1984 Quote by Kerrissa Constant

Quote
P. 85
“In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one’s own body.”

This quote is a realization that occurred to Winston in the first part of the book. Even though that it is clear that the antagonist in this story is Big Brother due to their complete manipulation of Oceania’s citizens by modifying the history and having control of people’s emotions, Winston says that it is one's own body. By saying that we are fighting against our own body, Winston implies that the citizens choose to obey the orders of Big Brother even though they are ridiculous and completely controlling. Also, this quotation can be viewed in a psychological context, because they cannot think of something ludicrous since they will be arrested by the Thought Police and be killed. In other words, Winston is expressing that in order to stay safe in the city of Oceania you have to protect your opinions and thoughts. The fact that Big Brother is always watching causes Winston not to act different when he is thinking of Julia or when he discovered the article about Comrade Withers that had evaporate. To conclude, this quote interested me because it can be applied to our daily life in terms of not having to hold ourselves back in different situations.

Hi Kerissa!

After reading your quotation analysis, I'm understanding that you believe this quote is about self-protection. Which is interesting because I actually have a different interpretation of it. I believe what George Orwell was trying to communicate was that we are our worst enemy. A couple of sentences before this quotation, Winston (the main character) is thinking about how the society he lives in is confined. We then proceed by learning that many in Oceania committed suicide because they weren't able to live in such circumstances but, as Winston says "... it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain poison, were completely unprocurable." Meaning people would have to get creative and have to go through extreme discomfort, pain as well as fear in order to end their lives. Merely, even when we are in danger with the world around us, we somehow are still able to make ourself our worst enemy. We are always left with the important decision on how to handle situations, and when it comes to solving these situations we get conflicted on what the best recourse is, which often arouses conflicts within. What I picked up from this quote is that in bad situations the hardest part is overcoming yourself. In most cases instead of focusing on fighting for ourselves against the our main problem, we create a conflict with our self which results in never ending the main problem so it basically becomes eternal.