1984 Human Condition

The novel 1984, written by George Orwell, and V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue, both have their similarities and differences in terms of the human condition and having previous critical experiences that define humanity. Both can be demonstrated by the conditions that they live in and the experiences and beliefs that they have possessed from the government that have lead them to rebel.

People of the world should be expected to be treated equally and to live a free life. The Human Condition denies all of this, as the world will never be equal or free. The Human Condition corresponds brilliantly with both of the texts as they both deal with war experiences where no one is free or treated equally. In V for Vendetta, citizens have to

In the film, V was imprisoned at ‘Larkhill Resettlement Camp’, where he was involved in horrific medical experimentation, but V is the only one that survives. This encourages V to start the revolution because people are kept in such horrific conditions and can’t do anything about it. In the novel, Winston was in a similar state where he was captured because he met with a girl named Julia and was tortured with rats until he insisted that Julia is to be tortured instead. This too makes Winston rebel by writing how much he hated Big Brother because people don’t have the right to have sexual pleasures. From the experiences that both characters displayed, they show that what leads them to rebel against their country is to do with a woman. Winston illegally writes in a diary while the telescreens were not watching him and some of the details he writes are to do with Julia. Much the same with V when a lady named Valerie in the room next to him, room four, writes her autobiography on toilet paper and pushes it through a hole in the wall. This then motivates V to work harder and get revenge for Valerie. While V has had a more excruciating past experiences, V and Winston’s experiences are both similar as they have both been locked up and have been in horrible conditions. V and Winston don’t want people to live like Julia and Valerie had to, which is

V believes that the world should follow his beliefs. V’s views are that the government has taken all civil liberties from its citizens, allowing them to spy on anyone without warrant at any time and even establish a nightly curfew. He believes that creating a revolution will guarantee that the society will start fighting for their rights and freedom, as he states from the movie, ‘People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.’ He doesn’t want to see individuals being watched or attacked every minute of the day without concession. In the novel, even though Winston believes that people shouldn’t be treated the way they are, the more dramatic beliefs are those of the country. There are three main beliefs that the country is forced upon, which are: War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery. The government’s aim of this is to make a statement that war created patriotism, which allows for the government to keep control over its people, 85% of the population are paroles, and freedom means choices which makes a person a slave to all the possibilities. Winston breaks these beliefs when he writes in his diary, meets up with Julia and is found sleep talking by his daughter. Both V’s and Winston beliefs help understand why they would go to so much trouble to fight against the government