Fourth Hour Scribe- April 22

Today in 3rd period English we had a group presentation. Before beginning this we discussed Mrs. Moritz’s hairstyle; a ponytail. It looked very cute today. After a few minutes of chatting, we started our reading quiz given by Alex and Seth, their other member, Matt, being absent. For their group presentation we had a circle discussion, talking about the end of the book which we should have finished for today.
In the group discussion we talked about topics such as, the proles. The group was divided into whether there are proles that want to rebel and be like everyone else or if all the proles have no want or need to be like the rest of society. Only having met three proles in this book, we don’t really know if any of them want or are going to rebel. Although we hope they have the intent of rebelling, there is no way of really knowing.
The biggest topic we discussed was how fear damages people, such as how it hurts Winston. In the end, Winston ends up betraying Julia, because of fear. Fear is like pain, they both consume you, when you are afraid of something, and nothing will stop you to get away from it. We talked about what would make us so fearful that we would hurt someone we love and care about. It is a hard topic to even think about betraying someone we really love; it is hard to think of a physical fear or pain that would make us do something to hurt someone else. When you are in this type of situation, you don’t really think about anything else but getting out of that situation, you will do anything to make it stop. This is something that is hard for us to think about. In modern day we see betrayal a lot, especially in high school, such as teenagers betraying their friends and classmates. For example; friends betraying friends, by using drugs and alcohol. The want we feel to become part of the popular group, we will betray our closest friends, even sometimes without realizing it. It is just like the power of the party, you have to give up your own thinking and feelings to be a part of the more popular group and to feel like you fit in.
In the end, you don’t get shot until you finally give into the Party. They want you to die being a part of them. The Party owns Winston by keeping him drunk. They give him more and more drinks so that he doesn’t go back to thinking what he thought before. Winston is free, but he is a slave to the party. Also, Julia was in the same state as Winston. In her room 101, they took away her vanity. She had a scar across her face making her not as beautiful. When Winston held Julia again, there was nothing soft about her anymore, she felt embalmed to Winston. In the end there is no more hope of them getting back together, and loving each other again. They felt dislike almost even hatred towards each other. It shows that there is a very fine line between love and hate, which can be easily crossed. It shows that no matter how hard you try, they (the Party) can get into your head and break you.
The discussion we had today was very good for understanding the entire book, “1984”. Ultimately in the end, Winston ends up free but enslaved, he has no right to think on his own, or believe what he wants. He isn’t really a human being. Some people in the class believe that we might be heading towards this type of world, while others don’t. It is very split. Maybe someday our world will be like the world of “1984”, or maybe it won’t, there’s no way of really knowing.
Tomorrow we should be expecting to receive the topics for our essays for “1984”.