Book 3 Chapters 4-6 "The Power of Spoken Word"

"They threaten you with something-something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, 'Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so.' And perhaps you might pretend, afterward, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At that time when it happens, you do mean it. You really think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself." (Book 3 Chapter 5, pg. 240)

In this moment Winston is speaking to Julia about an event that occurs in the previous chapter. In this event Winston is being tortured by O'Brien with rats, in a fleeting moment, Winston tells O'Brien not to torture him but instead wishes this torture to be passed on to Julia. This causes Winston to feel some regret because he realizes that Julia is right, he did not merely just utter the words, that in that current moment of distress he automatically said, not thought, to pass on the punishing to someone else. This made me think two things: The power of spoken word and how once something is done it cannot be taken back. This is because I feel that not only in this instance but throughout the book as well this theme is shown.

For me, this really shows the power of spoken word because once a person actually speaks the words into existence they are given power.  This means that once you say anything they are given power because of one reason, you actually mean the words you are saying. Whether you are lying about something or gossiping about a person when you speak there is always some meaning and truth of the words you are saying, whether a person is conscious of it or not. Like Winston, he may have just wanted to believe that he merely just said what he did so that his own punishment stopped that was not the case because in his fear he truly meant what he said and truly wanted the punishment to be placed onto her as long as it meant it would stop. There was truth it what he was saying and I think that this applies to everyday life as well-whatever you say does hold some truth to it otherwise it would not be said.

The other things that come to mind when reading this quote are that once something is done it cannot be taken back. This is something that we can see a lot in the text because especially in that society once you do something it is irreversible, once any sign of going against Big Brother is shown that they are automatically punished for it. In there, actions are very important so that once you do or say something you cannot take it back because like before all actions have meaning so that really comes into play here too. In this story, there is a reoccurrence of this: when Winston writes down "Down with Big Brother", when Winston stole the chocolate from his sister and never saw them again, and when Parsons said "Down with Big Brother" and got arrested. For this quote, I really feel that we really get a big sense of some reoccurring themes in the book become encompassed in this quote.