The coral paperweight Winston Smith purchases at Mr. Charrington’s junk shop serves as a dominant symbol in George Orwell’s 1984. At first, the coral paperweight simply acts as a useless object but eventually comes to represent a multitude of themes, characters, and relationships. The coral paperweight primarily symbolizes Winston’s past yet comes to foreshadow his future. Winston spends most of his time dwelling on the past, specifically trying to recall how society lived before Big Brother. Mr. Charrington’s junk shop is an indulging destination for Winston because being surrounded by memorabilia helps him connect with the past in a way his mind cannot. The first relic Winston purchases from the junk shop is a diary. “He had seen it lying …show more content…
In Oceania, under the rule of Big Brother, there is no room for excessive items. “All items citizens can buy are means necessary for existence,” Peter Bornedal writes in “The Destruction of the Individual in 1984”. Over time, the coral paperweight comes to represent something far more than beauty. The coral paperweight symbolizes the past in which Winston so desperately seeks. He is mesmerized by “… the air it seemed to possess [which] belonged to an age quite different from the present one” (Orwell 105). The coral trapped inside the paperweight also represents Winston’s individuality attempting to thrive and the glass preventing it to do so represents Big Brother. More specifically, “The coral in the center of the paperweight represents rarity, and the fact that it is embedded in the glass and cannot be touched represents the problem in Winston 's life. He wants to know the past, but too many obstacles surround it, preventing him access” as explained in the Summary and Analysis of 1984” on …show more content…
He saw the paperweight as a shimmer of hope and risked his life by holding on to that belief. Winston became too comfortable in the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop and convinced himself he and Julia were just as safe as the coral was. “This sanctuary, like every other form of rebellion, [was] temporary. It is significant that [the paperweight] shatters since the Party is ultimately victorious in bringing Winston to their side,” Ricardo Aguirre writes in “Key Themes and Symbols in 1984”. Wayne Roberts concludes that, “It can be seen how the paperweight had become tied to Winston and Julia’s world”. The lovers once believed they were similar to the coral, protected by the glass, yet “Their world [was] crumbling around them as they [were] being arrested”. In an instant… Winston’s individuality was captured and suppressed, the romantic bond between Winston and Julia was ripped apart, and the hope for yesterday’s return was
In Oceania, love is cast aside and adoration for Big Brother is put in its place. Two people, Winston and Julia, developed a love for one another that is distinct from relationships in Oceania. These lovers must meet in secret and pretend that they do not know one another while they are in public. Due to their circumstances, the two experience isolation from the other citizens as a result of their strong emotions. In 1984, the glass paperweight that contains the small coral represents the fragile relationship of Winston and Julia and their forbidden love life.
In his home, Winston was able to locate an area where he was not seen by the telescreens: the alcove. Despite knowing the consequence of punishable death, Winston began to write a diary. In the midst of writing his diary, Winston
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.
He purchased a small journal from a shop and began to write in it out of view of the telescreen in his house, which allows anything in front of it to potentially be seen or heard. At first he had some difficulties as he could only manage to write jumbles of some of his memories, but then he began to write things like “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER (Orwell, page 18).” He later had an encounter with one of his fellow coworkers, O’Brien, which got him thinking that there might be others out in the world who see things the way he does, including O’Brien himself. Winston eventually decides that his diary will become a sort of letter to O’Brien, and to a future or past where things might have been different. In these diary entries he wrote things such as, “To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone…(Orwell, page 28).” This refers to how citizens think and act the same and previous events are not written as they happened, but altered to Big Brother’s benefit. He also wrote, “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death (Orwell, page 28).” This can be further explained by Winston’s previous thought, “The consequences of every act are included in the act itself (Orwell, page 28).” Winston
Winston’s and Julia’s meeting in the woods signifies breaking the totalitarian ways of the party. Here Winston feels free from observation, and gets a glimpse of the freedom that the party opposes. It is a place for lovemaking, a utter horrendous crime in their state. Here there are only Winston’s and Julia’s eyes,
it has operatives all over keeping an eye out for cops or law enforcement, this
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.
When Winston writes down the phrase “down with big brother,” he participates in ThoughtCrime. Committing ThoughtCrime requires having thoughts displaying hate or defiance towards the Party. Participating in ThoughtCrime always leads to death, so if someone had seen Winston’s journal, then he would immediately go to The Ministry of Love, a place of torture, horror, and death. Furthermore, Winston also rebels against the party by becoming lovers with Julia and secretly meeting up with her multiple times. In this society, no two people can love, show affection, or have pleasurable sex without major consequences.
This is when he first considers the possibility that he may be insane. The idea of Winston’s memory being twisted and fake can distress him. We see this when Winston dreams of his family and their death (p-31+32). Winston’s memory of his parents’ death is unclear. We see him upset and feeling a sense of guilt with the distant memories he has. Winstons experiences with the past leads to him seeking out the truth and standing up against Big Brother. This fascination to past events may of led to Winston entering the antique store and purchasing the journal. Which was a major plot point in the book as it expanded into Winston’s rebellion to Big Brother through Thought Crime, and carried on to Winstons eventual capture inside the antique store
Winston’s relationship with people changed throughout the story. With these changes there is always something or someone who is a foil for him. His diary and Julia are two examples. The foils show the reason for Winston’s thoughts and action. His relationships with people are usually dark, because he usually thinks
“The inexhaustibly interesting thing was not the fragment of coral but the interior of the glass itself…the paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.” Suggests Winston’s limited understanding of the past and his inability to reconnect with the past. The paper weight serves no particular purpose besides its beauty, which Winston was initially drawn to. The impractical paper weight is a representation of the idyllic past and foreshadows how naive Winston’s goal to overturn the government
In the 2nd part of 1984 Winston is meets a girl named Julia. At first Winston believes Julia will turn him in for committing Thought Crime. Then Julia passes Winston a note and they meet each other. The Party also does not allow association that is not goverernd. This is the start of an affair between the two, because they are not married and free love is not allowed. Winston is rebelling fully by his association with Julia. The 2nd section Winston fully rebels, he joins an underground resistance, and he believes that his life is better because The Party is no longer controlling him. At the end of this section Winston learns that he has been set-up and followed by the Thought Police the whole time. He and Julia believed that they were resisting and rebelling but had actually been entrapped by the Thought Police.
His primary one being his curiosity; as the Party essentially holds the control of the public’s knowledge, Winston repeatedly expresses his confusion and desire to know more. Which can be seen with him questioning how we truly “know that two and two make four” (7,80) and pondering “if the mind itself is controllable…what then?”(7,80). As can be seen Winston is confused by his own knowledge, especially living in a society where freethought is considered a crime. Therefore the thirst for knowledge or more so for the freedom of it is his primary motivation. His secondary motivation is his desire to reconnect with the past. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that Winston had a desire to reconnect with the past. Winston takes a risky measure by going into a prole pub to ask an elderly man who can “remember what it was like in the old days, before the Revolution”(8,89) for his memories. Through taking a risky action, Winston demonstrates his desperation for the past, part of this is likely rooted for his thirst for knowledge as well. Winston also has an affinity for old objects such as the paper weight or the diary he bought; which is his biggest crime of all. Lastly his third motivation was the want for individualism. Although this is not something Winston continually expresses his desires about; it is visible with his actions. For example the purchase of the diary; a place to document his inner thoughts.
In conclusion as time passed in the story Winston change. Winston became brave, careless, and he started to act rather than talk. Most of these changes are because of Julia, Winston’s foil. Julia sparked the change in Winston he never expected, knew how to control, or handle. Winston’s change came mostly because it was what he wanted. The changes he went through help but also hindered him. However, Winston’s change was good for Oceania. The people of Oceania finally had someone who cared and wanted to fight for them but Winston’s careless actions he got caught.
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.