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Essay: The Significance of Part One to Part Two in George Orwell's Novel

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  • Reading time: 4 minutes
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  • Published: 6 December 2019*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 910 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 4 (approx)
  • Tags: George Orwell essays

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The significant transition between part one and part two mark Section 2 (pages 75-149) of George Orwell’s nightmarish novel. From a big picture, the main theme of Part 1 is the awakening, and realization of Winston’s consciousness in which he identifies the evil of the INGSOC party, and his desire for change, and rebellion. Part 2 which presents the climax of Winston’s rebellion against Big Brother with his partner Julia. The transition between these two sections prove to be extremely significant as the theme of realization leads up to the paramount meeting of Julia that is vital to the storyline of the rest of the novel.

The beginning of our section, marking specifically the middle of chapter 7 in part one of the novel, shows Winston working to find evidence of the past which is not falsified by the party. He, who knows more than most of the propaganda and lies of the party working in the Ministry of Truth suspects that all the claims of the party having built all the ideal cities and how life quality had increased dramatically since the revolution, to be false. But as Winston knows more than most still that the party writes and controls all of history itself, there is no way to know what is actually true or another falsification. Winston remembers just one time of which he caught a glimpse of evidence which proved that the party was lying. The incident which happened maybe ten years ago, was when one day Winston came upon a photograph that proved that the Party  members Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford whom were executed had been in New York at the time that they were allegedly committing treason in Eurasia. Winston’s desire to attain a unilateral, abstract understanding of the Party’s methods and evils in order to consider and reject them epitomizes his speculative, restless nature. This desire to further “awaken” his consciousness and rebel against the party carries on as Winston contemplates on writing in his diary as a letter to O’Brien, who at this point is the one person who understands, and feels as Winston does. Furthermore, chapter 8 depicts Winston traipsing through the prole district in an effort to realize his yearning for understanding. Although interviewing the old man in the bar fails as lacks the awareness of how the party impacts his life, when Winstons ventures into Mr.Charrington’s shop, the upstairs room signifies his hope. The paperweight is an important symbol of Winston’s dreams of freedom, while the picture represents Winston’s desire to make a connection with a past that the Party has suppressed. This brings out further Winston’s frustration against the party.

The middle of the section marks the beginning of part 2. A quote which can represent the significance of this bit of our given assignment is actually our main passage: “But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax was a victory. It was a blow struck against the party. It was a political act.” (Orwell, 126). At the end of part one, Winston peaks his desire to fight against the party but does not have much of a place to express himself. In the midst of this, Winston forms a relationship with the most unexpected person, Julia whom he believed to be spying on him. As Winston meets Julia, his desire of rebellion and defiance against the party is empowered as their relationship serves as an outlet of expression. This goes along directly with our thematic statement because through this outlet, Winston’s dreams of mutiny become to a degree, reality. As a result, his suspicions of the party become all the more a reality. “Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you . . . I hate purity. I hate goodness. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.” (125, Orwell). The fateful meeting between the two lovers acts as arguably the most significant/vital turning point in not only our section, but the whole novel itself. Although at first, Julia treats the trysts with Winston as merely a fun act of rebellion, Winston’s seizes the opportunity to strike a  “blow against the party” albeit it is internal, and a death sentence in eventuality.

“She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse.” (chapter 3, Orwell) Propelled by a newfound vigor, Winston exercises his defiance to new lengths going as far as to renting the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop, something he would have never even considered doing in the past. Because Winston has considered himself a dead man walking ever since he began to meet with Julia, he is able to fight almost freely, “for the future”. This proves Julia, who isn’t the brightest or most eager to understand and work to actually overthrow the party, to be a huge influence to Winston as he acquires his signature fatalism while further developing his dream for better, changed future. “The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.” (147, Orwell)

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