Book 3 Chapter 4-6

The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A Ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell yellow on dusty tabletops/ It was the lonely hour of fifteen. A tinny music tickled from the telescreens (236).

We know that everything in the book has more meaning than at first glance and I was curious if the Chestnut Tree also has more meaning to it. After I did some googles about chestnut trees and, to no surprise, "chestnut (Castanea) group is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere" (Wikipedia.com). It's a nice tree. However, I did find something rather interesting about chestnut trees relating to 1984, the tree could symbolize prevention, foresight, and longevity which is important; knowing how to the book ends. Winston is essentially the empty chestnut tree; a shell of his former self. Winston has lost himself after horrible things, such as torture, they have done to him. He is no longer the Winston we know; the Winston that loved Julia until the very end. This is why "the lonely hour of fifteen" is so important and can be interpreted as a symbol of Winston feeling lonely after he submits himself to Big Brother. He commits emotional suicide thus, he still has the "longevity" of living and the "prevention" of being vaporized because he is no longer the Winston Big Brother hated, but the Winston that Big Brother has created.

Comments

  1. Lindsay LongDecember 8, 2017 at 2:47 PM

    The symbolism of the chestnut tree is pretty interesting. We've seen different trees mentioned throughout the book and I wonder if its a tool that Orwell decided very deliberately so intuitive readers could get even further insight. It's nice that you went further into that idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 11, 2017 at 2:53 AM

    Your blog is pretty good and i even drew some inspiration into mine good analysis of the text

    ReplyDelete

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