Final Orwell

In this passage the doctrine is definitely evident. O'Brien is basically restating once again the basis of "life" at the time. No one was to have a different point point of view from anyone else otherwise you were not considered alive in government eyes. The reality that is spoken of consists of only what Big Brother states and nothing more. In the end this leads to his fate because he is at a loss of an actually reality that he neither knows is true reality or the reality created by Ingsoc. O'Brien, in this passage, is speaking directly to Winston and tellling him that he has failed as a person because he is going against that party. But in his own right (an actual right that is not established) he goes by what he believes rather than others' perspectives. Winston gave himself away by leaving evidence of his deceitfulness. But he has the right as a person to be himself, he has the right to be a leader instead of a follower. He has the right to use his brain, and not just follow the trend because someone else thinks that their way is better and that everyone has to follow them. Winston was told that reality is what is in the human mind, not in an individuals mind. Winston knew that the things that the Party was feeding to everyone was a fraud so he didn't follow. But on the on the other hand he also knew that going against the party was not an option. He repeatedly kept telling Winston that what the government was saying was the actually truth and he would be crazy to go against it. Winston's fate was determined by his won mind. he was going back and forth with himself questioning everything in life like many people do in life everyday. His conscience was the deciding factor against Big Brother, showing that he had found his memory of life before Big Brother and the doublethink concept.

Teacher Prep Work

b) When working in my teacher group I found it somewhat difficult to get anything collectively together since not everyone fully comprehended the story. The good part is that we did come up with some good open ended questions and we found a few instances where the irony used was particularly interesting. From working in teacher groups I learned that I would never want to be a teacher, just because I wouldn't want to teach something that I really didn't understand myself. One good thing I found that came from working in teacher groups was that each of us helped the others to try and grasp the overall concept of the story and what Swift was trying to display through his words.

c) During the planning period in class we planned to continue working the same way he had started. The vision that our group had was to make the story as clean cut and simplistic as we possibly could to gain a better understanding, but not lose the affects of the irony. This will take reading the text quite a few times and pulling out the portions of text that we believe contribute to the overall irony.

a) -Is Gulliver awake or is it all a dream?
- How does Swift portray the government and its officials?
- Do you think that the tiny people were symbols? (For example, is Swift trying to show the different is social classes?
- Do you think that if the Lulliputians were not at war with others that Gulliver would have had such a lenient sentence?

I really did not have many predicions because I was still trying to comprehend the whole story. He is obviously going to travel to another land. I think this time he will travel to a land of "giants" of some sort. This prediction is solely based on a social class matter. Since there was irony with the government officials, there must also be another set of irony coming to be associated with those at the highest of powers.

William Blake Response

1) I do agree with the textbook editors when they say that William Blake was able to create social change using his text and readings. With the two versions of The Chimney Sweeper he uses two different tones, which in my mind would be a sign of trying to reach the different social classes. In class we also spoke on the details that were in each poem. One poem being from an experience based perspective would appeal more to a certain group, but could also shine a light on how some people saw the world being from a higher class. So it kind of forms a layer at which someone is getting an inside look at another's life.

2) The editors may have included the Parliment document as a primary source because it emphasizes the difference in government and how social classes were separated. This really didn't change the way that I read the poems, it just added another layer to an underlying story life in that time period.