1984 Free-write

What drives Winston? What is his motivation? Does he want what the Brotherhood wants? Does he want what Julia wants? Does he want what the party wants? Whatever he wants--what are his methods of getting there?

Is it love? Does love motivate Winston? Specifically, is it his relationships with Julia? That drives him? If that is the case, then why does he chose to meet with the Brotherhood? The Brotherhood doesn't seem like an option that reinforces their relationship. Julia doesn't even believe in the Brotherhood. So, going to O'Brien wouldn't bring Winston closer to her, wouldn't strengthen their relationship. Why don't they run away to the country? Try to turn themselves into proles?

It's because Winston isn't driven by his relationship with Julia specifically, he's driven by his desire for relationship-as-highest-values. He joins the Brotherhood because he really just wants to get closer to O'Brien. O'Brien is his first love. O'Brien is the person with whom Winston has had hidden glances since the very beginning of the text. Julia was only a stand-in. Going to the Brotherhood, getting captured, undergoing torture, all of these things bring Winston close to O'Brien. Even in the midst of the horrible punishments that O'Brien inflicts upon Winston, the protagonist still finds himself reverencing and starry-eyed toward O'Brien. O'Brien himself speaks about the engagement and enjoyment he finds in speaking with Winston. They share an awareness. Winston suggests that O'Brien's awareness is greater and that his own mind is encompassed by O'Brien's. Regardless, even the torture does not breakdown the feelings of intimacy that the shared awareness brings them. It is this shared intimacy through awareness that Winston has been searching for from the very beginning. He's been searching for meaning--through history, through the public record, through private recollections, through his own memory--and in his search for meaning, he has not found answers but he has found relationships, which he realizes offer him the form that creates awareness. He appreciates the proles for this, for their investment in forms that create intimacy and awareness, even if their awareness is only a limited one--subsequently he does not share in it as deeply. Julia is more to him because she shares in the awareness of the party and it's weaknesses. Even she, though is someone for whom he feels only intellectual intimacy--"I know we've shared this form together; so, I should appreciate and value the form." It is O'Brien that offers the greatest intimacy because they share  the greatest awareness.

This is what the book is driving at. This is what the book is hitting home. Relationships create value and meaning for life. Relationships consist in intimacy through shared awareness. Relationship constitute humanity. We have to work together, group work. We have to remember together, we have to live alongside one another. These are the things that establish shared awareness (through phenomenological means). O'Brien and Winston share their special awareness because of shared experiences with 'the word', both of them adept manipulators of language, including new-speak.

The issue of contextualization...
In both The Brothers Karamazov and Nineteen Eighty-four, the texts inserts full extra-narrative texts, such as Goldstein's book and "The Grand Inquisitor", as well as self-contained philosophical and political treatises such as O'Brien's principles and Ivan's arguments. These texts are largely ideological* and present strong arguments. Why are they inserted into a fictional narrative? Why, in a text of characters, plot, setting, and symbolism, do we have these political and philosophical statements inserted?

We could read these texts alone, and in so doing, we would contextualise these statements with whatever our then experience would determine, for example, crazy people handing you pamphlets on the subway. However, inserting these statements in the middle of the novel structures a specific context for the reception of the text. The statement comes up in the midst of a story. It is supported by one or several characters in the text. It reflects themes in the text. We are presented a means for interpreting the ideological statements.

In Nineteen Eighty-four, the two statements, the book and the principles, occur at very different moments. On one hand, Winston enjoys reading the book at his leisure, in safety, skimming and jumping, as a means of relax, as a desired project, as something that can be interrupted to have sex. On the other hand, --though the second  statement is also presented while Winston is lying on his back-- his experience with O'Brien's principles comes when he is in pain, undergoing torture, strapped to a chair with no alternative but to listen, under duress and under constraint. With the book, Winston finds that his reading of the text mostly serves to affirm what he already believes and to strengthen his sense of sanity. With the principles, Winston mostly rejects O'Brien's statements, arguing and hearing them in great distress.

I wonder if the moments of O'Brien's torture in the novel serve as a metaphor for what it is like for an individual to try to listen to and digest corrupt principles, incorrect or manipulating doctrine. How painful it is to listen to what someone has to say about something, to try to understand. (Imagining Orwell listening to a news reports or political speech of his day.)