Free Essay on George Orwell's 1984

1984

1. 1984 is one of the most powerful warnings ever made against the dangers of totalitarian society. Orwell main message was to show the exact opposite of a utopia that is the worst human society imaginable, and to convince readers to avoid any path that might lead toward such societal degradation. His secondary messages are to show how certain human emotions such love and lust cannot be surpressed no matter how many people try to. This is shown by the relationship of Winston and Julia.

2. Winston feels extraordinarily oppressed by the Party's control: he cannot think for himself or act for himself, and he must repress his sexual desires almost entirely. These feelings come out only in his dreams. The dreams of the girl are Winston suppressing his sexual desires. When he wakes up with “Shakespeare'; on his lips is a vague memory he has of a time of freedom, expression and individuality. He dreams of his mother because he believes that it one of the few “real'; memories he has left.

3. The first political philosophy that Oceania parallels is the Nazi’s and Hitler. A example of this is Winston's encounter with the Parsons children in Chapter 2 shows the Oceania influence on the family and how children are effectively converted into spies and trained to watch the actions of their parents with extreme suspicion. Orwell was inspired in his creation of the Junior Spies by an organization called Hitler Youth that thrived in Nazi Germany. This group instilled children with fanatic patriotism, causing them to serve a very similar role to Orwell's Junior Spies, including monitoring their parents for any sign of deviation of Nazi orthodoxy. The second example is the former Soviet Union and its leaders. Winston’ s job is to rewrite historical documents to match Oceania’s political ideology. This was a technique used by the former Soviet Union over a decade ago.

4. Winston is sick of the Party's rigid control over his life and world, and begins trying to rebel against the Party. But even though he wants to rebel he is a fatalist who believes he’s going to get caught and die. He longs to have he freedoms he believed people once had like freedom of speech and love. He wants to totally destroy the party and its ideas not just for himself but for everyone. Winston is contemplative and fatalistic; Julia is pragmatic and optimistic.