As Winstons affair with Julia becomes a more established part of their lives, he rents the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop so that he and Julia can have a regular place to meet. Does the glass paperweight symbolize Winston's obbsession with the past, or his hopes for the future?
The paper weight represents the apartment. The coral inside is Winston and Julia. What the coral is incased in represents the apartment. The apartment is te place were Winston and Julia are safe. In the room they feel protected and untouchable because the fact they are there is a secret.
I think the glass paperweight represents Winston's relationship with Julia. When they meet above the shop, it's kind of like they're the coral inside the glass; they're surrounded by something that protects them. But I also think that it represents the government in a way as well, almost like all of the people in Oceania are trapped inside this bubble because of Big Brother. There's something outside of the coral and the glass, but no one can get there because they're trapped.
I believe that the glass paperweight represents Winston and Julia's life together. The surrounding glass is the room in the antique shop, and the coral is Winston and Julia's life. When Winston and Julia are in the room and are captured by the thought police, someone picked up the paperweight and threw it on the ground. The paperweight shattered, thus mirroring what might happen with Julia and Winston's relationship and life together.
Good thoughts and i agree. I see it as his hopes are to have that freedom and that he and Julia are like the coral inside. The glass is that barrier of freedom and when it is smashed, it symbolizes that that freedom (his hopes) are gone or crushed. I also see it as it is an antique and holds meaning in Winstons life for he always wants to know what the past was so he could compare to life in the present or even know what happened.
the glass paper weight can both represent his relationship with julia but also winston is obsessed with it because it represents a time when useless things like it where cherished because of beauty, something that is absent in his world.
The Crystal Paperweight
- - - -
I too have been drawn to the meaning of the paperweight as I progress deeper into the novel, and from what I've read, what I can conclude is this:
The glass/crystal paperweight plays a very significant role in the novel 1984. Winston compares the paperweight to the apartment and describes it as being "a world of the past where extinct animals can walk." When he sees it in Mr. Charrington's shop, he buys it for three reasons:
- It is beautiful
- It seems to hold no purpose
- It is a tangible piece of the past
Because the government wants people to put all of their interest and emotion into love for the government, they probably discourage people from valuing beauty. For example, when Julia arrives at the apartment with a bag of goodies from the Inner Party, she is most proud of the makeup she snatched because it's uncommon to see Outer Party members wearing it. It is likely that many "pretty" objects, pictures, etc, have been hunted down and destroyed by the government and are only common within the Inner Party. As Mr. Charrington stated, it's not easy to own an antique shop for two reasons: because people just don't care about the past anymore, and because most of the true, valuable antiques have been destroyed.
Winston is also attracted to the paperweight because it is an object of sheer beauty that has no purpose other than to be. There is a part in the book where Winston is sitting in the bed with Julia, remembering the way people used to spend Sunday afternoons prior to the revolution.
Orwell discusses this topic further when Winston analyzes the fact that people are no longer allowed to do things without purpose, as well many other instances in the novel where Winston discusses the danger of being caught doing meaningless things. People are always supposed to be doing one of two things: working, and spending their free time contributing to BB in ways besides working. I think he is drawn to the weight's lack of purpose because he too wishes that he could do things without purpose.
However, I think that the paper weight's true meaning is revealed at the end of part two.
Ever since Winston buys the thing, he makes it very clear that it is an object of much value to him. He knows that he is risking his life by possessing it, yet he is proud to call it his own. He allows it to become a rather large part of his life; placing a lot of hope into a small piece of perfect crystal. In the end, he allows the paper weight to symbolize all possibility of returning to the past; confident in its inability to be broken.
But, as the weight is smashed by the Thought Police and the piece of coral is exposed, he notices that it is actually rather small and frail, and realizes that the coral had been using the crystal to appear to be something that it was not. Even the paperweight had deceived him, and as the pieces of shattered glass flew across the floor, it brought with it every possibility of erasing the revolution.
It also symbolizes the abolition of Winston's life as he knew it as well as the conclusion of his perfect world with Julia inside of Mr. Charrington's shop.
A secondary cover of the novel really emphasizes the piece's significance.
Last edited by TheLonelyQueen; 11-15-2012 at 10:55 PM.
"Everybody wants to change the world, everybody wants to change the world, but no one, no one wants to die!"
The glass paperweight represents Mr. Charrington's room itself. The walls of the room are the glass incasing the coral, and whereas the glass incases a piece of the past the walls incase the single place that Julia and Winston can act as if it is the past. The coral in the glass paperweight represents the past and how you can not fully change it, because there will always be someone, like Julia and Winston, or something, like the glass paperweight, that will refuse to be changed. The breaking of the glass paperweight symbolizes the false love that Julia and Winston feel for each other breaking as well as the fall out of their relationship. The glass paperweight could also represent Julia and Winstons relationship because the resemblance of how doing things that were acceptable in the past, as Winston and Julia did, or being something to respresent the past, the glass paperweight, was not accepted by the party. Ultimately though the love for themselves out powers the love for each other as clearly shown in room 101 and the now overpowing love of Big Brother and shattered paperweight symbolize that although the past seems to be unchangeable if people truely wish to alter it, it can be altered.
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