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Literary analysis of 1984 by george orwell pdf
Literary analysis of 1984 by george orwell pdf
Theme of loneliness in literature
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In George Orwell’s 1984, nobody can be trusted. The Party, a totalitarian regime, controls everything in the nation of Oceania. The Party instills the idea upon its civilians that “Big Brother Is Watching You” (Orwell 2). This slogan embodies the life under the Party, where one’s actions are constantly being monitored. All civilians devote extreme loyalty to the Party, and it is nearly impossible to encounter people that oppose to the Party. If one if found to be an enemy of the Party, they will be vaporized, and their life will cease to have existed. One way in which the Party implements their power is by individualizing each civilian. Through the usage of telescreens implemented in every house and building, “There was of course no way of …show more content…
The lack of “knowing whether you were being watched” (3) creates an environment that prevents individual relationships within civilians from blossoming. This notion haunts Winston Smith, a civilian secretly opposes the Party, and leaves him feeling alienated. Winston’s yearning for companionship causes him to fall in love with Julia; however, once he is separated from Julia, he falls in love with the company that O’Brien and the Party provide. As a result of the individualistic community that the Party enforces, Winston seeks solace in feeling as though he is not alone in his beliefs. During the Two Minutes of Hate, it is evident to Winston that he is the alienated. As he witnesses the “frenzy” (14) of civilians “leaping up and down” (14), displaying their love for Big Brother, Winston feels nothing but hatred. However, within 30 seconds of the Two Minutes of Hate, “his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector… in
The Party and its leader Big Brother play the role of authority in 1984. The Party is always watching the citizens of the Republic of Oceania. This is exemplified in the fact that the government has telescreens through which they can watch you wherever you are set up almost everywhere. Even in the countryside where there are no telescreens, the Party can monitor its citizens through hidden microphones disguised as flowers. The Thought Police are capable of spying on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest or even kill you on a whim. Not only does the Thought Police find and hunt down felons, but it also scares others into being good citizens. The Party strives to eliminate more and more words from people’s vocabularies. Thus, the Party can destroy any possibilities of revolutions and conspiracies against itself. Its ultimate goal is to reduce the language to only one word, eliminating thought of any kind. The Party makes people believe that it is good and right in its actions through the Ministry of Truth and through the slogans printed on the Ministry of Truth:...
Throughout the section, the main character, Winston is constantly facing conflicts. Most of these conflicts are internal. In the society Winston lives in, he is being monitored 24/7, which prevents him from doing most things freely. The first sign of conflict is shown when he takes out the diary he bought, and starts writing things he remembers. Of course he is disobeying the law, but he is taking a risk. The “Two-minute hate” is literally a time where everyone hates on the traitors for two minutes. There, Winston faces some internal conflicts; they are internal because the other characters do not know what Winston is thinking. The girl with the dark hair is introduced. She is a bad impression to Winston, and he always feels uncomfortable around her. Later in the book, she intimidates him even more because it feels like she is watching him. Another character that Winston has an internal conflict is O’Brien. It is one of the most interesting encounters because it might have involved O’Brien himself. During the Two-minute Hate, their eyes meet together and Winston suddenly thinks that ...
Firstly, O’Brien, a member of the inner party, uses technology to accomplish complete control over the public through the means of telescreens, hidden microphones and torture machines, ‘Any sound that Winston made… could be picked up by [the telescreen]. [Winston] could be seen as well as heard’. This emphasises to the reader the extent of control that the party can exercise over the public, enabling them to eliminate any potential rebels. Furthermore, this loss of freedom and individuality exterminates any real friendship, family or love forcing the public to turn to Big Brother for companionship. This in turn minimises the chance of rebellion as everyone views Big Brother as a figure of comfort and security, ‘As he seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector…’ O’Brien also uses a torture machine on Winston, ‘[He] had never loved [O’Brien] so deeply as at this moment’. This machine enables O’Brien to manipulate Winston’s views, personal opinions and even feelings. O’Brien is able to make Winston view the world as he wants him to, even to the extent of making Winston love him, his tormentor, the person inflicting the pain. ...
In the book 1984, Orwell uses the ominous Big Brother to depict what a government with all control would feel like; giving the reader a real sense of how powerless a population would really be under an all-controlling regime. Winston, the main character in the novel, sees posters throughout London with a man gazing down underneath contains the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” Even though Big Brother is virtually everywhere, Winston secretly questions whether or not he actually exists. Orwell uses Big Brother to symbolize the vagueness of a totalitarian government, what it is like to leave all power in the hands of government officials, and then just simply take their word for what they say or what they do. Although the term Big Brother can in one way be considered as a reassurance of protection, the following words “big brother is watching you” also insinuates that he is an open threat. Although this story takes place after Big Brother has risen to power, Orwell does not fail to emphasize that this power was not taken; it was given, as power always will be. The only way Big Brother, or a totalitarian government can truly work, is only after we give them the power to take that kind of control. When looking back at history, we can see similar situations as with Adolf Hitler...
George Orwell’s Famous book 1984 is about a man who struggles to live under the superintendence of Big Brother. Throughout the novel, Winston struggles with constantly being surveilled and the lack of freedom. Similarly, in our world today, there are government agencies that have the power to listen to phone calls, track people's movements, and watch them through cameras. Winston’s world of surveillance and inadequate confidentiality both privately and publicly is in many aspects much the same as in our world today and the people should demand regulations to be set in place to protect their privacy.
Imagine being watched by your own government every single second of the day with not even the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and all the above to yourself. George Orwell’s 1984 is based on a totalitarian government where the party has complete access over the citizens thoughts to the point where anything they think they can access it, and control over the citizens actions, in a sense that they cannot perform what they really want to or else Big Brother, which is the name of the government in the book 1984, will “take matters into their own hands.” No one acts the same when they are being watched, as they do when they are completely alone.
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.
Also, "Nineteen Eighty-four depicts the horrors of a well-established totalitarian regime of whatever type with great power and skill and force of imagination." (Davis). The book 1984 was written in futuristic setting to depict what a well established totalitarian government would look like. In the book, George Orwell crafted many ways of how big brother controls society and creates fear. In the book “Big Brother is watching you” (Orwell) is a common phrase that appears throughout the book. The phrase is creating fear in the society, it gives a sense that Big Brother and other party members are watching and he or she is not alone. As well keeping the people in the society in place, so he or she does not “rebel” against big brother or the party. The quote “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” (Orwell), to have freedom a person in the society has to believe that two plus two does equal four. While Big Brother and the party wants he or she to believe that two plus two equals five, the party wants the society to believe everything that they say, the party does
At first, we do not think, nor contemplate the effects that come as a result of our actions. In 1984, we get a sense of a greater authority in Big Brother. Although we never know if Big Brother actually exists, the power and authority that this idol holds over the people is unimaginable. The people of Oceania are divided into two classes, the members of the Party and the proletariat. The Party members are like machines that do the jobs of the government.
Firstly, Winston realizes the Party’s focus on trusting only Big Brother and no one else. Despite this convention, he yearns to trust others to add purpose and happiness to his life. Immediately starting the novel, it is introduced that in the Orwellian world of Oceania, Big Brother and the Party are all powerful and Party members should trust and love him. The familiar line of “Big Brother is watching you”
1984, a novel by George Orwell, represents a dystopian society in which the people of Oceania are surveilled by the government almost all the time and have no freedoms. Today, citizens of the United States and other countries are watched in a similar way. Though different technological and personal ways of keeping watch on society than 1984, today’s government is also able to monitor most aspects of the people’s life. 1984 might be a dystopian society, but today’s condition seems to be moving towards that controlling state, where the citizens are surveilled by the government at all times.
In this case, the government has to use severe actions to ensure they will never act in this way again. Winston Smith, is a minor member of the ruling Party and is aware of some of these extreme tactics. Since Winston is not completely brainwashed by the propaganda like all the other citizens, he hates Big Brother passionately. Winston is one of the only who realize that Big Brother is wiping individual identity and is forcing collective identity. He is “conscious of [his] own identity”(40-41) . Winston continues to hold onto the concept of an independent external reality by constantly referring to his own existence. Aware of being watched, Winston still writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER”(21) in his diary. Winston believes whether he writes in his diary or not, it is all the same because the Thought Police will get him either way. Orwell uses this as a foreshadow for Winston's capture later on in the novel. Fed up with the Party, Winston seeks out a man named O’Brien, who he believes is a member of the ‘Brotherhood’, a group of anti-Party rebels. When Winston is arrested for thought crime by his landlord, Mr.Charrington, who is a member of the Thought Police. Big Brother takes Winston to a dark holding cell, to use their extreme torture strategy to erase any signs of personal identity. Winston's torturer is O’Brien, the man he thought to be apart of the brotherhood. Winston asks
Ultimately, common ideas found in the novel 1984, totalitarianism, surveillance, and lack of privacy are also ubiquitous in modern society and government. Big Brother and modern day government have been able to control its citizens through surveillance equipment, and fear all for a little more power. There is much to learn from such an undesirable form of society much like the one of Oceania in 1984. Examining Big Brother government closely, alarming connections can be made to real-world government actions in the United States and the cruel world within Orwell's book.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, is a superb novel with outstanding themes. One of the most prominent themes found in this novel is psychological manipulation. Citizens in this society are subject to ever present signs declaring “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (Orwell 1). Along with psychological manipulation, physical control takes place. The Party not only controls what people in Oceania think, but what they do as well. Technology is another important theme. Without the constant telescreens, microphones, and computers, the Party would be all but powerless. Big Brother is the main figure of the Party. The main symbol that drives these themes is the telescreens. It is representative of the party always watching and controlling everyone at all times.
The government has made society today feel the need for protection. In the 1984 novel by George Orwell, the people are basically free to do what they want, but they are constantly watched by different surveillances used by big brother. Some of the surveillances used in the novel included helicopters that patrolled the area, hidden camera-like things in the TV screens called telescreens, by the thought police, and by simple posters of Big Brother's face looking at the people.