A LETTER TO WINSTON SMITH [The Last Free Man in Oceania]

What if loving someone were a crime, and remembering the truth could cost your life? In Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith dares to do both.

From "1984 " By George Orwell .

By Tanya Chauhan , BA Hons , Political Science ,3rd Year

Edited and Designed By Mannat , BA Hons Psychology , 2nd Year

Dear Winston,

I write to you from a world where clocks still tell the truth and newspapers do not vanish overnight. Here, no one watches your every gesture, no one arrests you for loving someone, and saying that two plus two makes four does not bring erasure.

But in your world, truth itself is a crime. Every step you take is shadowed by that omnipresent face “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. I see you clutching your diary, inscribing forbidden words like sparks in a storm. I know Julia, the secret meetings, and your fragile hope that someone, somewhere, remembers what freedom feels like. Your courage reminds me of Socrates who drank the hemlock rather than betray truth.

Be careful. The Party does not seek mere obedience, it covets your mind. They twist memories, call lies truth, and even those who appear allies may be predators in disguise. Still, whisper it to yourself — four. Your quiet defiance is louder than any shout. You prove that rebellion is not always loud; sometimes, it is simply refusing to let your soul be rewritten.

I cannot break you out of that gray, suffocating city, but your story will shatter Big Brother’s illusion for anyone who reads it. If I could send you anything, it would not be gold or food, but a scrap of paper with four words: two plus two is four. A truth no tyranny can extinguish. Hold on to it for both of us.

Yours, in awe and defiance,

A friend who remembers that thinking is freedom