1984 #6

As Winston and Julia's forbidden love affair continues to play out, great differences between the two are uncovered. Although they both hate the government, Winston is interested in change to come whereas Julia wishes only to make the best of her life in the Party. After the lovers discuss when Katherine was almost pushed off of a cliff, it is revealed that Julia believed that "it was somehow possible to construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness" (135). Since Julia has been successful in her several love affairs, she believes that she has some sort of immunity against Part punishment. As long as she is careful, she can keep up her scandalous routine. He avoidance of vaporization has given her a sense of optimism because she is able to enjoy her life and, more or less, live how she wishes to. Unlike Winston, she thinks there is a way to be happy living in a world ruled by the oppressive and corrupt Party.

In contrast to Julia, Winston has no hope for his life under the current government. He believes that Julia is naive and that "the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse" (135). Winston's conclusion connects back to his theory that "if there is hope, it lies in the proles" (69). He does not think that Party members will ever rise up and revolt against the government because they have been so brainwashed by the Party. Because the Party does not heavily intervene in the lives of the proles, Winston believes that the have the power to make a difference. When a prole woman is signing outside of Mr. Charrington's window, Winston notes that "he had never heard a Party member singing alone and spontaneously [and that] perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation level that they had anything to sing about" (142). Although the proles live under worse conditions than Party members, they are free, which Winston views as a luxurious gift. Without the restraints of the government, proles are free to revolt when they grow sick of their unfortunate living conditions. Winston does not think that a rebellion of this kind will occur in his lifetime, but he hopes that it will happen at some point in the future. As a result, he lives as a corpse, fearfully waiting to be caught and vaporized by the Party for his unorthodox beliefs.