Little did he know....

"We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and everyone we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity." - p. 46

And then... there is a chapter break.

That isn't suspense, precisely. That's more of a "little did he know" situation.

That's not the precise clip I wanted; there's one where Harold Crick's literary professor/consultant flips out on him because he mentions that his narrator voice said, "Little did he know...."

Actually, he says this: "Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that? "

What Victor doesn't know at this point is that his happy-skippy times are about to be disrupted. The reader can tell, though, from the placement of the chapter break. It's almost like dramatic irony, except that the audience doesn't actually know something bad is coming. Victor could continue to lead a perfectly content life from that point onward. That would make for some seriously dull reading, though.

Dear Fred, Try Being Alive.

I'm going to see John Green in Plainfield tomorrow. *happyskip* Therefore, this happens now.

"No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself." - p. 19

Oh, Victor... we all know you're hyperbolizing. It's simply not possible that our dear Frankenstein knows all human beings personally. Even with his fancy-schmancy science knowledge, he isn't that advanced. Also, eeeeverybody knows they didn't invent the Thought Police until... well, sometime in the 1900s, presumably, and Frankenstein takes place in the illustrious year of 17__. Good year, that. Anyway, somebody out there probably had a better childhood than Victor Frankenstein did. He clearly doesn't know it, but if he stopped and thought about what he was thinking, he might realize how preposterous such a statement that was, if taken literally. Of course, I suppose happiness is probably a pretty difficult thing to measure, so it'd be pretty hard to prove somebody else had it better. ...But still.

~DFTBA~

Does it matter?

"He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." - p. 370

I presume this is dramatic irony. It's sort of the kicker, though. Here's why:

The audience senses that Winston's love of Big Brother is not, in fact, a "victory." They have grown to know Winston's character and to identify with his hatred of Big Brother. No one wants him to fall into that terrible conformity. Everybody loves a rebel.

But we just don't know for certain. It's a liiiittle bit ambiguous. If you chose to take as such, you could argue that perhaps Winston loves Big Brother because Big Brother is worthy of Winston's love. More likely, it's a social commentary on the importance of questioning and whatnot.

It's kinda like Inception. Nobody's really sure what's real. Does Winston--the Winston we know to be the true Winston--really love Big Brother? Did Oceania really conquer the whole of Africa? Does the top ever stop turning? Does it even matter?

(I can't embed the video, but it's right here.)

Other Stuff I Wrote in the Margins

"He had worked more than ninety hours in five days." - 256

That's eighteen a day, in case you were curious.

"It was only an 'opeless fancy,

It passed like an Ipril dye,

But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred

They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!" - p. 293

...translates to....

"It was only a hopeless fantasy,

It passed like an April day,

But a look and a word and the dreams they stirred

They have stolen my heart away!"

I was never completely clear on the purpose of that lady, except that she made me not like Julia because she insulted her when she was clearly a nice lady (because I guess I trust Winston's judgment of character, which is foolish, as he severely miscalculated with O'Brien).

"'Why,' she added sentimentally, 'I might be your mother!'"

"She might, thought Winston, be his mother." - p. 305

This is followed by a brief calculation of what he remembers of his mother, and then he just forgets about it. It's like he really doesn't care. I just thought it was surprising.

"Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeated him." - p. 323

The uncertainty of everything pinpointed in that thought was unsettling.

"When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you." - p. 325

That reminded me of the theory I have had for a long time that the reason people have different opinions of things is that they don't perceive everything the same way. For instance, what I perceive as purple, maybe another person perceives as what I have come to believe is red. But as long as we agree that the name of the color is purple, we can never know.

"You do not exist." - p. 334

and then

"I think I exist." - p. 335

I wrote, "I think; therefore, I am." I don't know who said that, and I'm running out of time, so I'm simply not going to look it up.

"The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it." - p. 340

We did formerly accept this as fact. It was called the geocentric/Ptolemaic system. We now know we have a heliocentric system.

I always boxed the phrase "Thought Police" because I find that concept highly disturbing and never really grew to understand how exactly they operated.

"If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens." - p. 352

and then

"It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is a hallucination."

This reminded me of an argument I once heard people who don't believe Jesus resurrected promote. They think the apostles suffered a group hallucination when He appeared to them. Also, they probably think oral tradition messes with stories.

"One day--but 'one day' was not the right expression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once--he fell into a strange, blissful reverie." - p. 353

That's the craziest sentence structure I've ever seen. Also it reminds me of Happy Gilmore's "happy place," but there's no space for more characters in my pop culture references blog post.

That video is less appropriate than I remembered.

"You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him; you must love him." - p. 357

Is that why they call it the Office of Love?

Pop Culture References I Spotted/Imagined

...but it doesn't matter which, because, as they say, "All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens." - p. 352

"Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil he had done." - p. 318

This is the way my mind works, I'm afraid.

"Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?" - p. 324

Not anymore-- all the Time Turners got smashed in the Ministry of Magic in 1995.

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?" -p. 325 (and approximately eighty-seven other times)

Apparently, that's a very deep question in literary circles.

"He knew in advance what O'Brien would say: ... That the Party was the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others." - p. 337

I don't have a video clip for this yet because it'll be in Deathly Hallows: Part Two. *stifled excitement spasm* But Grindelwald, the dark wizard from the first Wizarding World War-- the one prior to Voldemort that coincided with World War II-- had a slogan, and it was "For the Greater Good." The point is that he was a very evil wizard, but he persuaded himself and those who loved him that what he was doing was morally acceptable. That's also the definition of the principle of double effect again.

"We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power." - p. 338

"There is no good and evil--only power and those too weak to seek it."

"We shall conquer [Eurasia and Eastasia] when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world."

**Spoilers for The Hunger Games ahead**

The movie installment of The Hunger Games is still in the early stages, but in it, the world as we know it has essentially ended, and North America was divided into thirteen districts overseen but the infamous Capital. The thirteenth district was said to have rebelled and then promptly destroyed, and afterward, The Hunger Games were established as a punishment/entertainment for the remaining districts throughout the ages. However, somewhere down the line in the trilogy, Katniss realizes that District Thirteen does still sustain life, but it's being hushed up by the Capital because they don't want the other districts believing they can get away with rebellion.

"Do you understand that you are alone?" -p. 344

"Well if I were You-Know-Who, I'd want you to feel cut off from everyone else; because if it's just you alone, you're not as much of a threat." -Luna Lovegood, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Voldemort's plan is the same as O'Brien's, I think. Winston wasn't really alone.

"He was not bored; he had no desire for conversation or distraction. Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completely satisfying." - p. 349/350

That reminded me of Siddhartha, in which Siddhartha embarks on a quest for nirvana, which is the absence of desire, if I'm not mistaken. Winston sounds eerily as though he found it in that cell, which brings up an old quandary of mine. Is nirvana really a desirable state? I'm not questioning it with skepticism as my overriding feeling. In the state of nirvana, I'm given to believe that there is no real suffering and no real joy--just pure contentment. The reason we can feel joy is because we know that it's the opposite of suffering and vice versa.

On a similar note, what exactly is the difference between joy and suffering? It's nothing tangible. I'm just curious. I mean I know, in the vague sense that everyone can feel it, but... it baffles me a little that they can coexist, and we recognize the difference. I guess it's just a human thing. I don't know. If someone has an insight here, please share.

"They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?" She paused, patted her breast, and belched. "Pardon," she said, "I ain't meself, quite." - p. 305

She reminds me of this lady:

...from Wallace and Gromit.

"Inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain!" - p. 316

Cliffhangers And Why They're Obnoxious

"He released Winston with a little push toward the guards. 'Room 101,' he said." -p. 356

That right there creates suspense. Earlier in the book, O'Brien's liiike, "You know what's in that room. Everyone does." That was a frustrating moment because I thought, "What about meeee, though? I don't know what's in there =|!" As it turns out, he tells us later, and then it's rats, which is dreadfully anticlimactic. (I know it's different for everybody, but still. Even the foreshadowing of that was weak.) Ah, but I digress. My point was that O'Brien finally said he was going to show us Room 101, and the reader's been wondering for a goodly many pages, now, what is in there, and then there's a section break, which is a structural technique of sorts. I don't know why authors do this. I suppose they intend for it to build suspense, but really.... We just have to turn the page. Actually, I just have to move my eyes approximately an inch-and-a-half further down the page. I did feel a little jolt of suspense, there, I guess, but I felt annoyed with myself about it afterward.

It's not like it's a new chapter of fanfiction, and you have to wait another who-knows-how-long to find out what happens next. That's called a cliffhanger, everyone, and I think they more or less died with Charles Dickens in terms of works of literary merit .

"How are you?" "Hi.... Oh, I'm sorry, did you say something that was not 'Hi'?"

My title is dedicated to Bryan Cary and also Tito's mom. Shhhh....

"O'Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward but promising child." -p. 324 (in my bojankity version)

That's a Homeric epithet! That is, it's a "compound adjective" (wayward but promising) "used with a person or thing" (child/Winston). P.S. I keep forgetting Winston's name, which shouldn't happen after that many pages.

Homeric epithets are used for characterization purposes. Orwell may use lots of physical descriptions in his work, but he also likes to give his audience a sense of the demeanor of various characters.

Thinking about Homeric epithets makes me think about The Iliad, which makes me think about Achilles, which makes me think about hurty tendons. Ergo, Homeric epithets hurt in an entirely imaginary but nonetheless uncomfortable way.