The Oppression of 1984
There are several themes in the novel 1984, by George Orwell. Authority dictates the way the characters act in the novel. In 1984, we get a sense what type of authority Big Brother holds. The people of Oceania are divided into two classes. There are the members of the Party and the Proletariat. The Party members do the jobs of the government. There’s the Inner Party and the Outer Party. The Inner party consists of a privileged group of individuals who govern Oceania’s society. In 1984 by George Orwell, a totalitarian government named “Big Brother” controls civilians with high tech security to limit their freedom and keep them oppressed. The Party is able to deceive the civilians, therefore support and power is maintained.
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The protagonist in this novel is Winston Smith who’s one of the minor members of the ruling Party. He is described as a thirty-nine-year-old man who is willowy, frail, contemplative, intellectual, and fatalistic. His opinion on Big Brother is that he detests the control and enforced repression from his government. He harbors dreams to revolt against the Tolitarian Government he resides under. Big Brother is perceived to be the ruler of Oceania. Big Brother exists as the embodiment of the Party. Big Brother is an important figure as “they” are mentioned repeatedly. Everywhere Winston looks he sees posters of Big Brother's face bearing the message "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." Big Brother's image is stamped on coins and broadcast on the unavoidable …show more content…
Throughout Orwell's novel, the use of telescreens is very efficient and effective for the Party. Winston lives in fear of the telescreens and is ultimately taken by the mighty power that is the Party. Insight concerning the technology comes with the limitation of freedom. The watchful eye of the telescreen is not totally fiction though, in many places it already exists. Also, important aspects of life are taken away with the limited freedom. High Tech-Technology in the novel consists of a two-way television. Also known as a telescreen. Cameras are there filming everyone's actions 24/7. All party members have one in every room of their apartments. Party members are never out of earshot and not one second goes by that they are not under the surveillance of the party. There is no way to change the channel, and the telescreen could not be turned off except by members of the Inner Party.
The question is why would a Totalitarian Government be suitable for Oceania or elsewhere. In the article "Russia's New Totalitarianism Depends on Silence" by Vladimir Ryzhkov “Totalitarianism tolerates only one political party, one education system, one creed in art, one centrally planned economy and one set of morals. Totalitarian regimes suppress independent schools, civil society and critical thought — including with regard to history.” This statement in the article broadens insight into the rule that comes with the limitation of
In London, There is a party also known as “The Party” in the book. Winston is a low ranking member of the ruling party which is in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes the party watches him. Can you imagine what its like to have everyone watching you? Trained kids, coworkers, neighbors? You can never have any privacy or be to yourself. Everywhere he looks he sees the face of the knowledgeable leader known to everyone as Big Brother. The Thought Police have telescreens in every household and public area to watch your every move, also they have hidden microphones and spies. The Party controls everything in Oceania even the peoples language and history. They implicated, forced and invented there own language called Newspeak. Which attempts to prevent rebellion against the politics and the government. It ties into why they control everything...
Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who participates in a group of the “outer-party,” which is the lower part of the two classes. Smith works in one of the four main government buildings. This building is called the Ministry of Truth; his job is to rewrite history books so those that read them will not learn what the past used to be like. The occupation Winston is the major factor that allows him to realize that Big Brother is limiting people’s freedom. He keeps these thoughts to himself as secrets because the totalitarian party will not allow those of rebellious thoughts around. The tensions between the two grow throughout the book because the Big Brother becomes very suspicious of Winston. The Big Brother becomes so suspicious of Winston that he sends a person by the name O’Brien, to watch over him. Mr. O’Brien is a member of the “inner party,” which in this book is the upper-class. Winston doesn't know of the trap that Big Brother had set tells O’Brien of his own idea and plans. He tells Winston of a rebellious leader that has been rounding up those that want to go against the totalitarian government. But like the Big Brother had done, he set a trap and O’Brien betrayed Winston. During the story the conflict between Big Brother and Winston climaxes when Winston is caught. He is taken to some sort of bright underground prison type
Through out George Orwells 1984, the use of telescreens is very efficient and effective for the Party. On the other hand it plays a very hard role on our main character, Winston. Through out the novel, he lives in fear of the telescreen and is ultimately taken by the mighty power that is the Party, all in help by the telescreen. The watchful eye of the telescreen is not totally fiction though, in many places it all ready exists.Winston is a worker who's job is to change history to make sure that its "correct" by the Parties standards. He meets a lovely girl Julia and falls in love. They together try to find life and happiness together, and also they want to find the resistance, or the group of people that they figured existed that will help see the end of the Party and Big Broth...
The fictional world of 1984 is best described as bleak. In the aftermath of the fall of capitalism and nuclear war, the world has been divided among three practically identical totalitarian nation-states. The novel takes place in London, which has become a part of Oceania, the nation state comprising the Americas and western Europe. A state of perpetual war and poverty is the rule in Oceania. However, this is merely a backdrop, far from the most terrifying aspect of life in 1984. Oceania is governed by a totalitarian bureaucracy, personified in the image of Big Brother, the all-knowing/ all-seeing godlike figure that represents the government. Big Brother is best described as a "totalitarian socialist dictator, a political demagogue and religious cult leader all rolled into one." So great is the power of Big Brother that the reader is unsure whether he actually exists or is simply a propaganda tool of the government. The party of Big Brother, Ingsoc (English Social...
Winston Smith, the main character, was a man that reviled the way Big Brother governed. He broke various rules; such has having a diary and having sex with a person he loved. Winston didn’t have friends, lived isolated, and felt miserable. Winston was a man that hankered freedom and a rebellion against Big Brother, but was too afraid that the Ministry would send him to a forced labor camp. Also, other people were too frightened of doing illegal activities because they knew that the consequences were horrifying. If Big Brother found any illegal activities being done, then the Thought Police would go acquire the people and put them through numerous stages of pain until he had total mental power over them. Big Brother
George Orwell creates a dark, depressing and pessimistic world where the government has full control over the masses in the novel 1984. The protagonist, Winston, is low-level Party member who has grown to resent the society that he lives in. Orwell portrays him as a individual that begins to lose his sanity due to the constrictions of society. There are only two possible outcomes, either he becomes more effectively assimilated or he brings about the change he desires. Winston starts a journey towards his own self-destruction. His first defiant act is the diary where he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” But he goes further by having an affair with Julia, another party member, renting a room over Mr. Carrington’s antique shop where Winston conducts this affair with Julia, and by following O’Brien who claims to have connections with the Brotherhood, the anti-Party movement led my Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston and Julia are both eventually arrested by the Thought Police when Mr. Carrington turns out to be a undercover officer. They both eventually betray each other when O’Brien conducts torture upon them at the Ministry of Love. Orwell conveys the limitations of the individual when it comes to doing something monumental like overthrowing the established hierarchy which is seen through the futility of Winston Smith’s actions that end with his failure instead of the end of Big Brother. Winston’s goal of liberating himself turns out to be hopeless when the people he trusted end up betraying him and how he was arbitrarily manipulated. It can be perceived that Winston was in fact concerned more about his own sanity and physical well-being because he gives into Big Brother after he is tortured and becomes content to live in the society he hated so much. Winston witnesses the weakness within the prole community because of their inability to understand the Party’s workings but he himself embodies weakness by sabotaging himself by associating with all the wrong people and by simply falling into the arms of Big Brother. Orwell created a world where there is no use but to assimilate from Winston’s perspective making his struggle utterly hopeless.
1984 was written in 1948 and published in 1949 by Eric Arthur Blair under the pen name ‘George Orwell’. It is set in the year 1984 in Airstrip One, which is a province in the country of Oceania. The world is in a constant state of war between Oceania, and the other two countries, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania is controlled by English Socialism, or INGSOC in Oceania’s language, Newspeak. The powerful Inner Party controls the country using omnipresent surveillance, and manipulation. Every part of life is regimented and controlled, but the only crime is ‘thoughtcrime’: independent thinking and individualism. Big Brother is the figurehead of the Inner Party, and throughout the book, it is heavily implied that he may not really exist. The people
George Orwell’s 1984 tells a story of a totalitarian government through the protagonist Winston Smith. Among the symbols in 1984, Big Brother is a distinct symbol of the Party as well as dictators which stays consistent throughout the novel.
Winston begins as a reluctant follower of the government. The Party and Big Brother, the government of Oceania and its leader, constantly monitor its citizens through telescreens and microphones.
The government of Oceania is essentially called the Party. They use many tactics to monitor and control every aspect of those who inhabit Oceania. From telescreens to brainwashing each person is not safe to have their own individuality. However, these strict regulations may not affect everyone from obeying. The action of rebellion is represented by the main character, Winston Smith. Winston is a citizen of Oceania who has disbeliefs in what the Party is doing. The strict rules did not force Winston obey the Party, it actually made him do the complete opposite. He would complete many activities against the Party such as sexual interactions and the expression of personal thoughts. In the novel 1984, George Orwell emphasizes the strict behavior
Imagine the world we live in today being divided into three sectors and each of these sectors have a totalitarian government like we have never seen before. One that controls everyday speech, thought, and emotion and even changed the language you speak. Oceania is one of these territories. It controls everything its people say and do by total surveillance and documentation. When a government is given an immense amount of power, it tends to use the power to become even more controlling. In Oceania, the people have no sense of what personal freedom is because they are told what to think and what to believe. The Party uses methods of regulation in order to dehumanize the people of Oceania which effects them tremendously in their ability to think,
Winston Smith, an average and very human man in George Orwell’s 1984, struggles with the rules and opinions of Big Brother and those who work for him. Winston possesses many characteristics of human nature such as violence and rebellion, traits found to some degree in all the citizens of Oceania. The rebelliousness in Winston is brought out when he believes his rights and freedoms are being stripped from him. In the novel, Big Brother is an overarching figure who sees everything. He enforces an abundance of rules that create conformity and repression, but also obedience and harmony, in the citizens of Oceania. Big Brother’s encouragement of peace and unity is challenged by the human tendency to lean towards violence and because of that, Big
Telescreens, which are both televisions and cameras, provide never-ending knowledge over society’s lives. The constant watch over the people by the Party is shown when Orwell says, “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously… You had to live… in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized,” (Orwell 3). Telescreens give the government all of the people’s knowledge. The government easily finds the people’s weaknesses and gains power over them. Oceania fears what the government will do to them with the knowledge that they have, so they abide by the rules. The fear of being tortured stops the people from rebelling. If a society never revolts and simply agrees, then the government has achieved absolute control. The Party also creates Newspeak, a new language, that reduces the complexity of thought. The reduction of ideas in Oceania shows how society’s knowledge is decreased when Orwell states, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it… Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller,” (Orwell 52). By reducing the complexity of a language, the Party takes away the people’s ability to express
In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, O’Brien claims that living in a society full of hatred is doable in the hands of Big Brother. The reasoning for having Big Brother is to persuade people that the government is in control and no one needs to worry about anything else. Just as many people in 1984 were trained to believe in the the choices and decisions the government makes I feel that today many people are also in the same situation. I agree in O’Brien’s point of view that we can carry on living in a society full of hatred. A society based on hate can and will exist as long as the society remains isolated from the outside world and how the society stays tied together in their hate.
Today’s world can be closely compared to dystopian societies found in novels. George Orwell correctly predicted telescreens by writing, “The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall,” (Orwell) in his novel 1984. Today, there are televisions and other electronic screens mounted on walls that can project live recordings. Through both the telescreens and modern televisions, propaganda is shared through news and forms of entertainment. The propaganda in Orwell’s writing is shown more frequently than today; the only source of news in Orwell’s story is propaganda. The citizens cannot control what plays on the telescreens. Minimal entertainment is shown, and if shown