Vocabulary-Winston

One surreptitious glance from O’Brien made Winston feel at ease; he was not anomalous for transgressing state laws.  Winston knew that O’Brien committed thought crime as well; they were both insurgents at heart.  “Oh brother of mine, I do not need to be cajoled, for I have always been against the ghastly demagogue, Big Brother.  Lead the rebellion and disabuse the people from all this erroneous beliefs, and I will  be behind you, for it will be an honor for me to live vicariously through such an extraordinary man as yourself,” Winston couldn’t help thinking as he was sitting in the mandatory physics lectures they made all comrades attend.  Winston couldn’t say that to O’Brien, at least out loud, because he would be castigated severely for committing such a “heinous” crime.  His heart grew heavier with the new feeling of guilt he acquired, he had to think of something else in order for anyone detecting the rebellion in his eyes.  He desperately tried to focus on the lecture in which the physicist was changing what he thought was an immutable law of physics, but he numbed by ennui that he couldn’t focus.  The clock struck fifteen o’clock, the lecture was almost over, and Winston had limited time to approach O’Brien.  Winston sat on his extremely uncomfortable seat which sent pangs of pain to his spinal cord trying to contrive a way in which to approach O’Brien in a manner that was not brusque.  He wasn’t sure that O’Brien was against Big Brother, so he need to approach him in an manner in which his rebellion was not bluntly obvious.  It was fifteen minutes past fifteen o’clock, and like mindless robots, everyone got up uniformly to leave.  On O’Brien’s way out, he winked at Winston, making Winston’s heart beat so fast that he was scared someone would notice; O’Brien was definitely an insurgent. He alone was the sole arbiter of the fate of our revolutionary movement.

Samar Al-Ansari                                

Nov. 28,’04