So /lit/ I just finished this. It is probably one of the first

>>8434789
He was brainwashed into believing in the party. Orwell probably chose that ending because it might've been more frightening than him just dying. Also in practical terms, a brainwashed stooge is more useful than a corpse.

Why would the party bother killing him if they can reprogramme his mind? The second is much more horrifying.

>>8434789
They didn't kill him because they didn't need to. They'd won an even greater victory over him; they'd broken his spirit and his mind.

>>8434805
right that makes more sense. I guess the frightening part is where it comes in. Is he SO brainwashed he can still talk to Julia though?

>>8434818
He can talk to her, but not love her or connect the way he did before.

So I remember my high school teacher going through this book with us in english and he was aruging that Winston was able to resist the brainwashing because the third person perspective meant we never truly saw things in his perspective, and he could have just been hiding his true self and thoughts from the narrator and thus from the reader. Therefore the aftermath of the climax goes up in the air

Was this a valid viewpoint of the ending or was he just all bullshitting our class? I certainly was reluctant to buy into it.

>>8435123
It sounds mostly like a headcanon way to have a "good" ending but I suppose it is possible.

>>8435123
Not impossible, but in the absence of compelling evidence from the text it seems about as persuasive and worthwhile as saying that the entire novel is actually the fever dream of a coyote.

>>8434818
The whole thing that symbolised their various forms of rebellion (and humanity) -- the affair -- is extremely broken, just like anything else.
>>8435123
You could make the argument that this effect was deliberate on the part of the author, but arguing whether it's the real ending is pretty unnecessary. Who cares what the "real" end is when it's a work of fiction?