A vast field covered by the golden blanket of the sun. There is no Big Brother, no Party, no Ingsoc. 1984 by George Orwell is a dystopian fiction that shows how limitation of language and excessive surveillance of citizens can change a society for the worst. Orwell pens the story of a man named Winston as he lives under the watchful eye of the dystopian government, led by the all knowing Big Brother. He soon falls in love with a girl named Julia and rebels against the Party, which is breaking their only rule. Soon Winston is being tortured and brainwashed by a man named O’Brien, who he believed to be his savior. Winston is constantly dreaming throughout the novel and his dreams hold significance to his character and the plot. With the dreams, the reader is able to connect with Winston and sympathize. Orwell uses the dream, a recurrent motif, as a mechanism to reveal background, develop character, and foreshadow events. At the beginning of the novel Orwell …show more content…
writes vividly of Winston’s dreams, which tell a lot about his past and future. One of these dreams was a far off place in which he refers to as the Golden Country, “Suddenly he was standing on a short springy turf, on a summer evening when the slanting rays of the sun gilded the ground. The landscape that he was looking at recurred so often in his dreams that he was never certain whether or no he had seen it in the real world” (30). Winston dreams of a place untouched by the cruel hands of the Party and the values they inforce. He dreams of a world he once knew where everything and everyone was free from corruption. This reveals Winston’s true nature and background; that he is constantly wishing for a better world to live in. The reader can assume that Winston has memories of such a world, since he can account it so vividly. He wishes to go back to the amount of liberty that once was practiced instead of the tyranny that oppresses the people today. When Winston dreams of the dark-haired girl in the Golden Country, it is foreshadowing his love affair with Julia. His subconscious already feels a connection with her, and Orwell is letting the reader know that there is more in store for Winston and the dark-haired girl. When he is with Julia, this world is almost in his grasps. He is free in both body and mind. Winston’s love of her and hatred of the party lead him to believe that he is in face there, living in the Golden Country. The same time Winston dreams of the Golden Country, he also dreams of his mother, which adds a great deal of background to Winston.
When Winston is dreaming he narrates, “He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to his own” (30). This small insight into Winston’s life reveals a great deal about him. Orwell’s writes this to allow the reader an emotional connection to Winston and his personality. By having this dream, his character develops and one is able to see a closer look into Winston’s hatred for the Party, as well as reciprocate those feelings. In a world in which a mother and sister had to die in order for a son to live is not a world in which anyone would like to live in, and yet that is what Winston is forced to endure. Winston’s hatred to the Party dates back to this event, and how life was before they came into power. His family is gone and he has no one left. All that remains for him is the
Party. These were not the only dreams that Winston discusses in the beginning of the novel. He is constantly referring to a dream he had of O’Brien, or of whom he thought was O’Brien, as he recognized his voice. This dream allows Winston to trust him, he dreams that O’Brien says, “'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness'" (25). Winston believes that O’Brien is against the Party, like him, and the place he is referring to is the bright future. Although, this is not the case. This dream follows Winston the entire book as he entrusts O’Brien, which begins his downfall. Orwell writes this dream to foreshadow what to come, although the reader will not get what the dream truly means until Winston does. When O’Brien comes to torture him for the Party in the Ministry of Love, where the lights never turn off, the true being of the dream begins to shine through. O’Brien was not talking about the bright possibility of tommorrow but the eventuality of pain that Winston has in store. Towards the end of 1984, Winston is in a dreamlike state after being tortured to his breaking point. Winston describes, “One day—but ‘one day’ was not the right expression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once—he fell into a strange, blissful reverie. He was walking down the corridor, waiting for the bullet. He knew that it was coming in another moment. Everything was settled, smoothed out, reconciled. There were no more doubts, no more arguments, no more pain, no more fear. His body was healthy and strong” (279). He is again dreaming; that he is strong, that everything will be better. In this situation, the world that is better is death. He is imagining being healthy and that his suffering is over. Like the Golden Country, he is fixating on hope. No longer is this hope he speaks of a world without the Party, it is the only true escape he can achieve; death. This quote exhibits how Winston has been broken down. Even while in the Ministry of Love, he still dreamed of Julia, his mother, the Golden Country; he still had hope. Now Winston is unable to hope any further. There is no escape from Big Brother. He no longer fantasizes of freedom in a perfect society, only to stop his suffering in the society that he is in. His character has drastically changed during the extensive torturing he was exposed to. We can see the dreams affect Winston’s state of mind. First, he is full of hope that a society he once knew will return. Winston dreams of a world so perfect that it is golden, he imagines allies that do not exist, he believes that he is safe and free when with Julia. However, he is not safe and free. The ally he thought so highly of, O’Brien, was not a friend but an enemy. Winston is ripped of his dreams and soon there is no hope or rebellion left in him. The only way to get his freedom is with his death.
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.
Readers often find themselves constantly drawn back to the topic of George Orwell’s 1984 as it follows a dystopian community which is set in a world that has been in continuous war, has no privacy by means of surveillance and has complete mind control and is known by the name of Oceania. The story follows a man by the name of Winston who possesses the features of “A smallish, frail figure… his hair very fair, his face naturally sanguine [and] his skin roughened” (Orwell 2). The novel illustrates to readers what it would be like if under complete control of the government. As a result, this book poses a couple of motifs’, For instance part one tackles “Collectivism” which means the government controls you, while part two fights with “Romance” with Winston and Julia’s sexual tension as well the alteration of love in the community, and part three struggles with “Fear” and how it can control someone physically and mentally.
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
Through out the course of history there have been several events that have been a pivotal point which has molded the behaviors and thoughts of this century. A lot of notable activist and authors wrote stories and speeches about how they believed that this day and time would be like. A lot of these views were very accurate surprisingly. In the novel 1984 author George Orwell gives his vision on how he believed that the countries would be like if they kept going the way they were.This report will give you a brief rundown of the characters, theories and principles of this novel along with some of my personal insight of the novel.
For many readers, the ending of George Orwell’s 1984 is a kick to the gut. Throughout the novel George Orwell teases the audience with the idea that there was going to be some sort of happy ending, and that Winston as an individual could live his life without control of the Party. In the end, he becomes brainwashed just like every other member of society. However, as readers we should have been able to pick up that the real end came in the beginning. When Winston began writing in that journal it was the beginning of the end for him and although he claims he won the victory over himself, the only real victor, in reality, is the Party. Orwell uses the book, and specifically the last chapter, to give a warning of what it would be like to live in a totalitarian society under complete control of the government.
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
Orwell's sets the mood of the book as one of hopelessness for the future of humans. He contrasts this mood with a popular philosophy: belief in the progress of humanity and the ability of people to institute peace and justice in the world. These contrasting views set up the premise for the life of Winston Smith, who is one man caught in a society devoted to conformity. Orwell's warning to this is that if people cannot change the way things are going, our society will lose their human qualities. They will become soulless machines and not have a clue as to their new world they created. This is the world in which Winston Smith is caught in. He is different from the others and in a civilization which does not approve of individuality, Winston is targeted by the government from the beginning. Being different in this populace only means rebellion and that exactly is what Winston sets out to do. Winston believes that although he must conform on the outside, that no one can take his individual thought away. Winston's individuality is the only hope for human nature for he questions the most basic principles of the regime, a thoughcrime. One doctrine Winston questions is the concept of freedom-
I strongly agree with Fromm’s viewpoints and interpretations of Orwell’s 1984 text. He warns that the future federal powers will dehumanize society and leave everyone alienated. Thus, I agree with Fromm to the extent that he acknowledges the fact that humanity can indeed cease to exist as a result of our own self-destruction as well as the effect of our actions. Many of his opinions and warnings expressed by Orwell to an extent appear in contemporary society.
The narrator allows us in Winston’s mind as he walks through the city streets “He felt as though he were he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side?” (pg.23). Orwell uses multiple metaphors in this passage, first, with Winston wandering the forests of a sea bottom representing his wandering of the London streets, and next, the monstrous world representing London under the regime, where he himself is complicit and therefore an unimaginable monster. The picture of a forest sea bottom cohesively connects with the decaying impoverished streets of London, and highlights that Winston is lost without hope. Through his compliance to Big Brother, Winston forms a hate for its manipulation of the past and society. As Winston slowly becomes aware to his lack of identity and how the Party is manipulating the past, he finds himself to be one of the monsters helping Big Brother. Orwell illuminates the oppressiveness of the city through the regime with a motif of isolation, from Winston wondering if anyone felt the way he did. The Party’s total control and ever watching eye creates a hopeless that Winston can ever find another person that feels that way he does toward the dictatorship. The motif of isolation connects with the metaphors of Winston being an unimaginable monster lost in a sea bottom forest because of the culture of fear the regime has created. The culture of fear is created by society’s compliance to the party and everyone being a monster. Big Brother outlaws and punishes any form of rebellion even thought, and as a result, Winston does not know whom he can trust. Orwell intentionally creates this culture of fear to stress
Symbols are everywhere. Whether it’s the cross of Christianity, or the swastika of the Third Reich, symbols can convey messages of love, or hate, without ever having to say a word. While George Orwell in his masterpiece 1984 does, of course, use words to convey his themes, he also uses symbols. In the novel 1984, symbols are used as a way for Orwell to reinforce his three major themes.
The next paragraph describes the deaths of Winston's mother and sister. Winston's sister is described as a "tiny, feeble baby, always silent, with large, watchful eyes." I believe that Orwell uses the description of the baby as a depiction of the corrupt power of the Party. Furthermore, the young sister was "in her [the mother's] arms." The embracing of a child was a forgotten act in 1984, but when the mother and child died, the embrace was a common sign of family love. This type of family love that was connected to the past brings Winston closer to his love of the better past. Although reading into faces could approach the abstract nature of ideas, Winston could see "knowledge" in the faces of his mother and sister. The mother and sister knew that they were dying in order for Winston to live. Furtherm...
The setting is important to the overall novel studied because it helps highlight major themes in the novel, it further characterizes the motivations of the characters, and helps explain the overall message of the novel. In 1984 by George Orwell, the overall setting of the novel is in London, which is called Airship 1 in Oceania.
It is of mixed opinions as to the popularity of modern society and that of the current government. Some believe the United States is, frankly, the best and most free country. They are those who enjoy the freedoms granted by the government and indulge themselves into the American culture. Others are not as fond; always searching for an excuse to criticize the current happenings, whether they be in the government or on the streets. In previous decades, such as the 1940s, the majority of citizens shared the more patriotic view. When comparing the current United States as a whole to that of a dystopian society, it becomes clear that the former faction may be looking through rose colored glasses. The dystopian motifs in George Orwell 's 1984 stemmed
A Dystopia is defined as a futuristic, imagined universe in which there is oppressive, societal control. In a Dystopia the illusion of a perfect society is maintained through corporate, technological, or totalitarian control. Dystopias make a criticisms about a current trend, societal norm, or political system through an exaggerated worst-case scenario. Nineteen eighty-four is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell.
Everything is a symbol. Everything has a deeper being in which it represents once it is unlocked. The father of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, was quoted in an interview saying that deconstruction is “to not naturalize what is not natural”. Therefore symbolism is deconstruction in its rawest form. Symbols beg to not be taken at their natural face-value, but rather dived into to reach their deep inner-core of true meaning. One must use every element of deconstruction to unlock the true meaning of a symbol. Symbolism in literature allows the author to express his thoughts and motives in a way that is engaging and entertaining to the reader. The reader must dissect every bit of knowledge presented in order to reach the full fountain of knowledge that can be expressed by a symbol. Symbols are a beautiful thing. It allows the reader to make his own connections to the author’s expressions. The reader can especially be engaged in George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel 1984. Symbolism is important in 1984 because the reader can find connections to today’s government in Orwell’s message of control, propaganda, and oppression within the symbols that Orwell creates.