George Orwell’s 1948 is a novel that follows the thoughts and choices of Winston Smith in a dystopian society called Oceania which is located in post apocalyptic Europe. Throughout the novel- time and time again- the author reminds the readers of the dangers and risks of being caught by the Thought Police. The readers know that in order to survive, one must always hide their thoughts from the government. As the book was getting closer to the end, it was not a surprise, but a matter of time, before the government catches a hold of Winston for his thoughts or his affair with Julia due to his spiraling and repeating curiosity of the Ministry of Love. However, what did cause heads to turn was the insidiousness and betrayal of O’Brien, who wants and has it in his mind to adjust Winston’s point of view or perspective so it can match with what the government wants …show more content…
“They’ve got you too!” Winston reported as he saw O’Brien. “They got me a long time ago.” O’Brien said “with a mild almost regretful irony”. (238) His use of situational irony opens the eyes of readers and reveals just how conniving or deceiving the government can be. When O’Brien, who Winston and the readers see as someone ethical, is revealed to be part of the government, it results to be much more difficult to trust any of the other characters. Orwell also uses verbal irony when the Ministry of Love is brought up. “One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess: tortures, drugs, delicate instruments…” (167) When the Ministry of Love captures and imprisons Winston, O’Brien states that the purpose of the Ministry of Love is not to punish those who did crimes but to “cure [them]”. (253) He confesses that the government occupies itself in trying to fix and cleanse their citizens, but one may say that it’s a twisted kind of way for the government to care about their citizens, to maybe even ‘love’
I strongly agree with Fromm’s viewpoints and interpretations of Orwell’s 1984 text. He warns that the future federal powers will dehumanize society and leave everyone alienated. Thus, I agree with Fromm to the extent that he acknowledges the fact that humanity can indeed cease to exist as a result of our own self-destruction as well as the effect of our actions. Many of his opinions and warnings expressed by Orwell to an extent appear in contemporary society.
In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, irony is often used to convey information and contribute to the overall theme of the novel. Many parts of the book contain this irony because it works well for fueling either the main antagonist or protagonist actions. Fahrenheit 451 is a book based on the ideals of a “utopian society” where books are illegal and burned if they’re found. Firemen are ordered to burn books and all houses that contain them, versus putting out fires and protecting people. In communities people don’t think, they cannot be ‘intellectuals’, and they are forced become drones of the government’s ideals. In the novel Farenheit 451 irony is used to express the complex ideas of the society, but also gives the book more understanding and meaning by making us think differently, how characters are ironically told not to.
“Under the spreading chestnut tree; I sold you and you sold me; There lie they, and here lie we; Under the spreading chestnut tree” (77). This quote seems meaningless, until one knows the meaning behind its perplexing symbolism. The novel 1984, written by George Orwell, is a novel that is based on a strict government rule. Yet, the way that the novel is written is what makes it a political warning and a timeless treasure at the same time. George Orwell has such a writing style that his irony and symbolism may easily go unnoticed until the end of the novel when everything is being pieced together. 1984 is about a man, Winston Smith, in which he lives in a strict government rule in which he is not free to think how he wants to. He commits a series of crimes against the rule, also known as big brother, including having relations with a woman named Julia. The two eventually get caught and sell each other out to stop their horrendous torment. The quote above was said to be a nursery rhyme, yet, it turned out to be a gruesome truth to how they denounced each other to the party that enforces the rule under Big Brother. 1984 is a perplexing novel because of its constant use of symbolism, irony, and imagery.
It is said that 1984 is one of the greatest books ever written, a literary work that remains as transcendent as ever since its publishing date sixty-four years ago. It is a grimly realistic story crafted together by George Orwell, who takes upon particularly effective literary elements, such as the limited third-person point of view, to follow the life of Winston Smith, the average everyday, resentful civilian who attempts to fight against the seemingly omnipotent and ubiquitous powers of the Ingsoc Party. The Ingsoc Party, a totalitarian government that governs the fictional country of Oceania, holds a casket of brilliantly intelligent individuals, some of who are members of the terrifying Thought Police and the notorious Inner Party, who employ informal language against the uneducated masses of Oceania civilians. Symbolism is also a key literary element in the novel, for anything ranging from ubiquitous telescreens to the infamous Big Brother ultimately contribute to Winston’s realization of how unbreakable the power of the Ingsoc Party truly is. All throughout 1984, George Orwell exercises the elements of diction, point of view, and symbolism to bring out the novel’s theme of how futile resistance is against established totalitarian governments.
Readers often find themselves constantly drawn back to the topic of George Orwell’s 1984 as it follows a dystopian community which is set in a world that has been in continuous war, has no privacy by means of surveillance and has complete mind control and is known by the name of Oceania. The story follows a man by the name of Winston who possesses the features of “A smallish, frail figure… his hair very fair, his face naturally sanguine [and] his skin roughened” (Orwell 2). The novel illustrates to readers what it would be like if under complete control of the government. As a result, this book poses a couple of motifs’, For instance part one tackles “Collectivism” which means the government controls you, while part two fights with “Romance” with Winston and Julia’s sexual tension as well the alteration of love in the community, and part three struggles with “Fear” and how it can control someone physically and mentally.
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. The party slogan of Ingsoc illustrates the sense of contradiction which characterizes the novel 1984. That the book was taken by many as a condemnation of socialism would have troubled Orwell greatly, had he lived to see the aftermath of his work. 1984 was a warning against totalitarianism and state sponsored brutality driven by excess technology. Socialist idealism in 1984 had turned to a total loss of individual freedom in exchange for false security and obedience to a totalitarian government, a dysutopia. 1984 was more than a simple warning to the socialists of Orwell's time. There are many complex philosophical issues buried deep within Orwell's satire and fiction. It was an essay on personal freedom, identity, language and thought, technology, religion, and the social class system. 1984 is more than a work of fiction. It is a prediction and a warning, clothed in the guise of science fiction, not so much about what could happen as it is about the implications of what has already happened. Rather than simply discoursing his views on the social and political issues of his day, Orwell chose to narrate them into a work of fiction which is timeless in interpretation. This is the reason that 1984 remains a relevant work of social and philosophical commentary more than fifty years after its completion.
Orwell’s dominant goal in 1984 is to demonstrate the petrifying prospects of totalitarianism. The reader experiences the world constructed by Orwell through the eyes of the protagonist. His tendency to resist his individuality, and his intellectual capability to reason his resistance, shows the reader to comprehend the harsh domination that Big Brother, the Thought Police and the Party institute. Whereas Julia is untroubled and somewhat selfish, interested in rebelling only for the pleasures, Winston is extremely curious and desperate to understand why and how the Party exercises such power. Winston’s contemplations give Orwell and the reader an opportunity to explore the significant themes of the
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.
In the novel 1984, George Orwell uses irony in order to fully express the extremes that the book’s main political party, most commonly mentioned as “The Party” went to advance their prime agenda of suppressing the nation. Irony is a style of writing in which there is a noticeable difference between what is said and the intended meaning. Irony is used in the book when the Party’s three slogans are first mentioned. “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” (4, Orwell). “War is Peace” is said while the country is constantly in a state of war, this is ironic because although the country is at combat this is maintaining peace among the public by distracting it from the corrupt political atmosphere around them. “Freedom is Slavery”
I think that Orwell’s use of strong but subtle ethos and pathos arguments in his depictions of the world that Winston lives in is effective in convincing the reader against totalitarian governmental structures.
George Orwell’s haunting dystopian novel 1984 delves into the closely monitored lives of the citizens of Oceania as the Party tries to take control of society. In totalitarianism, propaganda and terrorism are ways of subjugation with a main goal: total obedience. He aimed to create a “what if” novel, what would happen if totalitarian regimes, such as the Nazis and Soviets, were to take over the world. If totalitarianism were to happen, the leader would be the brain of the whole system. Orwell emphasizes the theme of individualism versus collective identity through Winston, the protagonist, and his defiance to the Party and Big Brother, with a frightening tone, surreal imagery and a third person limited point of view.
Winston’s life is replete with pain and misery, even with the experience of a brief time of happiness and love; there is always something that pulls his down to “reality”. Orwell makes clear that there is no happy ending; totalitarianism does not permit such an ending; for Winston must be crushed. Else, if Winston were to create and live in the paradise, Orwell would not have successfully showed the true nature of totalitarian government.
The social structure of George Orwell’s 1984 is based on Freud’s map of the mind and the struggles between the id, the ego and the super ego. The minds of these individuals living in this society are trained to think a certain way. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis can be applied to Orwell’s 1984. Using Freud’s psychoanalytic approach, 1984’s main character Winston Smith is portrayed as the one who goes against the ideas of the Party. In a Freudian point of view, Winston’s character represents a mind where the id is the driving force and where the ego and superego are ill developed in the views of the Party. Freud describes the psychoanalytic process as something that is normally used to treat patients with metal disorders, and in the eyes of the party, Winston is seen as one that has a mental disorder. The procedure that Winston undergoes directly parallels Freud’s psychoanalytic process.
After casually reading “A Hanging” by George Orwell, one would probably say that the essay is very objective and detached. Orwell does not even bother to name the essay “The Hanging”; it is referred to as nothing more than “A Hanging.” However, a careful reading of “A Hanging” reveals Orwell’s use of irony to imply deep disapproval for the dehumanization that pervades the events depicted in the essay.
Most notably, Orwell utilizes extreme amounts of irony. This irony is present through the entire novel; even the slogans of The Party are pure ironic contradictions: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is freedom” (16). These slogans highlight just how backwards the intentions of The Party are, they are not advocating peace, freedom, or strength through their society. They are in fact advocating the complete antithesis of these qualities. Along with this, there are several additional occasions through the novel in which Orwell employs irony, such as how the Ministry of Love is only entered through a “maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests” (4), and concerned itself with the torture of unlawful citizens. How the Ministry of Truth actively forges past documents in order to prevent the citizens from learning from the past. How the Ministry of Peace “concerned itself with war” (4), and how the Ministry of Plenty concerns itself with rationing public resources such as shoelaces and pans. The titles of all these government facilities are pure examples of irony. Of course one of the most significant uses of irony in 1984 is how the entire novel centers around Winston 's hatred for Big Brother, but in a twist of fate, the novel ends with the simple line “But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”(297). These forms of irony through the novel are put in place by Orwell in order to convey just how twisted and backwards this society is, and to therefore show how his readers must avoid the mindset of the people living in