1984: Julia

Julia's declaration to Winston that she loves him is, in my opinion, highly suspect. She knows nothing about him other than what her impressions are, and what his name is. She has also never spoken to him. I don't believe that Julia loves Winston-- I believe she is using him to rebel only. She calls him "dear," a term of endearment usually depending upon the longevity of a relationship, yet she uses the term immediately, removing some of its value. Her falsified love is a rebellion. In contrast, Winston's love for her is a mixture of rebellion and affectionate emotion.

Julia appears to be rash, unguarded, deceptive, careful, and unwise. She said that her first love affair occurred at the age of 16 with a 60-year-old Party member who committed suicide. She does not seem to care for the man at all, since she says to Winston "Better off that he died, since he couldn't tell anyone about me." Winston, on the other hand, seems to show at least slightly more concern for the people around him and for love and marriage. And yet, their outlook on relationships does share a similarity: Winston disregards his wife, while Julia disregards her lovers.

Winston's wife poses another disparity between himself and Julia. When Winston tells Julia that he contemplated shoving her over a cliff, he afterwards modifies his opinions, saying that killing her would not have resolved anything. Julia, on the other hand, argues that killing Catherine at the time-- a rash, dangerous, inconsiderate act-- would have been an excellent decision. This also demonstrates, as Winston pointed out, Julia's lack of wisdom and experience. She seems unable to forsee consequences to her actions.

Winston and Julia share an overwhelming similarity of contempt for the Party. Julia's is, however, much more acute, angry, and vocalized. Winston feels afraid to express his displeasure, while Julia is loud, even swearing about the Party.

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Winston appears to be significantly diverging from the path the government wishes for him to walk. He not only walks among the Proles, but he goes into a shop to purchase delicacies no longer approved by the government/society. However, he does not do so without trepidation. His guilty conscience wracks him with physical ailments. Also, his desire to discover the past among the proles is not powerfully driven yet; he seems to be merely looking to confirm, or discredit, the words of a child’s textbook out of a latent curiosity. He does not persist long in trying to obtain information from the old man, therefore he is likely not yet motivated to the point of taking any sort of decisive action.

It is clear that Winston is dissatisfied with his government. He writes it in his journals; however, I don’t believe that he yet knows why he is dissatisfied. He knows that the government allows people to live wretched and poor, yet he cannot pinpoint what it is he lacks: he suggests that his bones ache for what they know is missing, yet he can’t trace the desire. Still, Winston has taken active steps to pursue the source of this desire, trying to find what is missing, by wandering among the proles. For this reason, I believe that Winston is beginning to become a rebel against the government actively rather than inactively, albeit he still harbors a significant amount of self-doubt.

Winston’s dissatisfaction is progressing. Where will it end? It is not likely to end soon. My prediction is that he will become a full-blown anti-government character, a sort of anarchist, fighting for the plight of the all-too-accepting proles. He will incite their power, of which he has already alluded to, and drive the masses against the government, a leader. All he must do is leap beyond himself, his fears, and his self-consciousness, to focus on the anger that he feels.

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Hamlet Summary in Newspeak

H c Ghost=ungood, go mad, C&Pol test w/ O, c no unlove. H kill Pol, scr unjoy ma. H-> Eng by C, O selfkill, H goback, ma, C, H dual unlive.

Lear Summary Newspeak

L unluv C, land->G&R. G&R mk L ungood, L->storm unjoy. Edm plot nomore Edg, trick Glou. Corn uneye Glou, Edm Erl, FrXEng, C,L,G,R, Glou die.

Privacy Threats: 1984 and 2013

Thusfar in the novel 1984, there have been a nearly infinite number of threats to privacy expressed. Telescreens invade life at every moment. Spies are a perpetually undisclosed threat. Thought police monitor such private things as personal thoughts, and the repercussions of violating thought policies are extremely harsh.

These violations seem extreme, and clearly suppress opposition, such as Winston. He is intimidated into submission, afraid of expressing thoughts or even facial expressions that betray his displeasure towards the Party. However, these violations are not nearly as extreme as they seem, since they occur within our daily lives, unbeknownst to us.

Call me a conspiracy-theorist, but I believe firmly that the government and police watch us when we do not expect it. We already know that they spy on our emails, phone calls, and other interactions. They also spy on us visually...perhaps even via the tiny camera in our laptop monitor.

I spoke the other weekend with a homeless woman sleeping on the street. She was well acquainted with what transpires on the streets of Boston. She stated that the owner of the store in front of which she slept had had a video camera installed by his front door against his volition, and that he could not take it down with a "special laser that the police bring in" which can take years to acquire. Albeit the woman's words should be taken with a grain of salt, I believe her story is a true representation of what is occurring in our society today. Cameras are everywhere, against our will, watching us. Why? Certainly they are only searching for signs of terrorism, so the officials claim. But my question is, what can they define as terrorism, and will that definition change? Will the definition one day be "thoughtcrime", as in the novel 1984? And, more importantly, will be all submit to the terror of privacy invasion, as Winston does?

Poem Explication: Weighing the Dog

Weighing the Dog commences abruptly, divulging immediately into a sentence without commas during the first two lines of the first stanza. The imagery in the first stanza also creates an image of unease and discomfort and awkwardness in lines such as "small bathroom" and "shaky blue scale". It is possible, also, that Billy Collins chooses the color blue for the scale because it is a commonplace and docile color, not fitting to the discomfort and oddness of the event occurring upon it.

The second stanza is the only one the does not begin with a capitalized word, leading it to serve as an explanatory thought for the first stanza. It is an excuse stanza, elaborating on why he is weighing the dog on a small scale. The author also conveys somewhat of a sense of the difficulty of training a dog to sit on a scale with his use of lengthy syntax, conveying the amount of time it could take.

The third stanza continues with the previous idea of perpetuating the awkwardness and arduousness of the situation and the poet writes out the process of subtraction in relatively expansive detail given to arbitrarity of the task: "with pencil and paper I subtract my weight from our total to find out the remainder that is his."

The third paragraph differs from the rest because there are no commas to break it up, like a run-on thought, only a period at the end. It is a confirmed statement, and this was it is made more pronounced and profound. The poet speaks the message of the poem here, saying that he never knew what his dog amounted to until he was subtracted from the equation.

The final stanza demonstrates the relationship that Collins has with his dog. It also has the same syntax as the previous stanza, preserving the aforementioned profundity, for Collins is saying that the he and his dog have remained important to one another through difficult times.

Poetry Explication: To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell addresses his lover in an argument that is dissected into three stanzas, the first speaking in a sweet, positive, and somewhat hypothetical tone. The second stanza contrasts the relaxed imagery of the first by insinuating an urgency, and the previous positive tone is quickly reverted to one that is miserable. The third stanza concludes with a proposal of a dismal sort, that he and his lover should, instead of basking in time's love, race through time to avoid the consequences of ages: they should "Rather at once our time devour" (39).

In the first stanza, Marvell marvels at how he would love without the bonds of time. To express the infinity of time and the irrelevance of time should he allow his love to drawl, Marvell alludes to biblical stories in referencing "the conversion of the Jews" and "the Flood". He also terms his love as "vegetable," a thing which grows slowly and becomes a round, wholesome food and which requires time and nourrishment. He references empires, which develop over a period of time to become masterful. All this is to emphasize the slow and meticulous "rate" at which the author would love his lover, for it is what he believes she deserves.

The second stanza is a stark contrast to the first. It moves with speed; time's chariot hurries, and eternity is metaphorically linked with deserts, vast and empty. Deserts, here, also contrast the "Flood" imagery of the previous stanza. His diction alludes to a cemetery in this stanza: worms, vaults, graves, and dust all appear in the phrases. The contrast serves to illuminate the urgency which the author feels, pressed by time, that he cannot and therefore should not take his time loving, particularly when the result is represented in the imagery of dark, dust, and crawling worms.

Finally, the third stanza brings about Marvell's concluding proposition to his mistress. The imagery is less dark, indeed, but it maintains the same sense of urgency. Though there is a "youthful hue" in the skin, and fire in the pores, the author also makes the simile that they are like birds of prey, rapidly and aggressively devouring time instead of languishing. Urgency is further conveyed in the "torn pleasures" and the image of the running sun, which serves as a metonym for time itself. By the conclusion of the poem, it is clear that Marvell is opposed the "languishing in time", languish itself a juxtaposition with the language in the first stanza.

The Revealing Final Lines of King Lear: Albany, Kent, and Edgar

In the final stanza's of King Lear, Shakespeare reveals the three true "heroes" of the play, who ironically act predominantly as second-tier characters. Albany, Kent, and Edgar, who are portrayed in the play as lower-level persons-- Albany is a subordinate role to his wife Goneril, Kent to his master King Lear, and Edgar to his powerful brother Edmund, at least superficially. Their powerfully telling roles in the play do not manifest until later in the progression, while the functions of their more "important" counterparts are evident immediately. Goneril, Edmund, and Lear profoundly drive the plot forward, initiating conflicts at every turn. Albany, Kent, and Edgar are their foils. They take what conflict has been formed and purify it in their own ways by acting as the most just and true characters in the play. Their last lines attest to this, and furthermore reveal that Shakespeare prefers these characters over their sinister partners, whom he kills off. 


Albany, always just and honest throughout the play (he realizes quickly that Goneril is despicable and has no fear in telling her so, yet he does not fight her), remains honest in his final lines: "All friends shall taste the wages of their virtue, and all foes the cup of their deservings." He then rewards Kent and Edgar the kingdom, who justly deserve it for the good they have done. Albany's final lines attest to his character and cause him to further be illuminated within the play as being more pure at heart than the other characters. 


Kent, dedicated and deeply loving of his master King Lear, sees him through to his heartbreaking end. He goes as far as to disguise himself to continue serving his senile king out of love for him. Shakespeare sums Kent's character in his final lines as well, as Kent says that he must follow his master to his death. Kent's unbending loyalty, as it is emphasized in the final lines of the play, is placed on a pedestal by Shakespeare, towering over the sentiments of the other characters in purity and truth. 


Edgar's truthful character reigns too over others in his last lines: "The oldest hath borne most, we that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long." He, unlike the other characters (predominantly Regan and Goneril), honors rather than degrades the elderly (Lear and Gloucester). Edgar, though deemed a traitor by his father, faithfully revives his father and leads him to safety in Dover. Again, the fact that he speaks the final, truthful lines of the entire play demonstrates that he, according to Shakespeare, is one of the most valuable and respectable characters in the play.