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Analysis of 1984 by George Orwell
George orwell 1984 literary analysis essay
George Orwell, 1984, Critical Essays
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Recommended: Analysis of 1984 by George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty Four, written by author George Orwell, is a novel set in London during the 1940s, starring main character Winston Smith, a very low- ranking member of The Party. The Party, ruled by Big Brother, controls everything about the people of Oceania, including their thoughts, language, etc. The Party for the most part forbids making love with other people, but Winston Smith falls in love with a girl named Julia, and does not care what The Party thinks. Julia teaches Winston what love is, and Winston realizes, indeed, he loves her. However, that loves vanishes when Winston is put in Room 101. Winston Smith is not an admirable character, because he falls under the spell of The Party, and betrays the love of his life, Julia. …show more content…
Winston continues to not cooperate, to go through all this excruciating pain; all for the Julia, who he will never be able to love again. Fear strikes Winston in Room 101 though. Room 101 knows the biggest fears of the whole population and is not the place anyone wants to go. Winston is sent here and has no idea what to expect, but he does know this is the last place he wants to go in this moment. The worst thing in the world to Winston are rats. Using flashback, O’Brien begins to explain a dream Winston has; O’Brien says, “Do you remember… the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall” (Orwell 284). Rats could not seriously cause the betrayal of Winston's lover, or could they? The cage, only a foot away from Winston's face, is a push of a button away until they claw Winston away. Would Winston risk his own life for someone he can never love like he did before again? “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!” (Orwell 286). Love turns to separation, not cooperating turns to punishment, and fear turns
Julia instructs Winston how to return to London. The two arranged meetings where and when they would meet again. Julia reveals that she is not interested in the revolt. Although, she is a personal rebel. Winston reveals information to Julia about his wife Katherine which he decided weather to not killer her or not. Winston returned to Mr. Charrington’s offer: he had rented the room above his shop in order to spend some private time with Julia. Winston reveals his fear of rats.
Winston is arrested and taken to The Ministry of Love, another of the main government agencies. Here he is tortured physically by starvation and electrocution under the watch of The Party. He is manipulated physiologically by being conditioned to avoid torture by answering questions about his loyalty to The Party.
In the beginning of the book, Winston has some fear of the party. Throughout the book, he commits numerous crimes ranging from committing thought crime, purchasing a diary and writing in it away from the view of the telescreen, sneaking away to meet Julia, reading Goldstein’s book, and even going to O’Brien’s house. All of these are against the law which shows Winston’s lack of fear for the Party. One way Winston shows that he has very little fear for the Party is when he gets a day off from work just to go see his love, Julia, which is shown in the quote: “Finally both of them managed to secure a free afternoon on the same
1984 is a dystopian novel set inn Airstrip One, which used to be Britian. Oceania is always at war with another superpower, and their main goal is to achieve the most power throughout their world. The main character is Winston Smith, a man who works for the party and is supposed to change history to match what the party has told him. Winston lives in a society where he is constantly listened to and watched by telescreens and microphones to make sure he is enthusiastic about hate, and to make sure he doesn’t commit any crimes. Everywhere Winston goes he always sees posters that say, “Big Brother is Watching You.” Big Brother is the party leader that may or may not be real. The official language of Oceania, the country where Airstrip one is located, is Newspeak. Newspeak is the only language in Oceania that lessens it’s words each year so that it is harder for people to commit thoughtcrime. Winston is a dedicated worker, but often thinks about rebellion against Big Brother. Winston idolizes a man named O'Brien that he thinks is part of the Brotherhood, a terrorist group who constantly sabotages the party. Winston begins to like a woman named Juli...
She presents herself as a passionate Party follower, but underneath the surface she embodies the spirit of a bird; her desires are to be free and enjoy life. Winston is the complete opposite; he is consciously determined to differentiate fact and fiction .This is shown when Winston learns about Julia’s sexual history.
Tired of his constricted life, Winston decides to take part in rebellious acts against the Party and attempts to overthrow the government that rules over him. As one could imagine, Winston’s personality does not conform to the rest of the population, because he possesses original characteristics that make him different. 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 for the leader of the Party who supposedly watches over everybody.
As expected, the Party captures the couple and both are tortured by the Party in attempt to change their negative connotation surrounding Big Brother. Winston immediately confesses his crimes, although he still clings on to the hope and trust he has in his love for Julia which prevents him from giving into the Party’s initial torture. However, Winston does not expect the Party to be aware of the depth of his trust; it was their plan all along to capture Winston at the peak of his relationship with Julia, The Party captures Winston at that moment because they know that his trust in Julia is at an optimal level for exposure. By targeting that trust, the Party is able to stop that trust dead in their tracks and instead manipulate it towards Big Brother. Eventually, Winston follows this path and betrays Julia. The Party destroys his love by exposing his deepest fear of rats. This leads Winston to realize that his love for Julia is not all powerful and eternal since he is able to give it up so readily in order to save himself. After being released, Winston sees Julia and she describes that she betrayed him as well. She comments that in regards to the betrayal,
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.
Once being proposed anything having to do with rebellion, Winston obviously would jump at any opportunity. The Party has banned any form of love, with the exception of love for Big Brother. Winston is handed a note that says ‘I love you.’ from a girl named Julia, who is also a rebel. This gesture led to a long standing relationship between the two, which is obviously banned by The Party. Winston felt love for Julia when he saw “something in your face...As soon as I saw you I knew you were against them.” (128) Winston sees Julia’s opposition to The Party as attractive, which leads him to see ‘something’ in her face, which is his love for her. Winston has a love for Julia, but since his feelings are banned, he now has another reason to hate The Party, being that they do not allow him to express his love for Julia. The love that Winston feels for Julia is unconditional, which is proven in The Ministry of Love when O’Brien asks, “‘Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?’ Winston had stopped weeping, though the tears were still oozing out of his eyes. He looked up at O’Brien. ‘I have not betrayed Julia’ he said.” (273) Even when Winston is in the worst possible situation, his love for Julia and his loyalty towards her does not go unaccounted for at the time that he said that he had not betrayed her. Winston had not put himself before
As Winston Smith comes to the last of his punishment he is put into room 101. This is a room of extreme punishment the punishment through your biggest fear. Know as “the worst thing in the world.” Winston gets his worst fear, rats, right in front of him and cracks, he loses the one thing he still loves that now is taken away from him, Julia. This ending is not happy and nothing you would wish on the life of Winston. Yet is there optimism? To some extent there is.
Especially if it means betraying the girl he claims to love in order to escape from the hands of O’Brien and the party. The love Winston has for Julia, as described in the book, is obviously real in his eyes. He, after fighting and fighting, eventually gave into the fact that he was going to die in such a horrendous way. The thought that it’d be one of his greatest fears made it even worse.
The totalitarian government in 1984, The Party, regards love and sex as, “a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act,” it is an act that aims to change the social order of the Party, which may eliminate Big Brother‘s influence. Therefore, during the torture of the rebel protagonist Winston, The Party forces him to betray his lover, Julia to eradicate feelings of love for anyone that is not Big Brother. Winston is threatened with his biggest fear - rats - and during the torture he pleads, “do it to Julia… I don’t care what you do to her.” Rats are significant because they could be a metaphor for The Party’s influence. O’Brien - Winston’s torturer, explains that rats will “strip [children] to the bone… They show astonishing
Both are taken into custody and tortured and beaten so that they can be rebuilt to obey the Party and to sell out each other. Winston takes many days of torture and pain before he is put into room 101 where he is encountered with his worst fear,which is rats. Winston the breaks down and yells, “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me” (Orwell 286). The only thing that kept Winston going was the fact that he hadn’t yet betrayed Julia, and he felt determined to never betray her. With Julia, O’Brien told Winston that she gave him away almost instantly. She was all about saving herself,and did not care about what could happen to Winston now that they were caught and their relationship would not continue.
The feeling of love is simply indescribable. It has the power to make a person feel active, stronger, and better overall for love is one of the most compelling things in the world. People will go to great lengths in order to show their love, even if it means they must sacrifice themselves. This power of love is described in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. The novel follows a man named Winston who grows up in a dystopian society called Oceania. There is no more loyalty, care, or love for one another in the society, for the only thing people are allowed to praise is Big Brother and the Party. Winston feels a great desire to rebel against the Party and his chance to rebel becomes apparent when he meets his love interest Julia. His time with Julia allows him to recollect memories and discover the different types of love. Throughout the novel, we see
At this moment, Winston feels powerless against the seemingly unstoppable Party, knowing that his life is at the mercy of O’Brien. Thus, Winston’s already weak willpower continues to wither away, rendering him more vulnerable to further reformation. The final procedure in completely transforming Winston’s personality occurs in the dreaded Room 101. To achieve his ultimate goal of breaking Winston’s loyalty towards Julia, O’Brien exploits Winston’s deepest fear of rats in a rather gruesome manner.