https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh Discuss the paperweight that Winston purchases. How do you think it will start to function as a symbol or extended metaphor? en-us 2016-09-14 18:49:44 UTC 2026-01-23 22:14:49 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Doubleheart.png 500016068 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123895002 In his society, anything pleasurable is forbidden and considered dangerous.The paperweight is something from the world before the Party.  It represents that other society, and it also represents the beauty of the love Julia and Winston have found even though love is not allowed.
The symbolism with love is that he thinks she is beautiful and wants to stay with her, but Julia doesn't serve a "useful" purpose like providing a child. Also it shows how Winston wants to protect a precious but fragile Julia.]]> 2016-09-14 19:01:27 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123895002 2009450 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123895298 Not only is the paperweight from the past, it represents the possibility that there are still things uncorrupted and unchanged by the government. Since the antique was able to survive and show a hint of what life used to be like, Winston is given the hope to believe that truth still exists in the dystopia he lives in. The passage " It's a little chunk of history that they've forgotten to alter" (145) demonstrates Winston's want for a piece of freedom from his government that controls and alters (almost) everything. ]]> 2016-09-14 19:02:32 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123895298 500016245 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123896350 The paperweight is simply just beautiful and has no actual purpose other than an aesthetic one. It simply pleasures Winston's and other's eyes. Winston's relationship with Julia exists solely for the pleasure both of them desire. The paperweight is also indirectly a small act of rebellion since it enables Winston's thoughts of the past and a rebellion brewing inside his mind. Julia and Winston rebel together, doing things against The Party's wishes. Julia enables Winston to be rebellious like how the paperweight does. 

]]> 2016-09-14 19:05:46 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123896350 600016888 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123896788 Winston views the paperweight as a hint of a forgotten value, lost beauty and the human urge to cherish the perishable.
The paperweight appealed to him because "the air it seemed to possess of belonging to an age quite different from the present one.(95)". Winston idolizes the past and believes that reverting to the old ways will make a perfect world. Which is a delusional thought because there is no thing as a perfect world as seen in 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. The paperweight is his connection to the beauty of the past. He puts in the room above the shop which itself is full of antiques. Because Winston sees the past as a perfect world, the paperweight is seen as that too. He often imagines himself in it, which also symbolizes him wanting to be in the past, "“He had a feeling he could get inside it, and the fact that he was inside it along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.” (147)]]> 2016-09-14 19:07:02 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/123896788 2009450 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124460951 Winston is attached to this paperweight because of its connection to the past, which he craves to remember. He is unhappy with not being able to know the truth yet greatly enjoys his job altering information and erasing the truth he looks for. This is a paradox because it seems untrue that someone could search for something so desperately yet, stand in the way of himself. The author does this to demonstrate how Winston enjoys and chooses what little control he is able to hold over the truth. This also demonstrates Machiavelli's belief that people crave power and are willing to put morals aside in order to attain it or keep it. ]]> 2016-09-16 18:47:36 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124460951 500016245 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124464451 2016-09-16 18:58:12 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124464451 500016245 https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124464931 2016-09-16 18:59:51 UTC https://padlet.com/500016068/yvd89qumd4rh/wish/124464931