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Dystopian themes in 1984
George orwell 1984 politics and english language
George orwell 1984 politics and english language
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In this quote from the article “The Beginning of the End” that was pulled from 1984 by George Orwell, focuses on the main theme of physical control and mind control in the totalitarian society of Big Brother. This theme was already present in earlier pages, evident in the description of the Big Brother posters and telescreens, as well as his desire to take down Big Brother. To begin, the first sentence states that Winston’s diary that laid in front of his was death, not annihilation. To be dead is to be no longer current, to no longer be alive. But to be annihilated is to be completely gone, to be destroyed completely and utterly. So when the diary is being compared to death, rather than annihilation, Orwell hints at the fact that although the physical evidence of the diary may be …show more content…
So when Winston is inevitably arrested and executed for Thoughtcrime, and when his diary will be physically eliminated and destroyed by the Thought Police, the idea, knowledge, and memory of his diary will remain with the Thought Police and anyone else who learned about his diary. So maybe the diary was dead, or no longer there, but not annihilated, because the knowledge of Winston’s acts of Thought Crime was still known and alive, in memory. Just like in the third sentence of this passage, where Orwell writes that only the Thought Police would have seen what he had written, and then the diary was to be wiped out of existence and then memory. By saying the diary was to be wiped from existence and memory, Orwell is referencing the jobs of two Ministries, the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love, and what they do. In the
Returning to his diary, Winston then expresses his emotions against the Party, the Thought Police and Big Brother himself; he questions the unnecessary acts by the Party and continuously asserts rebellion. Winston soon realized he had committed the crime of having an individual thought, “thoughtcrime.” The chapter ends with a knock on Winston’s door. Significant Quotes “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 7). “But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew— yes, he knew!
He purchased a small journal from a shop and began to write in it out of view of the telescreen in his house, which allows anything in front of it to potentially be seen or heard. At first he had some difficulties as he could only manage to write jumbles of some of his memories, but then he began to write things like “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER (Orwell, page 18).” He later had an encounter with one of his fellow coworkers, O’Brien, which got him thinking that there might be others out in the world who see things the way he does, including O’Brien himself. Winston eventually decides that his diary will become a sort of letter to O’Brien, and to a future or past where things might have been different. In these diary entries he wrote things such as, “To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone…(Orwell, page 28).” This refers to how citizens think and act the same and previous events are not written as they happened, but altered to Big Brother’s benefit. He also wrote, “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death (Orwell, page 28).” This can be further explained by Winston’s previous thought, “The consequences of every act are included in the act itself (Orwell, page 28).” Winston
Imagine living under a complete totalitarianism government, where everything is controlled by the government, all political, social and economic activities. The movements by the people in the society will be monitored by telescreens, people who have thoughts against or who are speaking out against the party or government will be prosecuted by the thought police. In George Orwell’s book 1984, the party has multiple methods of how to control the people using big brother to create fear, the telescreens to watch the movement of the people in the society and lastly the thought police to prosecute anyone who is against/speaking out against Big brother and the party. In the book 1984, the author uses the futuristic setting to craft the theme that
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.
Writing in a diary was known as a way of thought crime, and if caught, Winston could be arrested. Winston also proved he was daring when he joined the Brotherhood. To join the Brotherhood, Winston talked to O’Brien, “We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party….” (Orwell 174). Joining the Brotherhood was very daring because he could get caught for rebelling against the government. When Winston was in Room 101, he was daring because he was saying what he believed was true and not what the Party thought was right. O’Brien asked Winston, “And if the P...
As Winston does lose his identity and beliefs it does give some hope and optimism. Not to Winston but to the public. To the readers of Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell the author of this political novel wrote this novel to inform and by this grim ending he has done this. Big Brother and the party has control over everything, they control families, control language, control media and even the control of history. This creates full control over every act, thought and belief of a person. Consequently with Winston this is done so therefore Orwell’s point is made.
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.
In the beginning of the book Winston hides his diary because it was a crime to express his personal thoughts. In his diary he quotes how “freedom is freedom to say that two plus two makes four if that is granted all else follows”. After he is caught for being with Julia and his diary was taken away. He was tortured until he was convinced that 2+2=5. In a society where the government is wrong, they make criminal to agree that 2+2=5. It eliminates freedom of thought and
Big Brother and modern day government have been able to control its citizens through surveillance equipment, and fear all for a little more power. There is much to learn from such an undesirable form of society, much like the one of Oceania in 1984. Examining Big Brother government closely, alarming connections can be made to real-world government actions in the United States and the cruel world within Orwell's book.
Mind control; a terrifying thought for many people. Throughout George Orwell’s 1984, Orwell delves into the idea of the mind control in a totalitarian government. Written on the 8th of June in 1949, 1984 after seeing the effects that World War Two had on the world, he used a fictional place and relatable characters to help express how scary a totalitarian government can become. Winston Smith lives in a world that is controlled by a corrupt government called the party, where love is illegal and having your own thoughts. When Winston falls in love with one of his co-workers he must face the consequences, face his worst fear and learn to love Big Brother. Orwell expresses the idea of mind control in his writing with allowing Big Brother to have
...ailed as a system of government. Perhaps in Orwell's socialist commentary he failed to take notice of the trends being embraced by capitalism. Behavioral psychology states that reward is a far greater incentive than punishment is a deterrent. In society today thought control is much more pleasant, subtle, and diverse than it was in Orwell's vision.The media, television, the internet, computer games, and movies serve to indoctrinate us into the norms of society in a way which is much more complex than Big Brother's propaganda. We are depoliticized, kept away from the real issues by superficial diversions, much like the proles. Big Brother may not exist, but his name is everywhere. Perhaps Aldus Huxley's Brave New World would have better served as a predictor of modern society's fall. Orwell predicted that the truth would be concealed and that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley thought that the truth would be drowned in irrelevance and that what we love will ruin us. Orwell's political commentary and philosophical issues are still relevant, but we live in a world far more complex than he could have ever predicted. Big Brother isn't watching. He doesn't need to. We're watching him.
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 party interfered with the things that my client thought about and wrote. Winston was so infuriated with the government he once wrote, “DOWN WITH BIG BOTHER.”(Page 20) They interfered with the human rights that my client held. Even when the party tortured him he couldn’t do the things he did before. Only because he was so in fear of the party he didn’t act like he did before. It is not until his actions with Julia in the hidden apartment are discovered that the Thought Police search his home and also discover the diary which helps to incriminate my client. The diary symbolized his freedom and desires which he can’t share
Mind control and totalitarianism go hand in hand when a government or political leader wants to control a mass of people, or in this case, an entire nation. 1984, a book written by George Orwell, is about a totalitarian government that controlled its citizens by using different methods of mind control. These methods forced the citizens to comply to the government without them even knowing they were doing it. Big Brother, the so called “leader” of Oceania, was supposedly watching every person at all times. This does not include the proles, which are the third class that no one cares about. Many factors are involved when creating and maintaining a totalitarian government, which is a feat in its own. In 1984, George Orwell explored the use of
The book provides evidence for why this might happen later. Before he writes in his diary we learn that when the Thought Police take someone it is always during the middle of the night. They vanish as if they never even existed. If the Thought Police did see what Winston wrote, then they would be coming one night. We do not know if they take someone the night that the crime was committed or if they are taken later.