Success in George Orwell's 1984

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Success is the main object of desire for many people in the world of today. In George Orwell's 1984, the author provides a speculative view to the future and brilliantly describes what would happen if ultimate success was attainable. George Orwell describes success in three extremes: those who succeed ultimately, those who fail miserably, and those who are neither capable of succeeding nor failing. In 1984, the success of the individual is forbidden, while the success of the Inner Party is ultimate.

The Inner Party resembled a group of aristocrats. They ruled the country and all the people in it. They made up a figurehead for themselves, Big Brother, who was almost like a god. Everyone worshiped him because they made it look like he was the one who did everything that was good. The members of the Inner Party had complete and undoubted success because they achieved and maintained their goal, which was to become the most powerful people in the country and stay that way. They did many things to achieve this, including creating an imaginary evil force, known as the Brotherhood, which planned to overthrow them. They used this “Brotherhood'; to blame all the bad things on and make Big Brother (and through him, themselves) look good by fighting against this “evil force';. The Inner Party was not happy with only physical obedience, they wanted complete obedience, including the human mind. They didn’t want people to think for themselves, because then they might plot to overthrow the Inner Party. They controlled the general populations’ minds by involving them in many verbal demonstrations, such as hate week, which downplayed the Brotherhood and made Big Brother look good. They also had telescreens in every building that allowed them to spy on the people and make sure that they didn’t do anything that might be harmful to their control. When they found someone who was a traitor, and wanted to disobey or overthrow Big Brother, they didn’t just punish them, they converted them:

We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul.

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