Chapter TWO

Winston is become more of a rebel against the Party, and in doing this, he seems to be becoming more satisfied with his life; although he will never be satisfied as long as the Party and Big Brother are in control. Julia and Winston succeed in making love. "It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act." How could Winston call it a political act? It's like he did it only to go against the Party, not to be closer to someone. Julia and Winston do get closer though. They talk about how each of them are against the Party. Julia says that she likes rebelling against the Party, but wants to live as long as possible. Winston, on the other hand, thinks that he will be arrested by the Thought Police and be vaporized but Julia tells him to stop talking nonsense and embrace life as it is now.
As Winston and Julia talked in the church tower they discovered much about each other. Julia worked in the Pornosec of the Fiction Department, which I thought was funny when she told Winston that all the workers in the Pornosec were girls. "The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled." But if the books are "ghastly rubbish," what would it matter if the workers were male or female. Julia also told Winston that her first love affair was when she was sixteen with a member of the Party who was sixty. This I found rather disturbing. We think that someone ten years older is weird; he was over forty years older than she. Winston thought this to be attractive and a great act against the Party, and he seemed to like being a part of it, whereas most guys wouldn't have liked hearing about the girl that they are seeing having sex with other guys. They would have thought that it was very unappealing to them. "She seemed to think it just as natural that "they" should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught." I don't understand this quote. How is it natural that the Party would want to take pleasure away from everybody? I think it is because the Party has control they just do whatever they want like Saddam Hussein; they become "control freaks" and do as they wish.
I found it ironic when Julia torn off the Junior Anti-Sex League sash before they had sex. Obviously the sash didn't mean anything to her. I think that she only wore the sash as a cover up to avoid being caught by the Thought Police, or at least to avoid being looked at or thought of for doing something against the Party.
Also when Julia and Winston were talking in the church tower Julia said "When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time.... If you'r happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and all the rest of their bloody rot?" I think that she is right because people always have to have something to care about and without sex, Big Brother and Two Minutes Hate seem to be the only other thing that they know. Where did she get this idea though? Did someone else tell her this such as an Inner Party member? Maybe she has connections with the Inner Party and that's where she gets all of her ideas about why the Pary does as they do; and maybe that where she gets all of the stuff such as the genuine coffee, chocolate, and tea.
I think that it is kind of ironic that Winston is with Julia because he really thinks that he loves her, but Julia is only with Winston to rebel against the Party. She basically uses him as her act of rebellion. I think that Winston only thinks that he loves Julia because he doesn't know what love is anymore. The Party drained all of his feeling and compassion so he doesn't understand what he is feeling. He only really knows that he likes sex and being with her.
Winston rents out Mr. Charrington's room so that Julia and he can continue their affair. Winston makes the comment: "As he had foreseen, Mr. Charrington had made no difficulty about letting the room. He was obviously glad of the few dollars that it wold bring him." Winston thinks that Mr. Charrington just gave them the room so he could have a couple extra dollars, but actually Mr. Charrington probably works with the Party or the Thought Police and is going to turn them in. After they have sex, Julia notices the picture of the church that is hanging on the wall. She says that she is going to take down the picture and give it a good cleaning. This is foreshadowing of what is to come because if she had taken it down and cleaned it at that time, she might have been able to prevent what is going to happen. It is also ironic because we, the readers, know something that she doesn't.
Julia also brought up the idea that they have never been at war with neither Eurasia or Eastasia and that it is all made up. She said that she thinks that it is all a story, and that the government is actually the one that is bombing them. I agree with her although I never had that idea before she presented it. I think that the government is bombing them to make them scared of the government. Why else would bombings be occuring more and more the closer Hate Week comes? And what are the chances that they are always at war with someone? That when they resolve a war with Eastasia, that they would be at war with Eurasia again? Also what is Hate Week exactly?