1984: 7

"It was like the foretaste of death, like being a little less alive"(Orwell 159).

If thoughtcrime is death, then what is acting upon thoughtcrime? The feeling, the knowledge that death is on your horizon. If you know that by simply thinking things that should not be thought you are crawling closer to you death, then surely you would know that by acting upon these impulses, you are leaping towards your certain demise. Yet something in the characters pushes them past caution and into defiance. The human instinct to not want to be alone, physically or mentally pushes Winston, Julia, and O'Brien to branch out and find the others who must be like them. If they know that their deaths are impending due to their mere thoughts, then what else have they to lose by acting upon them? They are becoming slowly less alive as they bound towards the grave. Buried alive by unorthodox thoughts and actions.