In this passage from George Orwell’s novel 1984, the main character Winston, abandons his normal structured and organized routine to wander mindlessly through the streets of London. He ends up in the slums and through sensory imagery and listing, Orwell contrasts the community and culture of the Party which Winston lives in versus the proles’ which he encounters on his walk. The use of word choice and listing, emphasizes the Party members’ very structured and monitored lifestyle which focus on communal activity over individualism and solitary. Winston deciding to take a walk instead of attending the evening event at the Community Center, but has anxiety about his choice acknowledging that it is “a rash act” since this “was the second in …show more content…
The Party members’ activities are all closely monitored and they are suppose to have “no spare time” and never be “alone except in bed”. They have a very structured and communal focused days as “when he was not working, eating, or sleeping he would be taking part in some kind of communal recreations”. To choose to take a walk by oneself instead of join in the community activities is “slightly dangerous”; such an action in Newspeak is “ownlife” meaning “individualism and eccentricity”. Despite the risk, Winston is tempted by the beautiful spring day which is much more inviting than “the boring, exhausting games, the lectures, the creaking camaraderie oiled by gin”. The listing of activities emphasizes that they are mundane and tedious, rather than enjoyable. Once Winston is away from the structured society of the Party he “wandered off into the …show more content…
Winston has a belief that the only hope “lies in the proles” however this statement is “a mystical truth and a palpable absurdity” which is further emphasized by his walk through their community. There is strong visual imagery used to emphasize the dilapidated state of the proles housing. “The vague, brown-colored slums” surround what “had once been Saint Pancras Stationary” indicating that the conditions of the area have become much more unpleasant they had been. The street is lined with “little two-story house with battered doorways”, there were puddles of filthy water” on the street, and “a quarter of the windows in the street were broken and boarded up”. The use of visual imagery emphasizes the poverty and shabbiness of the living conditions. The doors to the houses are compared to “rat holes”, the “people swarmed”, women “waddled”, and “old bent creatures shuffling”; the use of animal like movements and comparisons, dehumanize the proles. As people move from doorways to alleyways they are described as “girls in full bloom, with crudely lipsticked mouths, and youths who chased the girls, and swollen waddling women [...], and old bent creatures shuffling [...], and ragged barefoot children who played in puddles”. Through the use of listing of the description of the proles, there is no sense of beauty. The strong use of
Diction: While George Orwell used fairly simple and uncomplicated diction to tell the story many of his words still have a very powerful diction. In the first chapter the protagonist Winston is attack by the smell of “boiled cabbage and old rag mats”. This is the first indication to the nature of the living conditions of our protagonist. However, Orwell also uses his diction to create the atmosphere of Oceania with lines like “the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything”. These lines contain powerful words like cold, torn, and harsh and these worlds help paint the picture of what kind of story we are reading.
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.
George Orwell once offered this definition of heroism: ordinary people doing whatever they can to change social systems that do not respect human decency, even with the knowledge that they can’t possibly succeed.
Through out the course of history there have been several events that have been a pivotal point which has molded the behaviors and thoughts of this century. A lot of notable activist and authors wrote stories and speeches about how they believed that this day and time would be like. A lot of these views were very accurate surprisingly. In the novel 1984 author George Orwell gives his vision on how he believed that the countries would be like if they kept going the way they were.This report will give you a brief rundown of the characters, theories and principles of this novel along with some of my personal insight of the novel.
Human beings are renowned for both their benevolent and malevolent qualities. However, when it comes to a human being and their self, it is a different story. It varies among individuals, some of them are exceptionally confident with themselves whereas others suffer from low-esteem. The way a person perceives themselves determines how they apply their personal beliefs. However, in many cases, when a person is presented with a dilemma, they will often try not to adapt to a situation and attempt to keep their character. Even when going through intense pressure, individuals will attempt keep their personalities in order stay true to themselves. George Orwell, a prominent English literary
Noah Miller English Honors: D Ms. Hiller 13 December 2013 1984 Major Essay Assignment. Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. When put into a collective whole, one might do for the whole more than one does for oneself.
Society Dies When Individuality Dies. Conformity plagues one’s existence and stature in today’s society. Due to government intervention in citizens’ daily lives, many writers have questioned the morality of conformity in a society by the means of control. When control becomes rampant, fascist and totalitarian governments are formed, and because of the rise in fascism and totalitarianism, many people are led to conform to social ideals. Therefore, George Orwell critiques conformity within society through the use of Big Brother, Proles, and Winston.
An important motif that emerges in the first three chapters of 1984 is that of urban decay. Under the supposedly benign guidance of the Party, London has fallen apart. Winston's world is a nasty,
On this note, Nicol uses biometrics as a symbol similar to Orwell’s ‘telescreens’ to show how ‘lesser beings’ are kept away from powerful positions. Orwell’s Inner Party is recognisably similar to the police force, scientists, and employees at the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation as these groups have excessive influence and power over the lower classes. While the inferior groups are clearly the ‘faith-births’ from Gattaca and in 1984, the ‘Outer Party’ and ‘Proles’ who are all mutually characterised to be underprivileged and powerless. Nonetheless, the protagonist of 1984, Winston says these ‘animal like people’ are the real ‘human beings’. Nonetheless, Orwell and Nickel show that the constant oppression only adds to the characterisation of the general population who become dehumanised by unjust societies.
Orwell’s novel begins with a horrid description of the living conditions of his main character, Winston. He explains that the “hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats” (Orwell 19) which immediately strikes the senses and repulses the reader. Upon deeper examination, this portion of the story is intended to generate feelings of distaste in the reader in order to get them pondering why Winston is in this situation rather than improving his conditions. As the reader continues on in the novel, they find that Winston has no option to better the environment he lives in and the strict government he is controlled by is to blame. Winston’s deteriorating home is only one example of the degeneration of his surroundings. His home city of London is decaying with “crazy garden walls sagging in all directions” (Orwell 23) and “rotting nineteenth-century houses” (Orwell 23). An article analyzing 1984 by Sean Lynch better describes Winston’s view of London as “dark and isolating”. This devastated city creates a mind-numbing sensation in its population because there is no one that finds beauty in where they live or even a trace of...
The word emotion is recognized in today’s society as a natural, instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. With this perception in mind, one can hypothesize that living in unsustainable, corrupted conditions can be the result of man feeling desensitized and unattached from society. Likewise, if a man were to live in a utopia, his emotions would reflect that of happiness, contention, and a sense of belonging. Winston, the main character in Orwell’s 1984 is a prime example of what control and isolation can do to the human mind. Him, as well as the masses of Oceania share monotony in not feeling raw emotion; their mental states of being are controlled and altered by a totalitarian, power driven
Personal identity in first world countries is often taken for granted. We have the ability to act however we please or be whatever we want without any real limitations. In George Orwell's, “1984”, identity is not taken for granted because personal identity does not exist. Orwell illustrates a vision of life where a totalitarian government eradicates individual identity. Winston Smith, the narrator of the novel, lives in a dystopian society where he and every other citizen struggle to maintain their own personal identity. The author suggests that individuals may struggle to maintain personal identity in a totalitarian government due to the lack of diversity this is because identity can only exist if the environment allows it to. Although if
"For every text a context" and only through referral to the non-literary world can we understand the motivation behind the literary. In a time of Nazism, Stalin and Civil War in Europe, Orwell's disillusionment towards politics and society rapidly increased and his ideas and criticisms were published in various essays regarding politics and literary traditions. When he became unwell towards the end of his life, he wrote 1984 as an expression of both his own views and as a parallel to Zamyatin's We, a novel concerned with Russian communism and portraying a very similar storyline. He "characterised the ordinary man as a victim." ; he viewed humanity as whole to be inside Jonah's whale, to "feel no impulse to alter or control the process that [they are] undergoing." This passivity of existence was the chief example from which he was able to draw the lack of individualism and the virtual extinction of it in his literary land of Oceania.
George Orwell uses Winston to represent truth in a deceptive world in his novel 1984. In Oceania, Big Brother is the omnipotent and all powerful leader. Everything the government dictates is unquestionably true, regardless of prior knowledge. Even thinking of ideas that go against Big Brother’s regime, or thoughtcrime, is punishable by death. Winston serves as the dystopian hero, longing for freedom and change. Orwell uses Winston to emphasize the importance of individual freedoms, as they give us the ability to fulfillingly lead our respective lives.
The setting is important to the overall novel studied because it helps highlight major themes in the novel, it further characterizes the motivations of the characters, and helps explain the overall message of the novel. In 1984 by George Orwell, the overall setting of the novel is in London, which is called Airship 1 in Oceania.