Orwell Essay, Winston's Evolution

Orwell's 1984

Eleven years prior to the beginning of the action in 1984, Winston Smith accidentally comes across a photograph of three men: Jones, Aronson, and Rutherford. The "party" had contrived a plot to prove the three guilty of treason. The picture, however, because of its true location and date in relation to the party's false scenario, shows the men's innocence. The picture provides Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, with "concrete, unmistakable evidence of falsification" of the past (64). Winston finally realizes, eleven years after the fact, that he held in his hands a document that could "blow the party to atoms" (67). For thirteen seconds before sending the picture into the memory chute, Winston Smith had in his hands the fate of Oceania. Winston latently wants that power again, and the novel is propelled by that desire.

Winston's entries in the diary that he bought from Mr. Charrington provide the first signs of his desire to regain that power. However, writing what he can remember as the truth in his diary does not release him from the control of the inner party, from his pigeonhole of mental duress. The party controls every facet of his being, including his dreams, in which the only remnants of his past surface. Therefore, to realize the truth about his past, in his time away from work, he must physically remove himself from anything that represents the party. He must leave the alcove in which he writes; he must leave the Victory coffee, cigarettes, and gin, and he must escape at least the idea of the telescreen in his apartment to know what is truly happening around him. As O'Brien says, "Who controls the present controls the past" (204). In the room above Mr. Charrington's shop, Winston finds a way to leave the party mentally, to control the present, and to consequently control his past.

One focal point of Winston's journey and a symbol of, among other things, control over the present, is the paperweight. Prior to his purchase of the paperweight during his second visit to Mr. Charrington's shop, Winston's only memories come in dreams. He often dreams of his mother and his family, but those memories are all disjointed speculation and offer no concrete focus. When he takes a closer look at the antique objects in Mr. Charrington's shop and realizes that the past is concrete, Winston gains a focus. He purchases the paperweight as a memento to remind himself of a concrete past. Also, Winston's relationship with Julia gives him the hope and inspiration to live in the present in a way that he had not during most of his life. The fact that their affair takes place mainly above an antique store brings together the idea of past and present in relation to control. Winston has the elements of revelation here, as he finally escapes, at least mentally, the control of "Big Brother."

The paperweight symbolizes escape from a self-defeating and unnatural routine, as it represents the suspension of time. Literally, the characteristics of the paperweight suggest suspension. Winston compares the glass to rainwater, which implies purity and rebirth. The coral and the objects that Winston guessed that the glass contained-a rose or a sea anemone-are all living things, suggesting that the paperweight symbolizes the suspension of life. Again, Winston must suspend or capture the present outside of the party's agenda to unravel the past.

With perceived distance from "Big Brother," Winston's memory becomes clear and untainted, and the paperweight seems to encompass it. For example, Winston awakes in bed with Julia and begins to describe to her

[...] a vast luminous dream in which his whole life seemed to stretch out before him [...] It had all occurred inside the glass paperweight, but the surface of the glass was the dome of the sky, and inside the dome everything was flooded with clear soft light in which one could see into interminable distances. (134)

In this dream he saw the true past, the way the inner party tore his family apart, instead of the distorted past, where he feared he may have murdered his mother. He awakens from this dream crying, having recovered a memory and a truth that set him free. His affair with Julia and their time above Mr. Charrington's shop give him control over his present, with which he finally achieves control over his