How the Characters in 1984 Rebel Against Oppression

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Recommended: Winston's strengths and weaknesses from the book 1984

There are many characters in the novel 1984. These characters all rebel in separate and distinctive ways from each other. In George Owell’s not so sanguine vision of the year 1984 from his standpoint in 1949, he tells of a dreary future of what the world was becoming. In this future, no one has the right to anything, including free speech, freedom of press or even freedom of thought. Even the details like the history of the known world are changed by a corrupt and ever growing political party, which is managed and run by un-emotional and odious officials. From Julia, who rebels by purely simple, sexual acts, to Winston, who dreams to overthrow the party; all the characters have their own personal way of dealing with the oppression.
One example of rebelling against the party is that of Julia’s sexual escapades. She plots and plans to have sex with many of the different party members in order to find release in her otherwise boring lifestyle and by doing so she increases the amount of mass personal rebellion within the party’s regiment. After Winston and Julia are done having sex in the woods for the first time, he asks her how many other men has she done this with. She told him that she had done it with “scores” of other men and Winston is delighted to hear the good news. He feels that the more men she has had sexual encounters with makes the party weaker because those men don’t really feel committed to their party. Julia does not dream of rebellion against their oppressors as Winston does. However, she accepts her role in society and goes about life enjoying herself when she can.
Syme can also be marked as a rebel of the party. Although we have very little actual contact with him in the book, Winston thinks that Syme is too smart to have the party favor him for long. This is probably the reason that Syme disappears later on. He was working on a new Newspeak dictionary for the party but may have fell out of favor because of his intelligence. Syme is a rebel because of his brain. He refuses to go along with everyone else and bring himself down to the I.Q. of the masses, so he, in turn, gets himself killed by the party. This is an important note because Syme does not actually hate the party or even dislike the party.

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