Winston defines being human as having feelings, following sensory pleasures, and staying true to those two types of emotions because, “only feelings matter”(146). He also asserts that before the Party when people had individual relationships and “members of a family stood by one another” they were human (26). Winston’s deadened senses as well as his social disconnection, and the lack of import in his daily life after he leaves the Ministry of Love indicate that he has not achieved his goal of staying human. Winston is very desensitized after he leaves the Ministry of Love, making him inhuman. In the Chestnut Tree Café Winston “took up his glass and sniffed it”(262). This action shows that he has lost the ability to be sensitive to smell. When Winston picks flowers for Julia, he notices “their faint sickly scent”, but when he sniffs his gin he doesn’t register any scent, he just “sniffed”(104, 262). Also Winston describes his gin as becoming “more horrible with every mouthful”(262). Although Winston registers and considers the taste of the gin, he doesn’t take pleasure in the taste, and doesn’t drink something he could enjoy more. One part of being human is following sensory pleasures and Winston is clearly not basing his meals or actions on pleasure. Also, Winston’s extreme social disconnection proves that he is no longer human. Winston reflects, “no one cared what he did any longer”(262). Before his time in the Ministry of Love, people surrounded Winston all day long. He was forced to wake, stretch and go to work. He ate, worked, and talked to others. But now, “no whistle woke him, no telescreen admonished him” so his life is completely without even these connections. For example, In the Chestnut Tree Café, Winston sits alone at a table where no one else will ever sit. Winston wishes for social connection, but can’t find it, as he is no longer human. So instead, Winston reaches out for the closest thing he can when “as though for reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face”(263). Some people may say that this action shows that Winston is still human because he is looking and longing for social connection. However, during work when Winston is faced with the chance to connect with other people, he and the others instead end up “looking at one another with extinct eyes”(263). Winston cannot connect to anyone else, through telescreens, work, or even just everyday life.
... due to his unorthodoxy, such as maintaining a secret and promiscuous relationship with Julia, and the political ramifications of the sexual act; and lastly, the deconstruction of his individualism at the hands of the Party, due to its hunger for power over the mind. It is not surprising then, that among the imposing doctrines of the government of Big Brother, the character of Winston Smith was eventually wiped out. In conclusion, a passage from Winston’s diary:
As Winston does lose his identity and beliefs it does give some hope and optimism. Not to Winston but to the public. To the readers of Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell the author of this political novel wrote this novel to inform and by this grim ending he has done this. Big Brother and the party has control over everything, they control families, control language, control media and even the control of history. This creates full control over every act, thought and belief of a person. Consequently with Winston this is done so therefore Orwell’s point is made.
Winston Smith is the main character in George Orwell’s “1984”. He is a thirty-nine year old man, he commits thought crimes, and he has anti-party views. Winston, also, is not in the best of health. “1984” tells of Winston’s struggles as he tries to make a change in his society. He and every party member is constantly being watched and listened to by the telescreens. There are such things as the “Thought Police,” “Hate Week,” and the “Junior Anti-Sex League”. The party’s main goal is to control their people and sculpt them into feeling nothing unless it is love for the party and for the Brotherhood and Goldstein. The society is split up into four parts, the slaves, the proles, the outer party members, and the inner party members. Winston feels that everybody is against him and he desperately wants to find a member of the Brotherhood, if it exists. O’Brien had struck him as a man that was on his side during one of the Two Minutes Hate sessions when they had eye contact
The party interfered with the things that my client thought about and wrote. Winston was so infuriated with the government he once wrote, “DOWN WITH BIG BOTHER.”(Page 20) They interfered with the human rights that my client held. Even when the party tortured him he couldn’t do the things he did before. Only because he was so in fear of the party he didn’t act like he did before. It is not until his actions with Julia in the hidden apartment are discovered that the Thought Police search his home and also discover the diary which helps to incriminate my client. The diary symbolized his freedom and desires which he can’t share
The effect the Party has had on Winston’s humanity can be seen in his mental deterioration shown through his thought process and his physical being. Orwell uses a great deal of figurative language to further evidence the appalling situation Winston has found himself in. “His mind sagged round and round on the same track, like a ball falling again and again into the same series of slots.” The simile comparing Winston’s mind to a ball on a pointless journey into the same slots is used to show the futility of Winston’s thoughts against the party; no matter how hard he may try to plot against the Party he will always end up imprisoned, having no effect on the world. This forced inaction by the Party is one way Winston is robbed of his humanity, as it is a human right to voice one’s opinions in a
Winston Smith follows the traditional path of a hero 's journey. O’Brien calls him to adventure calling to him in a dream. The threshold crossing is when Winston buys the little black journal from the old antique shop. It was his first secret act against the Party. His mentor is O’Brien, and Winston clings to the words from his dream for hope. He meets Julia who is of great help to motivate Winston and encourage his independent thinking. For too long, Winston had depended on the Party to do the thinking. He went through life almost without having to think, but since his journey he has learned to search for truth and question the doctrine of society. Winston discovered, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (Orwell 81).”
Each person has a different definition for what being human really stands for. To some, giving to others in a merciless way could constitute being human. In Orwell’s novel, his protagonist Winston would consider being human as the ability of a person to think and act freely. That is what Winston was trying to hold on to throughout the novel; his ability to stay human. With the government controlling every single aspect in the lives of their people, the
Living in a life of hate towards the Inner Party, Winston Smith takes the role of the protagonist in this story. Winston is extremely intelligent, but he is also a little shy. He likes to keep to himself. He doesn’t like to stand out. With being smart, he gets very curious about things
The people of Oceania are divided into two classes, the members of the Party and the proletariat. The Party members are like machines that do the jobs of the government. In this world, never has anyone thought any different of his or her place in society. Due to this authority that attempts to control the human train of thought, paranoia among the people became common. Nobody would talk to each other. Bonds between one another were broken, and it was never thought to be any different than before. To hold on to what makes you human - emotions and the ability to speak freely - was considered a crime against Big Brother. Of course, with authority comes punishment. To break from traditional views essentially asks for some form of retribution. For Winston, this resulted
Each person has a different definition for what being human really stands for. To some, giving to others in a merciless way could constitute being human. In Orwell’s novel, his protagonist Winston would consider being human as the ability of a person to think and act freely. That is what Winston was trying to hold on to throughout the novel; his ability to stay human. With the government controlling every single aspect in the lives of their people, the ability to think and act freely was very hard to maintain. If one does not have the capability of controlling what they think, do, or even what they say then, according to Orwell, they cannot possibly remain “human”. In 1984 Orwell says, “’Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.’” (Orwell. PG 34). This is a significant quote that can be used to support the claim that being human is related to one’s ability to
Bertrand Russell wrote, "There are two possibilities. Maybe we are alone. Maybe we are not. Both are equally frightening (Jakosky 1)." The question of life in the universe is one that leaves many in a state of bewilderment. It becomes even more interesting when it leads to another question -- that of intelligent life in the universe. Finding other intelligent civilizations among the interstellar space would greatly affect every aspect of our existence. Conversely, not finding such a civilization would force us to examine the purpose of our own existence.
In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the centralized government being the Party, tries to eliminate the most natural impulses of humans (i.e. sex, love, and companionship) in order to control the masses. Winston is the main character in the novel that tries to defy the Party by affiliating himself with things that the Party is trying to abolish. With that being said, Winston yearns for someone who has a similar frame of mind as him, acts the same as him, and for someone whom he will be able to confabulate with about the circumstantial conditions of the world they live in.
he is a man with a tragic flaw. Winston's fatalism, selfishness and isolation ultimately lead him to his
In the world of 1984, the country of Oceania is run by a figure known as Big Brother, a dictator type leadership. A man that goes my Winston sees through all of the lies and tries to fight back against this Big Brother and the party. In Orwell’s novel 1984 a so called hero, ‘Winston’ is supposed to be the one person that fights back against the party and Big Brother and even defeat them. George Orwell tried to make us believe that Winston was the saviour, but like every good story there 's always a tragedy. I believe Winston does infact fit this role of hero 's being failures, that the important thing is to have uttered the cry of rebellion that confirms one’s humanity. I say this because of how he ended up loving Big brother, his trigger
At the end of the novel, Orwell describes Winston as a cured patient who has over come his metal disease. “He had won the victory over himself: he loved Big Brother” (Part 3, Chapter 6). Both Freud and Orwell break down the components of a person’s mind in the same way. Orwell’s character, Winston, depicts the different parts of the human mind so described by Freud. In Orwell’s 1984, he uncovers the same components of a human mind as seen by Freud, the instinctual drive of the id, the perceptions and actions of the ego, and the censorship imposed by the morality of the superego.