Julia.pdf — Sandra Newman -

O'Brien laughed. It was a soft, terrible sound. "Take them both." Room 101 was not what Julia expected. She had heard the whispers—rats, spiders, drowning, the thing you fear most. She had prepared for rats. She hated rats. She had practiced the confession in her head a thousand times.

But when they strapped her to the table and the officer read her file, he paused.

One morning, she saw Winston again. He was crossing the courtyard, his face a gray mask, his body stooped. He did not recognize her. He did not recognize anything except the telescreen and the bowl of watery stew they placed in front of him twice a day. Sandra Newman - Julia.pdf

And that, she thought, was how you survived.

"Subject Julia," he said. "Primary fear identified: meaninglessness." O'Brien laughed

Julia decided he was either a spy or a man who could be broken. She preferred the latter. Spies were predictable. Broken men were useful.

She smiled anyway. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. "We are the dead," she whispered. She had heard the whispers—rats, spiders, drowning, the

When Winston stumbled into the clearing, she saw the truth: he was not a spy. He was worse. He was a believer who had lost his faith. He wanted to be caught. He wanted to be tortured and broken because then, at last, the contradiction inside him would end.

"Yes," she whispered.

O'Brien glanced at her. "Julia. Sector 487, Records. Two years of exemplary service. Your mother was a caster of anti-Party slurs, wasn't she? Vaporized in '58."

And for a few weeks, it worked. She taught him how to steal from the canteen, how to bribe the Black market wardens with a wink and a cigarette, how to lie to the Thought Police with a face as smooth as a china plate. He taught her about the Brotherhood, about O'Brien, about the diary. She let him talk. She nodded. She undressed.