There are many different opinions on the matter of utopia and dystopia used in novels by multiple authors. Many novelists have used the idea of a perfect world as the main theme of a novel. In specific, the novel 1984, the author gets very close to creating a near perfect society, otherwise known as a utopia. A utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. George Orwell, the author of 1984, used this idea of a perfect world to develop the plot and his characters. Although not only did he use the theme of utopia, but also dystopia. A dystopia is an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. Orwell used the aspects of both of these …show more content…
The character development is based off the fact that life in Oceania is supposed to be perfect in the eyes of the Party, but Winston himself disagrees. This disagreement contributes to the dystopian factor used in the novel. In the beginning of the story, Winston depicts the dystopian aspect of Oceania through his disagreements with the Party, “Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies” (Orwell 14). Winston’s hatred towards the Party shows a lot about both his character and the dystopian atmosphere demonstrated towards the beginning of the novel. Winston believed that the Party was, in actuality, horrid and it was something he wanted gone. Since Winston, and companions of Winston, believed this way, it shows that Oceania was not united. Not everyone trusted the Party, this including Winston. Winston was very definate against the Party showing an actual threat, “Yet the one aspect of Winston’s world that challenges both the stifling of historical debate, the erasure of the written record of the past, and the inability to communicate across class and generational boundaries, is the material fabric of the city” (Phillips 3) Winston’s character helped provide the dystopia to Oceania. He shows how independent and open-minded he is through his hatred of Big Brother and the Party in general. Although, as the novel progresses his feelings change. The utopian lifestyle starts to influence how he feels about Big Brother and the Party. He starts to give into the biased point of view along with all the other people of Oceania. In the end, Winston feels he loves Big Brother, “Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of
Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who participates in a group of the “outer-party,” which is the lower part of the two classes. Smith works in one of the four main government buildings. This building is called the Ministry of Truth; his job is to rewrite history books so those that read them will not learn what the past used to be like. The occupation Winston is the major factor that allows him to realize that Big Brother is limiting people’s freedom. He keeps these thoughts to himself as secrets because the totalitarian party will not allow those of rebellious thoughts around. The tensions between the two grow throughout the book because the Big Brother becomes very suspicious of Winston. The Big Brother becomes so suspicious of Winston that he sends a person by the name O’Brien, to watch over him. Mr. O’Brien is a member of the “inner party,” which in this book is the upper-class. Winston doesn't know of the trap that Big Brother had set tells O’Brien of his own idea and plans. He tells Winston of a rebellious leader that has been rounding up those that want to go against the totalitarian government. But like the Big Brother had done, he set a trap and O’Brien betrayed Winston. During the story the conflict between Big Brother and Winston climaxes when Winston is caught. He is taken to some sort of bright underground prison type
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.
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.
Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984 is a creative thinker who starts off behaving like a common man, but in the end, he ends up rebelling against the ruling Party. Throughout the book, Winston revealed that he is an intelligent individual with interest in literature, he loses his fear in the Party over time, and is unable to control his emotions.
In London, There is a party also known as “The Party” in the book. Winston is a low ranking member of the ruling party which is in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes the party watches him. Can you imagine what its like to have everyone watching you? Trained kids, coworkers, neighbors? You can never have any privacy or be to yourself. Everywhere he looks he sees the face of the knowledgeable leader known to everyone as Big Brother. The Thought Police have telescreens in every household and public area to watch your every move, also they have hidden microphones and spies. The Party controls everything in Oceania even the peoples language and history. They implicated, forced and invented there own language called Newspeak. Which attempts to prevent rebellion against the politics and the government. It ties into why they control everything...
Throughout the novel, Winston’s humanity starts to immerge and the basic human instincts of desiring love and relationships start to surface. He has distant memories of his mother and ‘knew [that] in his dream[s] that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed for his own.' (p35) These vague memories serve to demonstrate what a traditional family used to be like and just how distorted the concept of family has become in Oceania. Through the Party’s need to control the past, present and the future, the current memories that Winston holds are distorted. The memory holes placed throughout Oceania forbid members to keep written records of their lives and mandates that any photographs or documents are to be destroyed. 'His mother's memory tor at his heart' (p35) as he could only think of what hardship he brought upon her. The imagery of water which is associated with Winston’s memories and dreams about his family alludes to these memories being hard to grasp leading him to be unsure whether they are real or not. The party asserts their control by distorting his memories of his family to make him focus on the party. To the members of Oceania, the party is your family, Big Brother is your brother. The Party redirects his human need for love and family to sole commitment and unquestioning love to the
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
The conflict between Winston and Big Brother starts from the beginning of the novel when Winston begins to keep his secret diary about Big Brother. Winston Smith is a third-nine years old man who is a member of the 'outer-party'--the lower of the two classes. Winston works for the government in one of the four main government buildings called the ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history books in order for people not to learn what the past used to be like. Winston's occupation is the major factor which lets him to realize that Big Brother is restricting people's freedom. However, Winston keeps his complains about Big Brother and the party for his own secret because the party will not allow anyone keeping a rebellious thought. The tension between them gets serious when Big Brother becomes suspicious of Winston. Winston is therefore watched by O'Brien, an intelligent execute at the 'Ministry of Truth', who is a member of the 'inner party'--the upper class. Without doubting Big Brother's trap, Winston shares his ideas with O'Brien. O'Brien mentions a gentleman named Emmanuel Goldstein whom he claims to know the leader of the rebels against the party. O'Brien also promises to help winston, and promises him a copy of Goldstein's book. But O'Brien betrays him as Big Brother has planned.
A Utopian society is a society in which everything is perfect, everyone is happy with who they are and their lifestyles. The society in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is set up by the world controllers to be a utopian society. However, the society itself is the opposite of a utopian society: dystopian society. Even though everything seems to be perfect for everyone, the hidden truth reveals a different reality, lifestyle. The society of Brave new world is a dystopian society as exhibited by the shortage of freedom, reality and identity.
What is a utopia? Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary defines _utopia_ as "an imaginary and indefinitely remote place; a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, gov-ernment, and social conditions; *an impractical scheme for social improvement."* In _Brave New World_ Aldous Huxley creates a _dystopia_ (which Webster defines as "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives") by predicting a pos-sible _utopia_ after many generations. Aldous Huxley analyzes how the utopia degenerated from its original intent into a terrible dystopia. In this essay I will discuss some aspects of this dystopia and relate to Aldous Huxley's dystopian vision.
Literature is a mirror of life. In order to reflect their views on the problems in society, many authors of fiction, including Sir Thomas More of Utopia and George Orwell of Nineteen Eighty-Four, use parallels in character, setting, government, and society to link their works to the real world.
The people of Oceania are divided into two classes, the members of the Party and the proletariat. The Party members are like machines that do the jobs of the government. In this world, never has anyone thought any different of his or her place in society. Due to this authority that attempts to control the human train of thought, paranoia among the people became common. Nobody would talk to each other. Bonds between one another were broken, and it was never thought to be any different than before. To hold on to what makes you human - emotions and the ability to speak freely - was considered a crime against Big Brother. Of course, with authority comes punishment. To break from traditional views essentially asks for some form of retribution. For Winston, this resulted
Human sacrifice killings is a horrific but devastatingly true reality for some that come too close to the jaws of the Matamoros cult. People usually think of a utopia as an amusement park or just an amazing dream. The dictionary version is often defined as “any visionary system of political or social perfection” (“Utopia”). A dystopia is quite the opposite though. Think of your worst nightmare and that is exactly what a dystopia is. The professional definition is “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding” (“Dystopia”). As it goes in 1984, the whole book is based on a dystopian society. Citizens have horrible lives which leave them dehumanized by the central government. They are also being under
Utopia Vs. Dystopia Each person has their own vision of utopia. Utopia is an ideal state, a paradise, a land of enchantment. It has been a central part of the history of ideas in Western Civilization. Philosophers and writers continue to imagine and conceive plans for an ideal state, even today.
He implies that the records of his childhood are gone and all he has left is fond memories. The line between dreams and memories starts to become unclear and Winston is left dreaming about his past, this leaves him in a position of negligence against the Thought Police. Winston is becoming more and more unstable from the Party’s viewpoint. Into the next chapter Winston has been given the task of changing records to fit the Party’s ideology. Winston shows yet another case of independent autonomy as he is reflecting upon his actions while working for The Ministry of Truth.