1984 Orwell - Spoilers

[confuseddotcodotuk]

I did do a search and came across the book reviews and recommedations so thought I'd bring it up again.

I have just finished it. My friend the other day (whilst I was at 63% according to my Kindle) raved about the ending and we had a good chat about it. Now I'm just confused. Is the twist being that he didn't get shot? That he was left to live out his life and ironically left to work in a department that would have dumbed him down for a workplace before he finally realised his love for Big Brother? I'm not sure what to make of the ending.

The book itself though I feel is amazing, like everybody else I see the predictions as ironic, and the similarity between using newspeak to 'dumb down' oldspeak and our modern day txt spk. The relationship between Winston and Julia was brilliant, as was the conclusion of that relationship and the harsh truths it displayed.

Was O'Brien a mindreader or just very perceptive? I can't help but wonder what eventually happened to the others Winston saw in the Miniluv building either.

What did the ending mean to you? For me it wasn't this amazing turnaround, merely a revelation to the fact that the Party always wins.

Winston is beaten into submission. He has no idea how long he is kept at the ministry of truth and neither does the reader. He is a victim of torture and he is broken by O Brien and betrayed by Julia. He has nothing left except Big Brother.

A bit like the kidnapper syndrome which was later recognised by psychologists. Winston comes to need his torturer. What (or who) else does he have?

I don't see any irony in the predictions of the novel. Newspeak is alive and kicking in our red top tabloids. History is always being redrafted - an example being the two different versions (Israeli and Palestinian) of what happened in 1948. Do you view it as the birth of Israel or the catastrophe (nabka) of Palestine? North Korea is most likely very, very similar to the Oceana depicted in the book. Nothing ironic then, just intelligence and foresight on Orwell's part.

Admittedly I was expecting him to get shot, or for it all to be some form of alternate relality based in a normal world, but the ending didn't surprise me and certainly wasn't a huge twist as I was made out to believe, I'd have expected it to happen after the treatment he was subjected too iyswim?