4. In the first eight chapters of Part II, Orwell deals extensively with the relationship between Winston and Julia. Consider the following excerpt taken from p.122 of 1984. Discuss how this moment works within the larger context of these chapters.

“He turned over toward the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly interest-ing thing was not the fragment of coral but the interior or the glass itself. There was such a depth of it, and yet it was almost as transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its atmosphere complete. He had the feeling that he could get inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.”

In the first eight chapters of Part II, I realized the main focus is the relationship that is made between Winston and Julia. I favored this part of the book because it was a lot easier to understand then some other parts of the story. It was also more interesting to read about because I wasn’t sure up until the end whether they were going to get caught or not. When thinking about the quote and the symbolism of the paperweight it didn’t make much sense at first. In my first reading of Part II, I felt as if Winston was already in the paperweight because he had no freedom. Orwell said, "the paperweight was the room he was in" which was true but I wasn’t sure if Winston truly wanted to be there forever with Julia. He was confined and hated it so why would he want to imagine Julia and himself inside a room or paperweight forever? Winston however was intrigued by Julia and the fact that she had done this before with other men. When Julia and Winston first meet in the countryside he is worried that they will get caught. Throughout the whole first eight chapters Winston and Julia have to secretly meet and can never display public affection for one another. It wasn’t an easy task for either of them but they did it because they loved each other and being together, even if it was in just a room meant more to them then anything else at the time. They both hated the Party and that was their way to rebel against all the beliefs they didn’t agree with. When I read over the part about the paperweight for a second time I thought something completely different. This time I felt as if Winston saw it as a way to escape from the Party’s control. By being in the paperweight with Julia forever, nothing or no one could get to them or be able to ever control them again. The fact that the paperweight was glass was also interesting to me. The glass was transparent which meant the coral inside the paperweight was visible for anyone and everyone to see. Maybe Winston wanted the Party to be able to see Julia and himself happy and free to do what they wanted finally. However, in the end being seen was a bad thing and putting trust in people led to Winston and Julia’s downfall. O’Brien deceives them and later brainwashes Winston into giving up his love for Julia. When they meet again Winston no longer has any type of feelings for Julia and ultimately surrendered to Big Brother.