The Importance Of Violence In 1984 By Sophocles Antigone

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Irony emphasizes the violence endured by the characters in Orwell’s 1984 more than comparable to Sophocles’ Antigone. Irony in 1984 is crucial to understand the violence portrayed throughout the novel. The Party in 1984, has managed to turn love into something sinister, "One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess torture, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions, gradual wearing down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning." (138). In order to understand the violence the characters endured as well as delivered, we must first understand the irony of the sequence of events that lead us these characters ultimate demise. Once we understand the violent deaths in Antigone as well as the violence Winston endured in the Ministry of Love, we can understand the importance of irony to define these events. By highlighting this order, we will see how without irony, the violence would just make these novels gruesome and theme-less. The irony in 1984 is widely represented in the party's slogan, "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength." (26), which means constant war had become peace, the individual is powerless, and individual freedom weakens the individual by making it impossible to do anything grand and the lack of intelligence and ignorance to the truth keeps the party strong. The Ministry of Truth constructs lies, the Ministry of Love specializes in pain and torture, the Ministry of peace engages in war to show that it is beneficial to pursue outside enemies instead of each other, and the Ministry of Plenty causes deficiency. Although irony is prevalent in both works, without irony, we would not be able to comprehend Orwell's use of lite... ... middle of paper ... ...s mouth." (63). The use of irony prepares us for the violence witnessed in both Sophocle's Antigone and Orwell's 1984. Without irony, we would not understand the meaning of violence in both works. Irony gives 1984 a symbolic meaning to the violence Winston endured. As well as in Antigone, every death was symbolic, although quite violent and gruesome. Winston's punishment could have been foreshadowed as well as Antigone's death. Foreshadowing is another way to analyze these works. As I proven, that the order of irony is crucial to understand violence, however, it is Winston's dreams that illuminate the foreshadowing and the natural order of things. Winston's dream of O'Brien demonstrates how he foreshadowed, referring to when he was captured and sent to the Ministry of Love where the lights never go off. "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness." (25).

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