In the novel 1984, by George Orwell, the principal reason Winston comes to feel alienated, is because of the feeling of powerlessness that the government gives him. The totalitarian government, The Party or Big Brother, as referred to in this book, leaves Winston with a sense of disempowerment because they have the ability to watch over society constantly. Winston feels alienated starting the the beginning of the novel because he knows that the government is constantly watching him. Winston is standing near his telescreen--a machine similar to a TV, but used for spying on the people-- and he has a sudden pang of fear. He purposely turns his back to the telescreen and continues to realize that, "You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption …show more content…
But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated”(Orwell 36). Winston knows that the party is imposing lies onto its citizens, but he feels as if he is the only one who realizes it. Although it may not be true, Winston feels as if he is all alone in his belief that the past is composed of lies. If the government could erase the past, they could control the present, and possibly the future too. If they kept brainwashing their people, everyone would always just except that the party was right and that they were wrong. Without any clear proof of this incident, Winston is stuck with a theory, but not proof, so he cannot make anyone else believe it. This cause him to feel alienated and like no one else will ever understand him. Winston believes that if a person’s memory can be altered, than lies can trump the truth and the truth becomes just a distant memory. This is how the Party controls their people. Because of the constant feeling of desperation that the government bestowed in Winston, he became an outcast and was forced into
In “1984,” Orwell uses Winston to portray a single individual’s attempt to take action against a powerful government, culminating in his failure and subjugation. His individual efforts failed tremendously due to the overarching power of the Party to control every aspect of social life in Oceania. Orwell uses Winston’s deeply seated hatred of the Party to portray his views on power and social change. Winston’s actions show that even in the direst of situations ...
Returning to his diary, Winston then expresses his emotions against the Party, the Thought Police and Big Brother himself; he questions the unnecessary acts by the Party and continuously asserts rebellion. Winston soon realized he had committed the crime of having an individual thought, “thoughtcrime.” The chapter ends with a knock on Winston’s door. Significant Quotes “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 7). “But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew— yes, he knew!
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
Throughout the rising action, Winston recalls his memories and fails to remember a period after the revolution when Oceania has not been at war. He relives a season about four years from modern times when Oceania had been at war with Eastasia rather than Eurasia; that has been wiped from the memories of the people due to their current circumstances. Winston deviates with what the government claims has happened in the past, yet “… the Party [can] thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened, that, surely, [is] more terrifying than mere torture and death” (34). In order for the people to believe that the past as they remember it is inaccurate they must have a sense of ignorance about them. The Party favors naive members of society because it makes it much easier to change the past; therefore, increasing their strength. Furthermore, Winston has become accustomed to living in the type of environment where he pretends to trust everything the party expresses. Many characters in the novel are ignorant enough to forever be oblivious to reality; meanwhile, those possessing intelligence will inevitably catch on sooner or later. Winston has lunch with his comrade Syme when he realizes that “…Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like
The party controls every source of information, and doesn't allow people to keep records of their past, such as photographs and documents. As a result, memories become fuzzy and citizens become perfectly will to swallow anything the Party tells them. The ministry of truth where Winston works destroys old documents so BB can never be wrong. The past is constantly falsified and brought up to date. By controlling the present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can justify all its actions in the present. The party has the power to make it as if Winston never existed, so he was never going to make a difference, because no one would hear of his struggle. The ministry of truth would destroy any evidence of his existence, just as Winston himself did to comrade withers.
loss, it's to do with futility. For all he did, for all the rules he
The novel, 1984, by George Orwell, depicts a dystopian society where no freedom exists; not even the freedom of thought. The scene takes place in Oceania, a society in which the ruling power called “the Party” strictly controls everything people do: from the way they speak, to how they move, to their very own thoughts. Winston Smith, the main character of 1984, struggles through the day to day life of having to blend into the brainwashed citizens of Oceania, where monitors called telescreens record and analyze every little movement. Anyone not showing signs of loyalty and homogeneity become vaporized, or in other words, cease to exist and become deleted from history. Tired of his constricted life, Winston decides
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.
Winston finds a loophole to expressing his thoughts through writing in a journal. Since Big Brother is always watching everything that Winston does through telescreens, he cannot verbally express his feelings towards The Party without being caught. Living in a world full of mostly uniformity, Winston obviously stands out as a recalcitrant individual. Winston is fully exposed to The Party at all time, leaving him without any privacy. Winston uses his writing to express his individuality, but he does not even feel completely safe because “The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.” (15) Even when he is not expressing any opinion verbally, Winston is still in danger of being caught by the Thought Police, leading him to have a hatred and conflict with The Party because they do not allow him to express his individuality. Winston is never alone, even when he is physically alone, which diminishes his sense of any privacy. Winston’s invasion of privacy by The Party does not end with the telescreens. In Oceania, “In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between
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
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.
If one does not have the capability of controlling what they think, do, or even what they say then, according to Orwell, they cannot possibly remain “human”. However, according to Winston, staying human was possible. There were ways in which a person could refrain from falling into the clutches if the Party. In 1984 Winston says, “’They can’t get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can’t have any result whatever, you’ve beaten them’” (Orwell, pg.166). Winston is among one of the only people to believe that there is still hope for the world. He wholeheartedly believes that there is a way to beat the Party; that there is a way to survive and hold on to whatever makes someone human. In 1984 free will and free thinking were extremely hard to come by. The Party was in control of every single thing their citizens were exposed to. They controlled the past, the present, and the future. Whoever is in control of the past; what is being said of the history of the world
Winston works for 1 of the 4 government agency’s, The Ministry of Truth. In his job he re-writes old news articles so they show that The Party has always been and will be in control. By re-writing everything in print, The Party effectively changes history. The only proof of actual history is in the minds of the people who were there. Winston realizes that there is something wrong with this, yet he doesn’t know what. The re-writing of history is all he has ever known. It is most likely Winston’s job that leads him to rebel against The Party.
As such, Winston leaves the Ministry of love as a drastically changed man, forged into the image of perfection in the eyes of Big Brother. The foundation of his new personality is his ability to effortlessly commit crimes at a subconscious level. Thoughts that interfere with Party views are promptly erased from Winston’s mind. “False memories” such as when “his mother was sitting opposite of him and also laughing” (309, 308) were recollections of happiness, and thus, dangerous to Party ideologies. The ability to selectively believe which memories are true and which ones are false, using Party ideals as reference, is one of the main traits of a perfect Party member.
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.