As I read George Orwell’s novel, 1984, I was constantly consumed with questions surrounding the text. It seemed that no matter how much reading and analyzing I did, I would never come up with an answer as to how the type of world depicted in 1984 could possibly exist. One of the main questions that followed me throughout the book had to do with the process of “vaporization.” How could Winston and Julia not have been vaporized after everything they did against The Party? Winston constantly discussed how vaporization meant that, “[people] were considered never to exist” however Julia and Winston both re-entered society after going to Room 101 (43). 1984 left me filled with questions, yet the underlying query that followed me throughout the novel surrounded the idea of vaporization, and how in a society in which fear of being vaporized kept many citizens from acting out, two captured enemies of the party were ultimately freed from vaporization.
One of the first mentions of the process of vaporization in 1984 occurred when Winston was discussing his job at the Ministry and the specific career of one of his co-workers. Her job, “day in, day out, [was] simply tracking down and deleting from the press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed” (43). Winston described her job position and pointed out that the woman’s own husband had been vaporized a few years prior. This concept really confused me because at the time, I was unaware of the intricate measures in which The Party took to maintain complete power over citizens of Oceania. How could it be possible to just eliminate someone from society, to make it seem like they never lived? However, as the text went on, I realized just how brainwashed members of The Party had become. It became apparent that it was easy for them to believe anything they were told, because they were not allowed to use their minds to comprehend how dysfunctional a society it actually was. People could be “eliminated from society” because other citizens were not allowed to question the government. It didn’t matter who was gone, or how they vanished, once they were gone, they were gone.
As 1984 continued, it was clear to me that the idea of vaporization was constantly in the back of Winston’s mind. One afternoon while eating lunch with his friend Syme, Winston thinks, “One of these days, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face” (55). While it appeared that Syme was just a passionately loyal party member, Winston saw how he could be a potential threat to The Party because he was capable of so many emotions and thoughts. It did not come as a surprise when Winston accurately predicted the future vaporization of his friend.
After Syme had disappeared for a few days, Winston pointed out that his name had been eliminated from everything he was previously associated with. There were no records that Syme was ever a living being. As Winston and Julia began their relationship, it was clear that everything they were doing was against the guidelines of Oceania. They engaged in a sexual relationship, met in secret, spoke of rebelling from The Party, and broke even more of The Party’s unwritten laws. These unrecorded rules were known to all citizens of Oceania, and prevented members of society from living free lives because they were constantly being watched. To a reader, it seemed that Julia and Winston’s rebellion from The Party was much worse than Syme’s passion for The Party, yet eventually, Julia and Winston’s lives did not end by vaporization. The inconsistency in The Party’s behavior leads to confusion for the reader, and almost certainly would have been confusing to The Party’s followers, had they been able to use their brains and form their own opinions like Julia and Winston did.
It was shocking that in a society such as the one depicted in 1984, people could be punished not only for being against The Party, but also for being so faithful to it. One might ask, “How could being too invested in the party be a bad thing?” I thought this at first as well, but after finishing the novel, it was clear to see that The Party just wanted complete control. Control of everything was the ultimate goal of The Party, and Syme’s passion could have be seen as a loss of power to The Party. Unless one is right in the middle of extreme loyalty and rebellion, they were always at risk of vaporization.
To me, the most interesting part of 1984 was the conclusion of the novel, in which Winston and Julia are both back in society as if nothing has changed. Of course, they do not have the same rebellious beliefs, and are definitely not still sneaking around together behind The Party’s back. The first question that I had when it was revealed that Winston was not alive, was about what other citizens would think of his disappearance and then his sudden re-emergence back to society? Although Party members were not allowed to question anything The Party did, Winston had never described a scenario in which party members disappeared and then came back to their old lives. It was clear that although Winston had been forced to visit Room 101, in which his worst fear came true, he still had a bit of rebelliousness to him. While watching the telescreen and waiting to hear information about the war that Oceania was involved in at the time, Winston let his mind wander and, “a violent emotion but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him” (298). It seemed that Winston was imagining what would happen if Oceania actually lost the war it was currently in, with Eurasia. A loyal Party member should never have thought these kinds of things, because it was against The Party, yet Winston was momentarily back to his old ways. Although he quickly snapped out of it, I was still left with confusion as to why The Party had let him come back to civilization, and if not vaporize him, why they hadn’t sent him to a forced labor camp. I thought that the entire point of capturing rebels of The Party was to get rid of them so they would have no possible way of spreading their rebellious ideas with others. While he was detained, Winston was unaware of how much time he spent away from his life, and as a result, so were the readers. However, it seemed like he was missing for a decent amount of time.
After much back-and-forth in my mind, I realized that The Party had made an exception for Julia and Winston. Such enemies of The Party who were willing to risk their lives to destroy The Party went through such a transformation in Room 101. The one thing in life that Winston cared about was Julia, and the horrors of facing his worst fear forced Winston to betray her in order to save himself. I think The Party realized that once they got Winston to betray Julia and vice versa, there was no more reason for him, or her to be rebellious. Winston’s disobedience really came out when he was with Julia. To Winston, knowing that there was at least one other person who thought the way he did was enough to betray The Party. Once he realized that there was absolutely nothing left that he could do to save himself or his loved one, he put all of his love back to Big Brother.
The idea of vaporization plays a large role in 1984 because the threat of extinction was enough to deter many rebels from promoting their negative ideas about The Party. However, two incredibly disobedient Party members were spared from vaporization. While at first, the reasoning behind this perplexed me, through analyzing; I came to the realization that there was no need to vaporize Julia and Winston because once they betrayed each other, there was no more need to betray The Party. They were spared from vaporization because O’Brien and other members of the Inner Party knew that once they broke Julia and Winston’s alliance, neither of them had any more need to rebel from Big Brother; and The Party was right.
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