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Control in 1984 George Orwell
Commentary On Orwell'S 1984
Commentary On Orwell'S 1984
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Recommended: Control in 1984 George Orwell
From the beginning of the novel, it was inevitable that Big brother would eventually win, and Winston would be caught by the thought police. He could never have an immediate affect on the Party. His long and pointless struggle achieved no result in the end, and finally was brainwashed and lost any freedom of thought he once had. One reason for Winston's rebellion, and eventual downfall, is his knowledge that the party will ultimately capture and punish him. With constant surveillance of Party members, any sign of disloyalty could lead to an arrest; even a tiny facial twitch. As soon as he writes Down with BB' in his diary, Winston is positive that the Thought police will quickly capture him for committing thought crime. With this wisdom, he allows himself to take unnecessary risks, such as trusting O'Brien and renting the room in Mr. charington's shop to host his secret relationship with Julia. Because he has no doubt that he will be caught no matter what he does, he continues to rebel, and brings his own struggle to an end. The party controls every source of information, and doesn't allow people to keep records of their past, such as photographs and documents. As a result, memories become fuzzy and citizens become perfectly will to swallow anything the Party tells them. The ministry of truth where Winston works destroys old documents so BB can never be wrong. The past is constantly falsified and brought up to date. By controlling the present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can justify all its actions in the present. The party has the power to make it as if Winston never existed, so he was never going to make a difference, because no one would hear of his struggle. The ministry of truth would destroy any evidence of his existence, just as Winston himself did to comrade withers. Winston could never have had an immediate effect on the Party's control- he would never see it in his lifetime. He learns this from O'Brien when he says "You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead." This quote from O'Brien is accurate, that is if the brotherhood really existed.
Returning to his diary, Winston then expresses his emotions against the Party, the Thought Police and Big Brother himself; he questions the unnecessary acts by the Party and continuously asserts rebellion. Winston soon realized he had committed the crime of having an individual thought, “thoughtcrime.” The chapter ends with a knock on Winston’s door. Significant Quotes “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 7). “But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew— yes, he knew!
“He has finally learned to love big brother” was how George Orwell in his novel 1984 described Winston, conversion to the party are represented by big brother at the end of the novel. It is easy to believe that at this instance, after torturous reeducation that Winston has endured, he has lost free will and no longer be able to freely choose to love big brother but was forced to, against hiss will. Therefore Winston was never free to love big brother, and in fact not free at all after his “reeducation.” But if we are to accept a definition of free will that stipulates that we are able to produce and act on our own volitions we must accept that Winston has retained and has chosen to love big brother out of his own free will.
In 1984 many government issues take place, for instance propaganda, secret police, brainwashing, and a wide manner of other devices to oppress their populations. The idea is to illustrate the dangers of totalitarian government whether it be Communist, Fascist, or otherwise. Totalitarianism is an imposing form of government which the political authority exercises control over all aspects of life such as their sex life, and health in general. “If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them” (George Orwell, 1984). Also psychological manipulation and mind control are a big controversy in 1984. Psychological manipulation is a social influence that moves towards the behavior of others through deceptive, or even abusive tactics. “And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain” (book 1, chapter 4). The author, Orwell wants the readers to think that the government monitors and controls everything that the humans do, and that basically everything that people do are against the law.
Winston soon realizes after communicating with Syme that there is a possibility that Syme would more than likely report him to the “thought” police. The citizens became so brainwashed and against each other they no longer trusted each other, and focused more so on being devout to the Big Brother system. They no longer were conscious instead they became unconscious, they lost their identity and who they were as individual people. Orwell book states “Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” Pg.
Winston would not have been better off not challenging the party without Winston rebelling he would've never started feeling emotion for doing simple things in life. Winston goes to buy a book so that he can write what he's thinking about there
Asleep or awake, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters in your skull” (302 Orwell). Another thing that leads to Winston's downfall was that B.B. controlled everyone's mind besides Winston's and they wouldn't quit until everyone obeyed them, “One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.” These quotes clearly show why Winston is weak.
Much of the success in creating the Parties artificial reality and thus controlling the people was due to the Parties ability to control history through a process called revisionism. This work is done by the Ministry of Truth, in the Records section, where Winston is engaged. Daily, people like Winston, destroy old documents and create new ones to cover policy changes. In addition, everything printed before 1960 has been destroyed by the Party. A good example of this is the work Winston has to do in the Minitru one day.
Even though at the end of the novel, he is content sipping his gin and playing chess, he has become a completely different person as a result of his experience in prison and Room 101. This novel does an amazing job at describing the effect the surrounding environment has on identity. Values help to construct our identity, and identity is formed by the environment one lives in. If Winston were to exist in a society unrestrained by the limiting boundaries of the Party, his identity would be very different from what it has become throughout the novel. Because his experiences all involved the Party, the Party itself plays a huge role in forming Winston’s identity. Furthermore, identity is not only established by one’s environment, but by the perception of that environment. While Winston may have perceived Oceania as fettering and prejudiced, a simple Party member may have seen it as liberating to not have to worry about job security or having enough to eat. By trying to distance himself from the Party, Winston rooted himself in the idea that there was something better, a system that worked better than that of the Party. However, if he had just changed his perspective earlier, like he did at the end of the book, he may have found that he actually liked the way the Party operated. Despite not being perfect, the Party made Winston content in the end. The firm belief that there is something better, while there very well may be, is unrealistic for Winston; him learning to understand that, while compromising the values that made him heroic, ended up making him happy. And heroism in general is an impossible standard to attain, because it does not allow for compromise. In order for Winston to truly be a hero, he would have had to die, and for him, dying was not something he is willing to do,
...g 297). He was shot in the head, but it is unclear if Winston is dead or not. He has confessed everything to Big Brother. It goes back to the statement that the man with freedom is doomed. Winston was content at the end with the way things came to be. It is unsure why, but he loved Big Brother because after everything that happened to him Big Brother was the same.
Yes I believe this statement to be true of Winston as he ultimately gives in in the end and starts to believe the contradictory information provided to him. He believes the information provided to be true as he no longer can differentiate what the past really is as he has no proof that his past exist because he “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past” (Orwell 248). Seeing that the majority agrees with the party’s history he joins the band wagon as he no longer knows the truth and in the end “He loved Big Brother” (Orwell 298).
The conflict between Winston and Big Brother starts from the beginning of the novel when Winston begins to keep his secret diary about Big Brother. Winston Smith is a third-nine years old man who is a member of the 'outer-party'--the lower of the two classes. Winston works for the government in one of the four main government buildings called the ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history books in order for people not to learn what the past used to be like. Winston's occupation is the major factor which lets him to realize that Big Brother is restricting people's freedom. However, Winston keeps his complains about Big Brother and the party for his own secret because the party will not allow anyone keeping a rebellious thought. The tension between them gets serious when Big Brother becomes suspicious of Winston. Winston is therefore watched by O'Brien, an intelligent execute at the 'Ministry of Truth', who is a member of the 'inner party'--the upper class. Without doubting Big Brother's trap, Winston shares his ideas with O'Brien. O'Brien mentions a gentleman named Emmanuel Goldstein whom he claims to know the leader of the rebels against the party. O'Brien also promises to help winston, and promises him a copy of Goldstein's book. But O'Brien betrays him as Big Brother has planned.
An instance of this can be seen when Winston purchases his diary from an ordinary shop, as “Party members were not supposed to go in” (1,6), which Winston continues on to do. Yet, despite knowing the consequences Winston buys the book without “wanting it for any particular purpose” (1,6). Perhaps this is Winston’s subconscious way of rebelling against the party; as despite knowing the rules, Winston acts on his desires without reason. However the most incriminating evidence can be seen through the content of his diary, where he express his inner thoughts and emotions. By writing words such as “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (1, 18) and proceeding to say “they'll shoot me in the back of the neck down with big brother” (1,18). Yet again, it is visible how Winston is aware of his actions and the consequences; but he simply does not care. Through knowingly knowing of his wrong doings and acting on them, Winston rises or rebels against the
he is a man with a tragic flaw. Winston's fatalism, selfishness and isolation ultimately lead him to his
First, while Winston is doing his jerks one morning, he is confronted about not doing them correctly. He is directly spoken to through the telescreen and told that any man his age should be able to stretch better than he is. Winston's mind was wandering about Julia and his many thought crimes until he is spoken to, and then immediately everything on his mind drops, and all he can think about is, "Never show dismay. Never show resentment. A single flicker of the eyes could give you away." (37). Winston instantaneously becomes afraid that he is doomed, because they know he is thinking thoughts contrary to those of the Party. Through the constant eye of the telescreen, Winston is immediately terrified at any thought he may have in regards to thought crimes, or Julia.
He chooses to engage in rebellious activities, which lead to his demise. If Winston were to remain obedient to the Party’s rules, he would have most likely lived out the rest of his life. It is Winston’s choice to betray the Party by disobeying their rules, which he does by writing in his diary and engaging in sexual intercourse with Julia. Winston is also fully aware that what he is doing is wrong, yet “...what he wanted, more even than to be loved, was to break down that wall of virtue, even if it were only once in his whole life. The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime” (Orwell 71). Winston has the option to obey the Party, yet he makes the alternative decision to rebel. He makes these poor decisions at his own discretion, and they ultimately lead to his downfall. Violating the Party’s rules results in a possible punishment of death, which Winston is well aware of. Therefore, his poor choices lead to his murder. Winston had the option to obey the Party or disobey the Party and he chose to disobey them. As well, Winston is responsible for choosing to be converted by O’Brien, a member of the Party, into believing what the Party believes. Sure, Winston would be tortured if he chooses not to succumb to the Party’s beliefs, but yet he still has the freewill to choose to be tortured. No matter how painful the torture was, Winston still has