Book 3, Chapter 6 of 1984 is the last chapter in the entire book. Winston sits in his usual corner of the Chestnut Tree Cafe. Gin is his life now, his death and resurrection, and he's listening to the television. screen.
He awaits a bulletin about a battle between Oceania and Eurasia. Winston is worried because he thinks the news will be bad. As he plays chess he traces the equation 2 plus 2 equals 5 in the dust.
He knows that the party can get inside people's heads. Winston and Julia had run into each other once after being released. The thought police didn't care about them now. They have talked, even made love.
They were so completely changed that they didn't care about each other anymore, and they admitted that they had betrayed each other. They pretended they would meet again, but neither actually cared enough to do so. Winston has been promoted in the Ministry of Truth. He still has memories of an earlier time, but he pushes them out of his mind. After all, he knows now now that they're false.
On the telescreen, the announcer says that Oceania won the battle. There's cheering in the street, and Winston is relieved. He has a waking dream in which he's back in the Ministry of Love, and has been forgiven.
Winston walks down the hall. Finally, the long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain. He looks up at Big Brother and wonders why he had ever rebelled against that loving face. Winston's change is gradually revealed in the last chapter.
chapter. Winston believes in what the telescreen tells him. He no longer cares whether he sees Julia again.
He sees a memory of his childhood as false. He's lost the ability to think for himself, beaten down and deadened inside by the party. He believes that two plus two equals five, and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.
How to interpret the end of the novel, literally or metaphorically, is still something that is a hallmark of dystopian fiction. The The narrator tells readers that a bullet is entering Winston's brain. Is this a real bullet, or is the narrator speaking metaphorically? The last chapter of the novel ends with the paragraph that says, The struggle was finished. He loved Big Brother.
Therefore, the best interpretation is to understand the bullet as a metaphor. Winston's goal up until he was tortured in Room 101 was for the party not to get inside of him. He continued to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4. what the party said.
But Winston lost that battle. He lost the love inside himself. Death was never Winston's concern.
He always believed he would be vaporized. Because death was inevitable, it would not be a tragedy for him. What he has lost is his humanity, his independence, and his knowledge of what is real.
Now Winston is one of the people who is already dead. He just doesn't know it. But this is the tragedy of 1984. And with this, the novel ends.