Chapter TWO

Winston finally meets with O'Brien. O'Brien begins by making small talk about the new Newspeak Dictionary that would be coming out shortly. Winston says that he doesn't have one yet, and O'Brien says that he has one and that Winston should come to his house and get it. O'Brien exchanges his address with Winston. This is O'Brien's way of telling Winston that he is one of the Brotherhood and that he has something to speak to Winston about. This is foreshadowing that something is going to happen at O'Brien's apartment. What I don't understand is why there aren't phonebooks or address books? Why aren't people able to know other people's address unless it is given to them? Is it because the Party and the government don't want the citizens to make relationships with people by meeting at their houses?
Winston wakes from another, more in-depth dream about the last time he ever saw his mother. He realizes the way that he treated his mother before she and his sister disappeared. He had been selfish and didn't think about anyone but himself. Winston feels guilty for the way he treated his mother and his sister even though his mother loved them both so much. His mother had managed to keep her feelings and thoughts the same even though the Party was trying to corrupt everybody else. This makes Winston ponder about the proles. "The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another.... The proles had stayed human." So what made the proles remain this way? The way they had always been? Why did the Party members change? Was it because they knew what was going on, and they worked for the government? Then Julia and Winston say that no matter what they will always be loyal for each other and that the Party can't destroy their love. I don't think that their love is real though. I think that it is more of something that they need because they haven't experienced it before because the Party took most of their feelings away.
Winston and Julia take different paths to get to O'Brien's apartment. Why did they both go there? What made them so sure that O'Brien was a member of the Brotherhood? By doing this together, Winston and Julia feel they are moving even closer towards rebellion against the Party; but in reality I think that they are moving too hastily into this and that it will cause both of them major trouble. By joining the "Brotherhood," Winston feels more free and feels more meaning in his life than ever before.
O'Brien tells Winston and Julia that they will have to do many things for the Brotherhood that they have never done before such as committing suicide, throwing sulfuric acid in a child's face, and committing murder. O'Brien also says "Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new identity.... And you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes we even amputate a limb." After he says this, I begin to doubt O'Brien because how could this be true? How could they have surgeons that can do that and make a person live? How do they secure a place to do a procedure such as this back in this time? I don't believe him, and I think that Julia and Winston are falling into a trap. They are being set up.
Before Winston leave O'Brien's apartment, O'Brien says to Winston "We shall meet again--if we do meet again." And Winston replies, "In the place where there is no darkness?" What is so significant about this? Is it referring to Winston's dreams? Or what the Brotherhood is trying to make Oceania like?
Also what is so significant about O'Brien being able to complete the old rhyme about the churches?