![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Winston is still at his diary, ruminating over the question about how can he know what was truly true of the past, the real history, not the continuously refabricated concoction that is put out by the Party.
And it is here that Orwell gives much of the play to what looks like one of the more significant plot-movements of the novel, that is, the story of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, more specifically, a scrap of old newspaper that Winston accidentally got a hold of during work, which got mixed up with his work orders relayed through the Ministry’s relay of tubes. This scrap of paper was mentioned earlier, when we first followed Winston to work, and it will get some meaningful play in the torture and interrogation scene to come. It may be best to nail down the basics of the personal story.
Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, were part of the venerated old guard of the Party, probably predating Big Brother. However, during the 1960s, there was apparently a nasty power struggle inside the Party, which Big Brother obviously won. Our trio were among the losers consigned to be purged.
They were subjected to the whole show trial and abject confession routine. And here is the thing about that errant scrap of newspaper that Winston inadvertently got a hold of: the information in that scrap contradicts the confession. So, aha! Winston feels that he held in his hands the doom of the Party:
Moreover, Orwell seems to toss aside what potential dramatic value this scrap might have had, since Winston admits tossing it down one of the memory holes to be incinerated. It might have added a little more excitement to the story if Winston had held on to this scrap, perhaps even keeping it pressed in the pages of his diary, and he were looking for the opportunity to blow the Party to atoms. The first-time reader might feel some adrenaline when Winston goes to O’Brien later to join the underground, wondering if Winston might succeed to bring the Party crashing down with the scrap in hand, thus making the letdown that much harder and more shocking when it is learned that O’Brien is not really part of the underground.
But, no, Winston’s position is more pathetic. He just has this idea in his head that he held this awesome power in his hands with that errant scrap of old newspaper. I can only imagine that Orwell intended it so, dramatizing the utter helplessness and futility of the lone man who rebels against the social order of an advanced totalitarian state. Besides, Orwell has more than enough going on in his story.
And it is here that Orwell gives much of the play to what looks like one of the more significant plot-movements of the novel, that is, the story of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, more specifically, a scrap of old newspaper that Winston accidentally got a hold of during work, which got mixed up with his work orders relayed through the Ministry’s relay of tubes. This scrap of paper was mentioned earlier, when we first followed Winston to work, and it will get some meaningful play in the torture and interrogation scene to come. It may be best to nail down the basics of the personal story.
Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, were part of the venerated old guard of the Party, probably predating Big Brother. However, during the 1960s, there was apparently a nasty power struggle inside the Party, which Big Brother obviously won. Our trio were among the losers consigned to be purged.
They were subjected to the whole show trial and abject confession routine. And here is the thing about that errant scrap of newspaper that Winston inadvertently got a hold of: the information in that scrap contradicts the confession. So, aha! Winston feels that he held in his hands the doom of the Party:
But this was concrete evidence; it was a fragment of the abolished past, like a fossil bone which turns up in the wrong stratum and destroys a geological theory. It was enough to blow the Party to atoms, if in some way it could have been published to the world and its significance made known.I must confess that I don’t get the big deal about this scrap of paper, especially seeing how Winston knows perfectly well that such media is constantly recreated. Though, it may be that I am taking for granted that Winston has privileged knowledge about this side of Oceania since he is a journalist, so that having such evidence in hand might mean more if the general public were confronted with this falsified history. But I still think Winston makes too much of this.
Moreover, Orwell seems to toss aside what potential dramatic value this scrap might have had, since Winston admits tossing it down one of the memory holes to be incinerated. It might have added a little more excitement to the story if Winston had held on to this scrap, perhaps even keeping it pressed in the pages of his diary, and he were looking for the opportunity to blow the Party to atoms. The first-time reader might feel some adrenaline when Winston goes to O’Brien later to join the underground, wondering if Winston might succeed to bring the Party crashing down with the scrap in hand, thus making the letdown that much harder and more shocking when it is learned that O’Brien is not really part of the underground.
But, no, Winston’s position is more pathetic. He just has this idea in his head that he held this awesome power in his hands with that errant scrap of old newspaper. I can only imagine that Orwell intended it so, dramatizing the utter helplessness and futility of the lone man who rebels against the social order of an advanced totalitarian state. Besides, Orwell has more than enough going on in his story.
