Macaroni+and+Blog

Aha, dumbest blog name ever. :)

So. Element Analysis for books III-IV.

Of course, I chose the most obvious element: the irony of Winston's job. He hates falsehood and often ponders the past and its significance (or lack thereof). However, his job is to "change" it so that it fits with the present. Ta-da! Irony.

Because of my less-than-secret inner child, Winston's job reminds me of Disney's The Incredibles. :) Mr. Incredible/Robert Parr's job is more or less to refuse people loans and stuff, even though he's a superhero and would rather help people.

﻿Um. I can't insert the picture right now because my computer is beyond stupid. I'll do it when I get to school....



Page 68: "The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime." Theme: the eradication of instinct Diamonds are beautiful. They are rare and valuable. Why? We chip them away from the caves and mines in which they lay, molded into Nature's perfection over time and through forces we can't begin to fathom. We process them and put them through our own imperfect methods of molding and shaping them until they are exactly what we want them to be, and we sell them for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars just so that we can look at them and show them off to our fellows. Sure, they're nice to look at. But is that truly beauty? Perfection? Are we so arrogant as to take Nature's beauty and attempt to perfect that which is already perfect?

I hope this makes sense somewhere besides inside my sleep-deprived brain...I like it.

I like the imagery, but I'm not sure what the diamond is a metaphor for - the instinct is beautiful?

It was more like a question of what makes beauty. Why do we have to hone and process and perfect what Nature has already perfected? To continue, why does the Party have to try to eradicate the instinct that Nature has given to human beings? Why do they think that messing with nature will make their society perfect?

Element analysis - paradox

I'm gonna use a really obvious paradox, yeah! :D

Winston, in the long (long, long, long) monologue that is section VII, reflects, "The Party claimed...to have liberated the proles from bondage...But simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules."

Cool. Doublethink.

I think this is a great way of creating mood in Orwell's 1984. He is showing the irrationality of doublethink and the infuriating fact that most of Oceania's citizens don't even notice this idiocy. It's supposed to make the reader angry.

<span style="color: #e90c0c; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">As for something similar...well, I read Animal Farm. :) Which is pretty much the same story. The pigs, the leaders of the farm animals, at first insist that they will be nothing like humans, but as time goes on, they continue to become more and more like humans with their tyrannical leadership--and the other farm animals notice. However, they are fooled by the pigs' falsification of their original set of rules. Sound familiar?



<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"'Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you--that would be the real betrayal.'"

//<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"'He said I wanna see you again, but I'm stuck in colder weather // //<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Maybe tomorrow will be better. Can I call you then?' // //<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">She said, 'You're a ramblin' man, and you ain't ever gonna change // //<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">You got a gypsy soul to blame, and you were born for leavin'.' // //<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Born for leavin'... // //<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">At a truck stop diner--" //

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Bor-ing."

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Hey!"

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">She glared at him from the passenger seat and he gave her an innocent look. "What?" he asked. "It's depressing. Besides, the guy's a jerk. He's just playing with her. I mean, come on--//colder weather?// Clearly that's an excuse."

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"If you'd just listen to the rest of the song, you'd understand it."

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"Not interested, thanks."

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">"The whole point is that he's not a bad guy. All of the evidence points to a betrayal, but his feelings for her are still the same. No matter what happens that can't change, so there is no betrayal. The actions aren't what matter. It's the feelings."

<span style="color: #2bac16; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">He stared out of the windshield, silent for a few seconds. Then he turned to her and said, "You should go on //Oprah.//"

Okay, so I really love this passage. I'm going to copy and paste it for your enjoyment. :) Oh, and also for purposes of easier explication.

r?"

Oh, Winston, you never cease to win my heart. :)

Element Analysis for Book II Section X - Book III Section I

The element I chose is imagery. I feel even more in love with Winston as soon as I read this paragraph and I'm really glad I get to use it for an element analysis. Orwell uses this imagery to promote a theme for 1984, a theme that I've mentioned on this page before.

The Party is always trying to mess with the beauty that is nature; specifically, they try to corrupt human nature and shape it into their own design. Winston sees this woman's beauty because Orwell wants us to know that this prole woman's "thick arms" and "powerful mare-like buttocks" are part of what nature intended her to be. She is not beautiful because anyone says so; she is beautiful because she has lived her life of childbearing and raising children. She's fine and content with that because that's just what humans--real humans; proles, in this case--do. She is simple, she is human. She is fifty years old and she is still singing.

This reminded me of the book The Secret Garden, which, by the way, I love. When Mary first sees Dicken's mother, she is thrilled by her matronly looks and attitude. I think that I can easily compare the two. :)



"Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else."

"Doctor?"

Dr. Winslow turned around and saw his colleague, Dr. Quinn, walking swiftly towards him. "Dr. Winslow," she began. Uh-oh, she looked irritated. "

Due March 16, chapters 1-2

Lol. Unfinished post above me. Oops.

I found the first few paragraphs of this section hard to read. It might have been because I was so tired, though.

Luckily, I didn't find the dialogue hard to understand at all. I always give characters in novels their own voices, so it definitely wasn't hard to put voices to Janie and Pheoby. I don't have a whole lot more to say, other than that, because I haven't yet figured out how I feel about this novel (other than the fact that I loved the passage with the pear tree and I love Nanny to death).

Contemporary allusion to be posted later.