Once, while with Julia, Winston wakes up crying in the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop. When asked, he tells Jula that he’d been dreaming about his mother and that he blames himself for her murder. All at once, several repressed memories also come to the fore. He remembers an incident that occurred after his father had left: instead of splitting the chocolate into three equal parts, he’d demanded extra chocolate. When Winston’s mother gave him three-quarters of the chocolate, he still demanded more. He remembers grabbing his sister’s portion and running out the door.

Incidentally, that was the last time Winston saw his mother and sister. When he returns, they are nowhere to be found, presumably taken away by the Party—something his mother was sure would happen someday. Ever since, Winston has believed himself responsible for their disappearance and, quite possibly, their death as well. He relates the memory of his mother cradling his sister in her arm protectively (his last memory of his mother) to an image he’d encountered in a war movie: that of a Jewish refugee woman protecting her daughter even as they are about to be shot.

The audience, he recollects, had laughed at the Jewish woman’s ordeal, but Winston saw this as a deeply dignified act. Winston realizes that, in the past, people were usually governed by private loyalties. They didn’t depend solely on the government for historical perspectives and facts. The proles, he realizes, are more human in this regard because they depend less on the government for information. To him, the proles and their way of life offer hope. He tells Julia that the most important thing for the proles is to try and retain their humanity in this totalitarian regime. Even if they are captured and forced to confess, the government cannot strip the proles of their humanity, he hopes.