Lauren Collins Arnold INTL 3111 4/23/2014 1984 It is very common for people to hold onto the past;

to cherish fond memories and relive life's highlights. One allure of the past is that there is complete hindsight. I think this is one of the reasons why Winston is drawn so much to the past. With hindsight, he realizes that the people in the past were better off than the people living under the rule of The Party. Though he himself has few (yet important) memories of the past, he values things that belong to the past: the coral paperweight, the thrush, even a prole mindlessly singing. These things belong to the past because they are embodiments of the natural order of life that The Party cannot control. These "natural" occurrences become symbols throughout the novel because they signify not only the idealized past, but hope during the present, and a means for a better future. Winston is drawn to objects such as the paperweight because it reminds him of the past. He was drawn to it in the shop because "the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one". In this society the past does not truly belong to the past because it has been manipulated by those in the present, or as The Party puts it "those who control the present control the past". These objects from the past, that are untouched by the seemingly ever-reaching hands of Big Brother, are a rare find and serve as a remembrance that life was able to exist without The Party. Winston is drawn to the past as proof that what was once reality can come again to fruition; life existed before Big Brother so life must also exist after Big Brother.

It is clinging to these symbols of the past and the "natural" order that gives Winston the hope he needs to continue with his personal rebellion. It is during the present that he finds natural occurrences that further this hope. For example, the act of singing by both the prole and the thrush shows that there is something within nature that is untouched by The Party. The act of singing simply to sing is in its own way an act of rebellion. In this society each action must have a purpose to further the objectives of The Party, but the singing serves only to further its own innate beauty. Though the song the women sings is propaganda, "she sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound"; and the thrush sang "with astonishing variations... showing off its virtuosity". In both cases, the singing does not have an intended audience and is done by impulsion rather than compulsion. It is that distinct difference by which "natural" things hold the key to the future rebellion against the party. Things that coincide with the natural order are impulsive, done by instinct and intuition. While The Party can control society, people are compelled to live by party standards. The reason Winston's rebellion fails is that it was a willful act he had to compel himself to do. Only a true rebellion- an unintentional rebellion of self where a person lives to serve their impulses rather than use their impulses to serve the rebellion- will be able to overthrow the party. For example, when Winston and Julia have sex it is a "political act", not an act of pure emotion. While sex in and of itself is "natural", so must be their motive for doing it in order for it to effect real rebellion. The best example of necessary future rebellion lies in the past, with Winston's mother. She rejects the idea "that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless". Her actions were not driven by a need to make a difference in society,

because "the standards she obeyed were private ones". She was true to herself and this type of natural "purity" is the threat The Party works so hard to defeat. While it is true that these symbols of the past are pure of the influences of The Party, it is this "purity" of self that allows them to be symbols of hope for the future. The paperweight was not crafted to inspire Winston, it was crafted for its innate beauty. The thrush does not sing to provide an example of a free spirit, it sings because it is a bird and that is what birds do. The prole does not giver herself over to the music as an act of rebellion, but rather because the song moves her. The actions of the past did not occur to be idealized by the present, the past happened because life goes on. These symbols serve to represent the continuity of life itself. While Winston strives to give purpose to his life, perhaps the only thing that truly matters is that he did live. The simple act of living while one is alive is the one element of humanity that no one, not even Big Brother, can control.