Nineteen Eighty-Four showed us a world of cruelty and darkness, ruled by a totalitarian government only known as the Party, and it is no surprise to say that one of the relevant themes in this book is hopelessness. From room 101 to the party’s grip over the people, there are always symbols of oppression and signs of hopelessness throughout the book, but rather than just discussing the theme of hopelessness in this book, I want to expand on how hope is deprived from the people and how there can never be any hope of true freedom in Oceania. In my original drawing, I drew and incorporated four specific images as well as three quotes from Nineteen Eighty-Four which represent signs of hopelessness. Before I move on to the specific images and The quote “You will confess and then you will die” (Orwell 278) not only foreshadows what will happen to Winston in the end, but it also gives a sense of deprivation of hope as well. Even when imitating as a member of the Brotherhood, O’Brien makes the statement that there is no hope of destroying the Party and the Brotherhood will never be successful. This, along with his betrayal and lies, makes him a secretive character in Nineteen Eighty-Four and that is why I am giving him a shadowy effect in this As you can see, the poster is relatively tilted in a way so it is looking at Winston. This was intentionally done as I wanted to point out the fact that Big Brother, or rather the Party, is constantly watching the people of Oceania. This is the main method of control the Party uses to not only spy the people, but to also make sure people don’t even think about rebelling against the party. Big Brother symbolizes fear, control and power, all things which contribute to the sense of hopelessness in Nineteen Eighty-Four. By being under constant surveillance by the Party, all your actions are being watched every day, restricting the things you can do in your daily life and depriving the sense of hope in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The final image I want to discuss is the shattered image on the ground. The original image you can see here is a group of proletariat protesting for freedom against the Party. This was Winston’s original hope of destroying the Party. He realized that in order to destroy the Party, the entire proletariat needs to stand up and fight for their rights and freedom. Since the proletariat makes up 85% of the people, the party cannot stop that many people or even imprison that many people in their prisons; therefore, Winston knows that if the proletariat rebelled, they would be victorious over the
1984’s society is driven by a totalitarian government, the Party, under its alleged leader, Big Brother. The Party had great control and influence over the society as telescreens were installed on every single corner in which people are monitored and propaganda ran 24/7. In his home, Winston was able to locate an area where he was not seen by the telescreens: the alcove. Despite knowing the consequences of a punishable death, Winston began to write a diary. In the midst of writing his diary, Winston had a thought about his hatred of girls from the Ministry of Truth, and about Inner Party member O’Brien who he thought was a member of the rebellion, the Brotherhood.
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.
Winston’s conversion is troubling for the adherent of the existence of free will. Winston’s conversion, facially, seems to show that outside forces determines a behavior and not the self. Our actions are determined by mechanistic laws that one can manipulate to result in a specific action. In fact, Winston’s conversion to the party ideas has provided a firm arguing point for the determinist who believes all our volitions are caused by an external event and thus do not truly belong to us. In a scene between O’Brien and Winston, O’Brien shows Winston four fingers demanding Winston to tell him that there were five fingers. At first, Winston denies that there are five fingers even as O’Brien gradually turns up the dials that inflict an excessive pain on Winston. O’Brien hurts Winston so badly that Winston cannot take it anymore and exclaims, “Five, five six- in all honesty I don’t know” seemingly surrendering his free will to O’Brien replacing his own beliefs with O’Brien’s beliefs (Orwell ...
Winston is confronted with struggle throughout the entirety of George Orwell`s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Living within a totalitarian regime subsequently causes Winston to seek approaches for dealing with such abundant oppression; he finds liberation through self-awareness, understanding and ultimately rebellion. First, Winston realizes that “if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself”, alluding to the notion of thoughtcrime (162). This recognition exemplifies the complete cognizance that Winston has regarding the oppressive society displayed throughout the novel. Next, Syme states “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words”, alluding to the idea of Newspeak (28). This statement directly correlates to Winston speaking with other party members to gain knowledge about how others feels about policies deployed by the government. This information-seeking also connects with Winston`s rebellion, as he actively searched for others to join his uprising, which is shown when Winston tells O’Brien “We want to join [The Brotherhood]” (171). Winston’s attempt to join a rebellious organization exhibits his evident desire to release his suppressed emotions. Winston devises a very methodical approach to deal with the problematic society he resides in.
Big Brother also played a big role in creating the world which ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was based in. Big Brother is a figure, which the Party has created to frighten people and give them more power. The Party can do anything they like and when someone questions them they can just say there under orders from Big Brother. Big Brother is everywhere in every house (except proles), every street, wall, and he is always shouting out “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” the text which backs this up is when Winston describes that ‘On each landing, opposite the lift shaft the poster with enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures, which are so conceived that the eyes follow you about when you move’. Big Brother is so important to the world in the novel because the figure stops thought crime, gives the people someone to look up to and someone to love, lets the Party tell the people anything they want and the people will believe it, such as propaganda.
The protagonist of this story is Winston Smith, who works at the Ministry of Truth as a sort of professional history revisionist. His job is to rectify newspaper articles and documents in which Big Brother made predictions or statements that did not agree with the actual outcome of events; in other words, to maintain the public illusion that the Party is perfect. Unhappy with his state of being, Winston would like to overthrow the Party but is powerless to do so. So he teams up with his love interest Julia who is another Party worker. He also collaborates with a high-ranking Party official named O'Brien, who reveals himself as a secret member of a society called The Brotherhood who are planning to destroy the Party. O'Brien gives Winston a book explaining the ideals and motivations of the Party: The upper classes (the highest Party members) need to retain their economic status. Therefore, it is important to control the minds and bodies of the lower classes, and wars are waged constantly only so that money will be spent on the production of war machinery instead of being converted into wealth which could be given to the lower classes.
By enforcing these simple laws and regulations, the government is able to keep a tight grip on its people, with few ever releasing themselves from its grasp. Winston Smith, on the other hand, seeks to know the truth behind the government, he is constantly questioning everything and repressing all the ideas forced upon him. Winston “seeks truth and sanity, his only resources being the long denied and repressed processes of selfhood” (Feder 398). All identity is gone in this place called Oceania, and for the sake of Big Brother and its continuous control of the people, it will never exist again. In 1984, the absence of identity strips the people of all creativity and diversity, as well as takes away any chance the society has to advance as a people or in the area of technology.
The book, 1984 by George Orwell, is about the external conflict between Winston Smith and Big Brother; and the internal conflict between the two ideas, democracy and totalitarianism. Orwell wrote the novel to show society what it could become if things kept getting worse: he sensed of the expansion of communism when he wrote the novel. The conflict between democracy and totalitarianism at the year of 1945 created two characters, Winston Smith and Big Brother, in orwell's mind. Big Brother is the embodiment of all the ideals of the totalitarian party. In contrast to Big Brother, Winston Smith keeps the idea of democracy emphasizes freedom, he has to hide his own thought because the Big Brother's party will punish him by death if the party finds it out. George orwell criticizes of Big Brother's society by describing it as a dark and a gloomy place. It warns that people might believe that everyone must become slaves to the government in order to have an orderly society, but at the expense of the freedom of the people.
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.
Every part of life is regimented and controlled, but the only crime is ‘thought crime’: 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 are divided into Inner Party members, who control the government, Outer Party members, who make up the middle class, and Proletarians, or Proles, who make up the uneducated lower class. He utilizes strong but vague descriptions of the world around Winston to hint at the state of the world without directly saying it. He describes a bright cold day, which seems to perfectly depict the world's bleak state in a sort of indirect way (Orwell, 1948).
To begin with, the Party of Oceania in 1984 creates the illusion of reality to control the citizens in Oceania. The Party of Oceania means well for their citizens; their main ...
In the novel 1984, Orwell produced a social critique on totalitarianism and a future dystopia that made the world pause and think about our past, present and future. When reading this novel we all must take the time to think of the possibility that Orwell's world could come to pass. Orwell presents the concepts of power, marginalization, and resistance through physical, psychological, sexual and political control of the people of Oceania. The reader experiences the emotional ride through the eyes of Winston Smith, who was born into the oppressive life under the rule of Ingsoc. Readers are encouraged through Winston to adopt a negative opinion on the idea of communist rule and the inherent dangers of totalitarianism. The psychological manipulation and physical control are explored through Winston's journey, and with Winston's resistance and ultimate downfall, the reader is able to fully appreciate O'Briens reasoning, "Power is not a means, it is an end."
One of the things that makes Oceania so dismal is the fact that no one has any friends, they have comrades. There is no true companionship in 1984. As the name comrade suggests, these people only consort with each other because they share jobs, and nothing more, there is no love, and there is no trust. This is another situation which leads to feelings of loneliness. The Party has trains the population to act as followers, even if they are the opposite. They have installed so much fear, that people will readily and without hesitation denounce their comrades as Thought Criminals in order to prove their own loyalty to Big Brother. A prime example of this loyalty through betrayal is when a man in the Ministry of Love is being taken to Room 101...
...ay he does, leaving Winston suffering in an eternal hell. This death of the mind is far worse than physical death for Winston, as the one thing he had –freedom– is stolen from him. This “death” is meant to leave the reader angered and annoyed, in order for the book to serve the purpose of leaving the reader disgusted by totalitarian regimes. Most people, at the time the novel was written, had great hopes and expectations for the future; it just so happened that communism became the new social experiment. Many people truly believed that this sort of governance was the best way to rule a country. George Orwell was able to see through the picturesque depiction. Today, almost all people would agree that they would not wish to live in a totalitarian society; Orwell was successful in his attempt to warn the general population of communistic ruling.
The idea of the future has been explored for as long as writers have been writing. The interesting concept about the future is that it will always remain a mystery. The future is always changing and never ending. In George Orwell’s 1984, Orwell ruminates on his thoughts and ideas of what the future will be like. Orwell wrote the book around 1950 during the writing era of postmodernism. Postmodernist books often expressed thoughts of the future, as well as other themes. 1984 describes the future as a place where the Party has taken over and controls everything and everyone. The residents of Oceania have no control over their bodies, their relationships, or even their thoughts. Oceania is a place of war and control. The protagonist in 1984 is a middle-aged man named Winston. Winston is one of the only living people who realize that the party is changing the facts, and he wants to do something about it (Orwell). Winston deals with the struggles of hiding from the law and who to trust. In 1984, George Orwell uses the themes of physical and mental control, forbidden love, and a “big brother” figure to exhibit characteristics of postmodernism.