Examples Of Oppression In 1984 By George Orwell

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, a man by the name of Winston Smith lives in a totalitarian government that exploits its citizens via the censorship of both spoken language and mental thought. From even the title of novel, Orwell makes sure to depict the possibility of oppression. In order to consolidate his claim of the horror of such a society, he purposefully reveals how the political rebels who do not conform in the novel are mistreated. From members of the Party, the political faction that keeps Orwell’s fictional land of Oceania, subconsciously naysaying Big Brother, the idolized and revered leader of the Party, to the strict control of the citizens’ freedoms, Orwell purposefully shows members of Oceania, specifically those who

are political rebels, as weaker in order to establish the dominance of the Party and the threat of a totalitarian government.
Winston Smith is immediately established as an ordinary man, following the lead of the Party. He listens to the telescreens, that are all modified so that he is always being watched and heard, and obeys what they say to do. One day, he seizes his journal to repeatedly write “Down with Big Brother” (Orwell, 18). Immediately, he is able to recognize that he had disobeyed the Party and that he is now a political rebel. This is only further exacerbated when he begins to talk with Julia and even sneaking away with her, something strictly forbidden by the Party. On one of these outings, however, he is seized by the Thought Police, the patrol for the Party that find those who have even only thought about betraying the Party. Winston, who was at first described as very weak with “a smallish, frail figure” (Orwell, 2), undergoes torture from the government. Purely physically, Orwell takes Winston from a mouse-esque figure to something much worse. Winston goes as far as to describe himself after the torture as looking like a “bowed, gray-colored, skeletonlike thing…” (Orwell, 273). Going so far as to call himself a “creature,” the extreme physical alteration from a weak man to not even seeing himself as human, Winston is a prime example of how damaged the political rebels are in the society. This shows Orwell’s warning in the dangers of a totalitarian state.
However, Orwell hints at the lack of freedom using examples besides purely physical signs.

Julia is a prime example as to how she is denied her own femininity. As a more experienced political rebel than Winston, Julia longs to express how she feels as a woman. On one outing in which she hides away with Winston, unsuspecting of the fact that they were being secretly monitored, she spritzes herself with perfume and applies makeup. There is a lack of skill, clearly evident by her face, which further emphasizes that for most of her life, she was denied having such things that are traditionally viewed to be ways that women express themselves. The censorship of her femininity shows the bondage of those being oppressed by the Party. Despite the fact that Julia claims she will do her best to find a real dress in order to become a true woman, she never receives the chance. She is captured by the Thought Police along with Winston before she is able to do

so.
Not only does she become captured, but after she is taken by the Thought Police, her femininity is stripped away from her. After being separated from Winston, she is less than excited to meet with him after the ordeal. Julia greets Winston with a large scar on her face. However, there were also much more drastic changes to her physical state, something that Orwell emphasizes in order to fully emphasize the oppression that the rebels face. Her “waist had grown thicker and, in a surprising way, had stiffened” (Orwell, 291). He goes on to compare her to a corpse he once had to drag. The stiffness that is very evident to Winston is an example of how Julia is much less of the woman she had previously aspired to be, now more resembling a corpse than anything. This lack of humanity in her character at the end further exemplifies Orwell’s harsh depictions of what happens to those who reject the Party’s political beliefs.
A final example is the motley of characters that find themselves with Winston in prison.

Most noticeably, Parsons, Winston’s old neighbor, who had been a relatively faithful member of the Party. One night, he had subconsciously whispered that Big Brother needed to be overthrown, and had then been reported by his watchful daughter, mesmerized by Big Brother and indoctrinated by an early age. When Winston first sees Parsons with him in the jail cell, Parsons is blubbering and making quick, jerky motions. He then abruptly had “plumped his large posterior onto the lavatory pan” (Orwell, 234). Such almost inhumane characterizations of a man who had subconsciously wished ill of the Party are meant to provoke a sympathetic feeling from the reader. The other members of the cell are shown to be forbidden from sharing, and being forced to have an emaciated man continue to starve. When one man offers his bread to the skeletal man, the police tell the man to drop the bread, ironically deciding to inflict punishment onto the thin man

instead.
The restriction and punishment received by such political rebels in the novel 1984 were included by Orwell in order to hone in the idea that a totalitarian state does not allow anyone to deviate from their standards and expectations. From almost extreme physical alterations and changes to the strict regulation of what we would now deem as innate rights, Orwell shows how the rebels are weak, and unable to stand up to their oppressors. With this hounding image, the reader is inevitably left with some impression that such a government, the people are severely limited and have bound hands, unable to act out despite the injustice of the government’s own actions.