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MmeBrazeau
MmeBrazeau
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Wed Oct 25, 2017 6:17 pm
If you have any general questions about the novel or your project, or how this part of the evaluation works, feel free to post them here! I look forward to reading your favourite quotes, your interpretations and your contributions! Use all the tools available in this forum to illustrate your ideas: insert pictures, videos, etc., whatever you like! Happy posting!!! cyclops

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ANNY
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Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:34 am
The quote : " I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY" really spoke to me when I first read it.

With this quote, I was able to connect with the protagonist of the book (Winston) as we share the same opinion about their society.  It is quite noticeable that Big Brother falsifies the past to create an image of himself being a very trustworthy and reliable person in the eyes of his citizens.  Thus, believing that Big Brother has never been wrong about his predictions and that he is doing nothing but creating a society that is much more better then the past, it is understandable that his citizens praise him and see him as a great leader.  Also, by falsifying the past, it is almost impossible to go against Big Brother and the way society works due to the fact that the past is always being changed to his advantage which leaves no concrete evidence of any of his wrong actions and false predictions.  With practically almost everyone that lived through the revolution dead, there is no way of knowing whether or not the past was as awful as all media describe it to be and also whether or not the past (before Big Brother) was better then their current living status.  Big brother slowly conditioned his citizens by various methods (such as falsifying the past to alter the truth) changing his society's mindset and dehumanizing them.  Although we know this system brings him total immediate control on his citizens and on his society, like Winston, we do not know what Big  Brother's final plan is.  Not only are we able to connect with the protagonist by having the same opinion on his odd society, it also makes us think about our own society.  With this we ask ourselves "Are we also living in a dehumanized state but exactly like Winston's coworkers, we think its just simply normal?".

-Anny Samake study
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Kerrissa Constant
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Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:19 pm
It is a nice analysis of this quote because you went in depth about the function of Big Brother. To add more to your analysis, I would say that Winston is writing about the function of the Big Brother society and his understanding of it. He was reflecting on the reason why the society has changed. We can see throughout the book that Winston understands his society and it is corrupted and that he is participating to it by destroying evidence as his daily job, but he wants to find the reason why it resoluted to that. Razz
ANNY
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Fri Nov 03, 2017 4:44 pm
Thank You for this reply! Razz  It is true that in fact, Winston is reflecting on the reason why society has changed and why Big Brother is doing this.  The quotation that I mentioned was early in the novel (part 1, page 83) but as the novel progresses, Winston receives information about his society which seems to confirm his predictions on that matter.

   During the time of the first quote, Winston was scared he was potentially the only one to think that his society’s ideology and structure was wrong.  As the plot thickens, Winston learns about the existence of the brotherhood which confirms that there is possibly a lot of other individuals who strongly oppose Big Brother’s system regarding their society.  He is then given a book written by Goldenstein which explains the real history and reasons behind the societies of Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia entitled : "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism".  In this lengthy book, various theories that Winston already had in mind are confirmed, for example, that the everlasting war between all three supreme nations is in fact only there to preserve power amongst the High class by keeping their society preoccupied with the war.

    Even after reading the majority of the novel, Winston realises he still only knows how Big Brother does it but he does not know why he goes through such lengths to keep his society the same and thus, preventing the evolution of his society.  Orwell then repeats almost the same quote with only a few changes, the quote goes like so : “ He understood how ; he did not understand why” (part 2, page 226).  By repeating this quote, Orwell really puts emphasis on the question as we may now assume that this question will only be answered towards the end of the book, keeping the readers on the edge of their seats... cyclops
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Kerrissa Constant
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Sat Nov 04, 2017 11:09 pm
You did a great job of including my idea in your analysis and I also like how you linked the two quotes together! Nice job! Smile
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