originally knew that the brotherhood never existed, because I shamelessly got curious and looked up the plot, which is never a good idea. It made the book a lot more anti-climatic to me. The concept of the brotherhood is an interesting one, a fake organization that exists purely to try and pull out traitors by inspiring hope. This seems to be very effective since these so called "traitors" are hard pressed to realize its fakeness.
ReplyDeleteI definitely was a lot more trusting than you were. I completely believed in the brotherhood and I never thought O'Brien would betray Winston and Julia. However, just given how powerful the government was in 1984 and how much spying they had going on I guess I probably should have seen the whole thing coming.
ReplyDeleteOooh nice prediction. I was a lot more naive than you clearly, I think I really wanted to believe O'Brien. I agree with you about how weird the questions he asked were - I think the effect they had on me was less doubting the brotherhood, and more doubting the morality of Winston. I didn't love his character after he so easily accepted everything O'Brien said. I also reaaallly trusted Charington and was so disappointed when he turned out to be a snake.
ReplyDeleteI too imagined the brotherhood to be a fabrication of the state, but for whatever reason, I now wonder if it is in fact real. It seems so like the party to sell someone on something, than convince them beyond a doubt that the thing they sold them was fake, and then to have it be real after all. I certainly think Winston is not going to believe anyone who claims to be part of the Brotherhood now, and maybe this is the desired outcome: the party publicizes the brotherhood, then tempts people to join it and reveals that it is fake, thus destroying the chances that those most likely to join ever will.
ReplyDeleteThe Brotherhood seemed to good to be true. If 1984's main characters Julia and Winston were actually saved by a real Brotherhood, the book would've been too predictable. Honestly for me, I thought O'Brien was going to be an ally to Winston. Winston alluded to O'Brien even before their encounter, so I foolishly believed O'Brien would take him to the promised land. I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs much as the the Brotherhood is definitely a tool of the party to sniff out traitors, big brother also doesn't exist. He is most certainly a collective. If he was real, he would show himself. For example, I'm almost certain that O'Brien was a member of the Big Brother Collective.
ReplyDeleteI think this shows another aspect of control that people in power can use, and I think it is symbolic of the total control of Big Brother.
ReplyDelete