Both secreted their relationships, knowing that they wouldn’t get let off lightly if they were ever caught, the consequences of Winston and Julia was foreshadowed at the beginning of the book by Orwell constantly reminding us what it is that would happen if a comrade was to go against big brother. At the beginning, they would be the audience watching as the convicted recited his convictions, but at the end the end Winston turn came. Orwell displays selfishness in Winston as he ends up betraying Julia once their relationship was put to the test and he saw that his life had been threatened by O’Brien; if Winston was put in Romeos position, he probably would not have committed suicide for Julia. As the mask came towards him and time was mocking him, he wished Julia could be in his place instead of him, he could of wished for it just to stop, but as well as the thought of her being there he also ‘shouted frantically’ . To shout it frantically meant that there was no hesitation in this order and he added that he wouldn’t care if they wanted to ‘tear her face off’, so he knew that she would suffer because of her crime and for his too. This seems to be the transaction period at which Winston’s learns to believe and love in Big Brother, in saying this I believe that Winston had realised that all of his thoughts of defeating big brother was not worth him dying and he had already converted. After Julia had recovered, her glance at Winston was full of hatred and ‘dislike’, it is not clear why but after they had confessed to betraying each other she gave him another look of dislike. I think Orwell planned this conversation to occur, to signify the moment they realised it was not worth them loving each other, Julia says that during the torture ‘all you care about is yourself’ but they were quite selfish throughout the whole of the book because they both new that if they were caught they would be tortured yet neither of them stopped each other from taking it further and when they eventually got caught- they both betrayed each other; Julia had ‘done it a number of times’ with other men and Winston idolised her ‘impurity’.
In contrast Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is driven by love and passion, this can be the only rational explanation to why