1984 And Individuality In 1984

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In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, the prodigious sovereignty of Big Brother eradicates any indication of humanity, as well as any qualities that shadow it. The protagonist, Winston Smith, continually seeks to rebel against Big Brother’s ideas of erasing humanity. Winston himself is an outlier within the society, consistently depicting the humanizing qualities Big Brother aims to delete, such as individuality, curiosity, and pleasurable sex. By performing the activities he enjoys as per his human nature, he is rebelling against Big Brother and their desire for a dehumanized society. The ability to be yourself humanizes and creates individuality. However, this is exactly what Big Brother does not want. Individuality can cause independent ideas, which can lead to a rebellion against the Inner Party They created a language called Newspeak, which limits what a person can say and how they can say it. In the appendix of Nineteen Eighty-four, the purpose of Newspeak is described as, “not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.” (page 301) The erasure of other modes of thought occurs when entire concepts are annihilated, such as free choice or free will. If an entire concept does not exist, then citizens cannot converse about it, nor can they even think about it. This limits the person to only one way of thought: the way Big Brother wants you to think. By making all other modes of thought impossible, Big Brother is eliminating the individuality that speech builds. Big Brother is also using Newspeak to dehumanize the population. The concept of speech is one indispensable instrument that separates the human population from animals. Having one aspect of it taken away from them moves them closer to the animal kingdom, thus eliminating a quality of human

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