1984 Freedom Essay

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1984, Freedom vs Security In the book 1984, written by George Orwell, the author highlights the importance of how people think they possess freedom versus what the actual freedom is. Orwell discusses the conflict within the balance of freedom and security in his perspective dystopian society. As it is mentioned in the book, “freedom is slavery”, meaning that the civilians are given freedom under the price of slavery (Orwell, 4). Also, the idea of thought police implicates that the story is not about security anymore as in the old days; instead, it is used to oppress citizens and control them. The ideal Big Brother, whose responsibility is to take care of people cautiously, relies on authority to gratify his presence and limit people’s understanding …show more content…

In addition, the government uses speech codes to limit people’s range of thought and to kill the human’s individuality and personality. Winston, the main character who hopelessly tries to rebel against the party, says that the party spreads propaganda about war and claims to be watching every person “just to keep people frightened” (Orwell, 152). Not only that, but the party heads, who are in charge of leadership spread their spies almost everywhere to know how each citizen thinks and to analyze people’s actions. For example, Mr. Charrington, the old man who owns the bookshop, persuades Winston and Julia that he will protect them and be on their side, but in reality, he turns out to be a member of the party. In fact, he is the one who tells the police and other party members, like O’Brien, to imprison the two lovers. Despite the rebellious, inner part of Winston that seems to be knowing how the party deals with people, he fails to find out why. Even when O’Brien was questioning him, O’Brien told him that he is “a difficult case” because Winston is not the type of man who just follows the powerful ones without any comprehensive guidance (Orwell, 248). As a whole, the party’s goal was to control people and their freedoms, but informs people that they are being

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