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1984 by George Orwell Development of a theme across the novel essay
1984 by George Orwell Development of a theme across the novel essay
Analyse George Orwell's 1984 work
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Winston was a normal lower class worker for the government and would go along on with his normal day. He did the mandatory exercises, he attended the two minutes of hate, and worked to the best of his ability. He always thought that there was something in him telling him that life had not always been this way before. "He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this” (Orwell). One day Winston purchased a notebook that he held onto but never wrote in. "At the time he was not conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his brief-case. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession" (Orwell). One afternoon Winston decided
that he was going to finally write in the book. He was not sure what he was going to write, if this diary would be for the present or the future. Winston drank some of the victory gin, which was to make you feel happier, and opened the book. "The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonable certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp" (Orwell). When he started to write he carefully wrote neatly about how he went along with his normal day. Then something in his mind went off and he started to quickly write. "His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it no longer the same cramped awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals- DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over again, filling half the page” (Orwell). He then realized what he had done. He opposed the thoughts of the government. "For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: theyll shoot me i dont care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother- He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen" (Orwell).