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Government controlled
Character development recitatif
An essay on character development
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Orwell displays human tendencies of initial compliance throughout his novel as the reader discovers early on within the novel that the protagonist, Winston, internally rejects the culture and societal expectations forced upon him. Winston concludes that “Orthodoxy means not thinking”, leading the reader to expect his actions to align with his way of thought. However, within the story’s exposition the protagonist’s actions show little to no indication of his true thoughts regarding The Party. Winston’s justification for the contrast between thought and action was that “…to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction” despite however adamantly one may have been opposed to whatever was taking place (Orwell …show more content…
Within the story’s exposition, the reader learns that Winston had always “felt deeply drawn to [O’Brien]” out of sheer “hope that O’Brien’s political orthodoxy was not perfect” (Orwell 12). Winston received no tangible evidence of O’Brien being an unorthodox member of The Party, yet Winston groundlessly felt as though O’Brien could be trusted based solely on his own desires for validation in his own unconventional behavior. On the other hand is Winston’s ingrained response to detest Julia due to her sex and age. Orwell establishes Winston as a misogynist as he “…disliked nearly all women…” and further strengthens this notion through Winston’s immediate aversion to Julia “…from the very first moment of seeing her” (Orwell 11). Despite acknowledging the underlying vindication for his misogynistic behavior toward Julia being because he was barred from becoming intimate with her, Winston’s immediate attitude of distaste toward her proved false as the two become affectionate toward one another. As a result, Winston’s first impression of Julia was confirmed to be mistaken and irrational; Combined with his unsound predilection for O’Brien, Winston displays animalistic traits on a personal level within The
Winston expresses his feelings towards Julia in such an extraordinary way, “He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows.”(Orwell 15). When he is expressing these thoughts, he is actually talking about someone he was actrate to, Winston just had no way of expressing it besides anger. He sees this beautiful young girl, who has made this vow its remain pure and chaste and he just wants to kill her because of how frustrated about it. Although late in the book, who these same two people are alone in a place without worry, everything is different, for example “You are prepared, the two of you to separate and never see one another again. ‘No!’ broke in Julia….’No,’ he said finally.” (Orwell 173) This second moment gives us a definite second opinion about how he may actually feel towards Julia. When they are both in a safe place, and can freely state and do they things they wish to do, Winston does show that he cares for Julia, enough that he does not want to leave her. I believe that these two different feelings show us that even with the body trying to control how people feel, what they do, along with what they think they never get to have complete control of
George Orwell has created two main characters that have conflicting traits: believe in the idea of love in a world where it is forbidden. Although both are secret rebels of the Party and share the same hatred for the Party’s totalitarian power, Julia and Winston display a remarkable number of differences between each other. The differences between them include their morality, their motivation towards the rebellion, and their personalities. Julia represents elements of humanity that Winston does not: survival, instincts, pure sexuality and cunning (1984 By George Orwell Character Analysis Julia). Her actions show the lack of an emotional connection to anyone, even Winston.
loss, it's to do with futility. For all he did, for all the rules he
According to the government of Oceania, most acts Winston engages in represent signs of rebellion. For example, within the first few pages of the novel, Winston wrote down the words “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” several times in his journal (Orwell 16). “Big Brother” stands as the leader of the Party who supposedly watches over everybody. 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 someone had seen Winston’s journal, then he would immediately go 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. Winston breaks both of these rules with Julia because he loves destroying the “pureness”and “virtue” of the Party. He strives for corruption, and says he will do “anything to rot, weaken, [and] to undermine” the Party (Orwell 111). He enjoys “the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire,” and thinks the force of desire he feels will “tear the Party to pieces” (Orwell 111). Due to his beliefs, he repeats his actions over and
Winston is confronted with struggle throughout the entirety of George Orwell`s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Living within a totalitarian regime subsequently causes Winston to seek approaches for dealing with such abundant oppression; he finds liberation through self-awareness, understanding and ultimately rebellion. First, Winston realizes that “if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself”, alluding to the notion of thoughtcrime (162). This recognition exemplifies the complete cognizance that Winston has regarding the oppressive society displayed throughout the novel. Next, Syme states “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words”, alluding to the idea of Newspeak (28). This statement directly correlates to Winston speaking with other party members to gain knowledge about how others feels about policies deployed by the government. This information-seeking also connects with Winston`s rebellion, as he actively searched for others to join his uprising, which is shown when Winston tells O’Brien “We want to join [The Brotherhood]” (171). Winston’s attempt to join a rebellious organization exhibits his evident desire to release his suppressed emotions. Winston devises a very methodical approach to deal with the problematic society he resides in.
Once being proposed anything having to do with rebellion, Winston obviously would jump at any opportunity. The Party has banned any form of love, with the exception of love for Big Brother. Winston is handed a note that says ‘I love you.’ from a girl named Julia, who is also a rebel. This gesture led to a long standing relationship between the two, which is obviously banned by The Party. Winston felt love for Julia when he saw “something in your face...As soon as I saw you I knew you were against them.” (128) Winston sees Julia’s opposition to The Party as attractive, which leads him to see ‘something’ in her face, which is his love for her. Winston has a love for Julia, but since his feelings are banned, he now has another reason to hate The Party, being that they do not allow him to express his love for Julia. The love that Winston feels for Julia is unconditional, which is proven in The Ministry of Love when O’Brien asks, “‘Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?’ Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O’Brien. ‘I have not betrayed Julia’ he said.” (273) Even when Winston is in the worst possible situation, his love for Julia and his loyalty towards her does not go unaccounted for at the time that he said that he had not betrayed her. Winston had not put himself before
Throughout the passage, Orwell displays the fear of being judged through the character O’Brian. When Winston makes eye contact with O’Brian, “O’Brian seemed to be saying […] ‘I am on your side!’” (Orwell paragraph 8) and then his face became “inscrutable as everybody else’s.” (Orwell paragraph 8). This shows that although O’Brian had a different opinion just like Winston he changed his facial expression quickly to fit in with the rest. He felt that if he had said done something against the protesters, he would be attacked. This happens a lot in society, people hide their emotions because they do not know how others will react to their opinion.
Winston’s change and expressions were miniscule resistance towards the whole society, but it still provides an example of an individual who chooses not to conform to society standards. Orwell expresses how even with a miniscule resistance towards conformity, we cannot get rid of it without the help of an entire society.
George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 follows the psychological journey of main character Winston. Winston lives in a utopian society called Oceania. There, the citizens are constantly monitored by their government coined “Big Brother” or “The Party”. In Oceania, there is no form of individuality or privacy. Citizens are also coerced to believe everything and anything the government tells them, even if it contradicts reality and memory. The goal of Big Brother is to destroy individual loyalties and make its citizenry only loyal to the government. In Orwell's novel 1984, he uses Winston's psychological journey to stress the dangers of individuality in a totalitarian regime because it can result in death. Winston’s overwhelming desire to rebel
Both are taken into custody and tortured and beaten so that they can be rebuilt to obey the Party and to sell out each other. Winston takes many days of torture and pain before he is put into room 101 where he is encountered with his worst fear,which is rats. Winston the breaks down and yells, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me” (Orwell 286). The only thing that kept Winston going was the fact that he hadn’t yet betrayed Julia, and he felt determined to never betray her. With Julia, O’Brien told Winston that she gave him away almost instantly. She was all about saving herself,and did not care about what could happen to Winston now that they were caught and their relationship would not continue.
To start off, Orwell's sole inclusion of women who base their relationships with men exclusively on sex demonstrates Orwell's negative beliefs about women. Despite Julia's claims to love Winston, their relationship is not about “the love of one person, but the animal instinct”(132). Julia has been in similar relationships to her and Winston's “hundreds of times”(131), relationships that look only at the sexual side and never at the emotional. She refuses all of Winston's attempts to expand their relationship, having “a disconcerting habit of falling asleep”(163) whenever he persists in talking. And although Winston cares for Julia more than he cares for Katharine, Katharine also bases her relationship with Winston completely on sex. When Winston reflects on their time together, he thinks, “he could have borne living with her if it had been agreed that they remain celibate... It ...
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.
Orwell's 1984, Winston is aware that his rebellious thoughts and actions will ultimately bring upon his
At the end of the novel, Orwell describes Winston as a cured patient who has over come his metal disease. “He had won the victory over himself: he loved Big Brother” (Part 3, Chapter 6). Both Freud and Orwell break down the components of a person’s mind in the same way. Orwell’s character, Winston, depicts the different parts of the human mind so described by Freud. In Orwell’s 1984, he uncovers the same components of a human mind as seen by Freud, the instinctual drive of the id, the perceptions and actions of the ego, and the censorship imposed by the morality of the superego.
In 1984, George Orwell recognizes the power of sexuality within the individual. Orwell illustrates sexuality as an expression of personal freedom. Winston’s sexuality is his way of escaping the oppressive routine that The Inner Party imposes on him. In addition, The Inner Party recognizes the power of sexuality and actively tries to institutionalize sexual values in the population to inhibit their individual expression the Anti-Sex League. Furthermore, Julia actively denounces the Anti-Sex League, acting against the party by expressing her sexuality and fight a personal, ideological rebellion. Consequently, O’Brien recognizes the power of Winston’s sexual attraction, and forces the abandonment of Winston’s sexuality to finally break his will.