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Symbolism and Literary Techniques in George Orwell's
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Jaclyn Regnery Dr. Gardner Honors World Literature 25 April 2014 Morality Play Marrakech is a city in North Africa, where George Orwell’s short story takes place. It is this particular setting that affects the author himself, George Orwell. Everything about the city Marrakech, from the ground on which Orwell walks, to the buildings that tower over him, all led to his ultimate epiphany. The society he lives in is everything but right. Orwell’s Marrakech is ultimately a morality play, in which Orwell himself faces a battle with his own conscience. In Marrakech, the way the people act and are treated is odd. The most striking thing is the strange invisibility of the people. An example of this are the women that passed by Orwell everyday without his noticing. All Orwell noticed was the firewood they were carrying. He realizes that he felt for the donkeys carrying too much before he noticed the old women. He continued on to state, “Anyone can be sorry for the donkey with its galled back, but it is generally owing to some kind of accident if one even notices the old women under her load ...
In “1984,” Orwell portrays Winston’s secret struggle to undermine the totalitarian rule of Big Brother and the Party in Oceania. The different government agencies, such as the Thought Police and Ministry of Love, exercise unrestricted totalitarian rule over people. Winston actively seeks to join the rebellion and acquire the freedoms undermined by the Party. On the other hand, Heinlein’s brief narrative, “The Long Watch,” depicts a contrasting struggle championed by Dahlquist against the power hungry Colonel Towers and the Patrol. In his struggle to prevent the total domination of the world by the Patrol, Dahlquist chooses to sacrifice his life. Le Guin’s “The Ones who walk away from Omelas,” illustrates a communal form of injustice tolerated for the benefit of the entire city but necessitating the inhumane imprisonment of a child. He portrays the ambiguity of human morality and the individual struggle to determine right from wrong. The authors address social change and power in different ways, reflective of their individual perceptions. Hence, in each narrative, the author illustrates the individual’s role in effecting social change and the conditions under which such change becomes possible.
The corruption of society in George Orwell’s 1984 and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet results both in the loss of innocence and the destruction of sanity. Winston from 1984 stood his grounds throughout the book, but the society standards and rules created by Big Brother soon consume him. Similarly, the entire Kingdom of Denmark bombarded Hamlet with betrayal amongst his own family and loved ones such that drove him into madness. This madness spread through both books in revenge of what the corrupted society has done to the character’s lives.
In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life "is a search for justice," and in 1984 by George Orwell, Winston is in search for justice in Oceania. In 1984, Winston is a worker at the Ministry of Truth where he has to rewrite events, so that they coincide with what the Party says. The Party in Oceania manipulates everything, so that they seem like they are always right and never get anything wrong. No one in Oceania is free to live the life they want to live, they all live in suffrage without them even realizing it because of the psychological manipulation that the Party has done to them. Everyone is watched 24/7 with telescreens which prohibits them to be free; they are watched to see if they are talking against the government, thinking about betraying the government, and even thinking or doing something that the government does not approve of such as keeping journals just like Winston; keeping a journal was a thoughtcrime that was illegal and could cause you to be killed or disappear. Winston is not like the rest of the civilians in Oceania, he notices things that other who have been poisoned by the Party cannot see. As Winston begins to question things about the government he starts to search for away to search for justice that Oceania needs. Winston begins to search for justice, but in the end he fails to complete his search for justice.
Occupations are important in order to be successful in life. One needs a source of income and a way to provide for one’s families. Some people work at home, some people have a schedule when one leaves at a certain time each day and return home at the same time each night. One gets comfortable in one’s work but does one take time to ask oneself why one is doing it? If an occupation does not help society or have any real purpose then is it really a useful occupation or is it just a bunch of mindless activity? Professional athletes make an insurmountable amount of money but what is the point of professional sports? Professional sports do not help make the world a better place nor does it have a purpose other than entertainment for the sports junkies on this earth. What is the purpose of movie makers and artists? How do they make the world a better place? In some ways they make a world a worse place because people get so caught up in entertainment that they forget about the rest of the world and the ones who suffer and the corrupt governments and the deadly diseases. Why cant jobs be created to help in those areas? Instead of paying people for doing mindless jobs, one should be paying others to actually work to make this world a better place with a better economy and without suffering people.
“No, I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe--I don 't know, some spirit, some principle--that you will never overcome" (Orwell 269-70). Winton had explained this O’Brein after getting caught committing multiple crimes by the Party. Winton emphasized that the Party will fail. Failure will occur by the power of something in the universe, something Winston is unsure of but believes in. He believes there is some spirit, some principle that the Party will never overcome. “1984” by George Orwell and “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow, both disprove Winton’s claim concerning some principle or spirit that the Party will never overcome.
Society Dies When Individuality Dies. Conformity plagues one’s existence and stature in today’s society. Due to government intervention in citizens’ daily lives, many writers have questioned the morality of conformity in a society by the means of control. When control becomes rampant, fascist and totalitarian governments are formed, and because of the rise in fascism and totalitarianism, many people are led to conform to social ideals. Therefore, George Orwell critiques conformity within society through the use of Big Brother, Proles, and Winston.
George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 follows the psychological journey of main character Winston. Winston lives in a utopian society called Oceania. There, the citizens are constantly monitored by their government coined “Big Brother” or “The Party”. In Oceania, there is no form of individuality or privacy. Citizens are also coerced to believe everything and anything the government tells them, even if it contradicts reality and memory. The goal of Big Brother is to destroy individual loyalties and make its citizenry only loyal to the government. In Orwell's novel 1984, he uses Winston's psychological journey to stress the dangers of individuality in a totalitarian regime because it can result in death. Winston’s overwhelming desire to rebel
Power, is a small word with a strong meaning behind it. Being able to control anything and everything is what everyone seems to want in today’s society, everyone wants power. The government is the guiltiest of being power hungry. They want to be able to control everyone in the country, taking away the rights that our country was founded upon. This concept of the government wanting to take over its people is similar to that of Big Brother. Big Brother is the party that controlled the people, in George Orwell’s, Nineteen Eighty – Four. Nineteen Eighty – Four was published in 1949 where Orwell predicts what might come to Great Britain if the government, and surrounding governments, kept up with the way it was behaving. In 1949, World War
The destructive suction of a black hole not only perilous, but inescapable once matter becomes close enough. Similarly, in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and George Orwell’s 1984, the protagonists are seduced by their ids, the source of a person’s desires and impulses, to indulge themselves in attaining their deepest aspirations. Although the superegos, the contraction to the id, of Hamlet and Winston warn them not to succumb to their instincts they overlook the precautions and view their superegos as hindrances to their ids. Hamlet and Winston, while breaking societal rules to satisfy their ids, attempt to hide behind their egos, the reality principle, in order to avoid the consequences of their misdeeds. Eventually the ids of the protagonists overcome their superegos, thus influencing them to commit crimes previously thought to be absurd. When Hamlet and Winston allow their ids to dominate their superegos they are treated as criminals, ultimately instigating their downfall. Through the protagonists’ misfortune in satisfying their temptations, both Hamlet and 1984 illustrate the dangers of straying from societal standards by indulging the id.
Throughout "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, he addresses his internal battle with the issues of morality and immorality. He writes of several situations that show his immoral doings. When George Orwell signed up for a five-year position as a British officer in Burma he was unaware of the moral struggle that he was going to face. Likewise, he has an internal clash between his moral conscious and his immoral actions. Therefore, Orwell becomes a puppet to the will of the Burmese by abandoning his thoughts of moral righteousness. This conflicts with the moral issue of relying upon other's morals, rather than one's own conscience.
Many of the lower class band together to survive in an inhospitable world. While in poverty, Orwell experiences first hand the b...
I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." So ends George Orwell's poignant reminiscence of an incident representing the imperialist British in Burma. Unlike Soyinka, who wrote about colonialism from the African's point of view, Orwell, like Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, presents the moral dilemmas of the imperialist. Orwell served with the Imperialist Police in Burma while it was still part of the British Commonwealth and Empire. His service from 1922 to 1927 burdened himwith a sense of guilt about British colonialism as well a need to make some personal expiation for it (Norton 2259). "Shooting an Elephant" chronicles an incident in which Orwell confronts a moral dilemma and abandons his morals to escape the mockery of the native Burmans. He repeatedly shoots and kills an elephant which had ravaged a bazaar and scared many Burmans even though "As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him" (6).
In the country of Oceania, Orwell creates a fictitious society exploring the abuse of total control and poses many questions and suspicions about those in power. He was a passionate writer
In George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell faces a very serious conundrum. An elephant has gotten loose, and has killed an Indian man. Orwell has an elephant rifle, and people start to eagerly follow him as he makes his way into a field where the elephant is peacefully grazing. The elephant seems not to be disturbing anyone at the moment, so Orwell is hesitant to shoot it. George Orwell realizes that everyone is watching him, and becomes vert self-conscious. “I was hated by large numbers of people.” All of the natives obviously want him to shoot the elephant. He killed a man. His meat would feed many people for weeks. He knows that it would be wrong to kill the elephant. The owner of the elephant would lose his most valuable possession. Elephants were used for all kinds of labor, especially agriculture. Killing a Burmese guy’s elephant would be like setting a farmer’s tractor on fire. Even though he really doesn’t want to kill the elephant, he lets the peer pressure get to him, and he shoots it. He fires five slugs from the elephant rifle and unloads his own smaller rifle into the elephant’s heart and throat. The elephant takes more than a half of an hour to die, and it’s very painful. The peer pressure was too strong for him. George Orwell could have avoided shooting the elephant by using a few different techniques.
“Marrakech” written by George Orwell has many impacts towards how poverty and discrimination reflected the society during World War II. World War II was an event that involved the conflict of several disputes between nations and a massive racism from the Europeans towards the Jews that Adolf Hitler made. They believed that Jews were inferior in the human race and were just like a plague. “Marrakech” is a narrative that takes place in Morocco where Orwell describes the deficiency and misery the Jews and the Black people suffer during a period of an eminent discrimination. Women also underwent the experience of discrimination by men. Orwell talks about the immense poverty, which is the lowest social class that several Europeans, Jews, Arabs, and black people experienced. The definition of discrimination is very objective. Discrimination is when a person or a large group of people judge people in an appalling way just because they are from a different color, ethics, physical attributes, beliefs, etc. Poverty is another key concept that is managed throughout “Marrakech”. Poverty is the despising misery that a human can be subjected to. Orwell reaches its effectiveness in his essay in a manner that he makes the reader know about his main purpose of how society reflected the misery of the human being during a time where equality did not really exist. Coming further, poverty and discrimination during the society where Orwell lived and perceived will be explained in detail. The efficiency of Orwell’s essay will be justified in a clear way.