#8- 1984

"The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!" (183-184).

Earlier, Winston had compared his and Julia's lives to the coral inside the glass paperweight. Clearly, since Winston is surprised by the size of it, the glass magnified the tiny pink treasure. However, now that the paperweight is broken and Winston can see the coral out of context he realizes exactly how small it is. The metaphor continues here. Winston was on the edge of admiring humanity and appreciating his own life as an individual but now at his arrest he is thrust back under the tight control of the Party. He sees that in the society, in the larger picture, he is just as minuscule and worthless as the piece of coral. Orwell specifically uses coral in this metaphor because although coral can live on its own, it only thrives when it is part of a larger community (a coral reef). The isolated coral represents Winston and Julia's lives successfully because just as it cannot live well on its own, they cannot thrive in the restricting society of Oceania being emotionally isolated from the Party followers. Just as the glass must break and the coral must be freed from its isolation, Julia and Winston must join Ingsoc.

Works Cited:
"Coral." National Geographic. 2010. 26 Sept. 2010 <http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/
invertebrates/coral/>.

Photo Credit:
Naylor, David. "Archive for June, 2006." David Naylor: Blog. 3 June 2006. 26 Aug. 2010 <http://davidnaylor.org/blog/2006/06/>.