• Winston Smith: When Orwell was writing 1984 he wanted to show the terror of Totalitarianism through the eyes of an ordinary every-man. Hence the reason he used Winston Smith to tell the story through. Winston is a rebellious man living in a world where rebellion can get you killed. On the outside he doesn’t appear to be anything special, however, it is his mind that is special. It seemed as though most other people have bought into the idea of this political party would work. However; as soon as Winston wrote down “Down with Big Brother” he has become so seemingly paranoid that he is willing to join a secret group of people that are willing to try to overthrow the government. Probably the most scandalous thing he did though was when he had …show more content…
As a result because he is not a member of the Party we are not able to find out about the inner workings, its origins, and the identities and motivations of its leaders. O’Brien is a powerful member of the Party who managed to trick Winston into admitting his defiant acts to the Party and sends him to jail. O’Brien “inducts” Winston into the Brotherhood. At this point it is not completely clear whether this Brotherhood is even real or if it was just an invention of the Party used to trick people into admitting their injustices. While being tortured Winston asks O’Brien if the party had ever captured him, O’Brien simply replies “They got me long ago.” This could possibly show that like Winston, O’Brien used to be rebellious to the Party and also like Winston the Party also caught …show more content…
Not only do they constantly have propaganda showing on all televisions in homes they also run an organization called Junior Spies which brain washes children and encourages them to spy on their parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party. They also force people to suppress their sexual desires and use sex as a means to create new Party members. The party then has the people channel their frustration into hatred against the Party’s political enemies, many of which were invented by the Party for this purpose. Physical Control: As shown when they tortured Winston, the Party has other ways to control the people. The Party members had to undergo physical mass morning workouts and then had to go straight to work keeping them in a general state of exhaustion. People who did manage to defy the Party where subjected to harsh punishment and torture. By training the minds of the victims with physical torture, the Party is able to control the people so thoroughly they can convince people that 2+2=5. Key
In “1984,” Orwell uses Winston to portray a single individual’s attempt to take action against a powerful government, culminating in his failure and subjugation. His individual efforts failed tremendously due to the overarching power of the Party to control every aspect of social life in Oceania. Orwell uses Winston’s deeply seated hatred of the Party to portray his views on power and social change. Winston’s actions show that even in the direst of situations ...
The party destroys all that is human of each individual, and brainwashes them to be nothing but an empty shell, like in comparison to a science-fiction robot, taking commands from the bidding of their master. However sometimes some people will crack, and will begin to be human again, however it is proven that the party would eventually catch up to them, permanently taking away their humanity. Throughout this process, the people become the party, and very much like a hivemind, the party controls the people, and the people are the party. The party controls every thought and bit of imagination of each and every individual through their They hated anyone who was not a white Christian, and would go as far as to kill anyone who was not.
Winston works for 1 of the 4 government agency’s, The Ministry of Truth. In his job he re-writes old news articles so they show that The Party has always been and will be in control. By re-writing everything in print, The Party effectively changes history. The only proof of actual history is in the minds of the people who were there. Winston realizes that there is something wrong with this, yet he doesn’t know what. The re-writing of history is all he has ever known. It is most likely Winston’s job that leads him to rebel against The Party.
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.
Winston could never have had an immediate effect on the Party's control- he would never see it in his lifetime. He learns this from O'Brien when he says "You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead." This quote from O'Brien is accurate, that is if the brotherhood really existed.
Orwell used individualism as an antidote for totalitarianism. He portrayed a society where the power of the governing `Party' only gives "the individual [...] power in so far as he ceases to be an individual." The Party views individualism as a disease, as a malfunction in the individual's mind to control their memory and thought impulses - a failure "in humility, in self-discipline." 1984 is told from the perspective of Winston Smith, a Party member who works in the Ministry of Truth; he is neither a particularly heroic character, nor is he blessed with any extraordinary traits, so why would Orwell choose such an average man to be his protagonist? Winston possesses a personality, he has preferences, he esteems history and recognises its malleability in the hands of the Party (which is the ...
The conflict between Winston and Big Brother starts from the beginning of the novel when Winston begins to keep his secret diary about Big Brother. Winston Smith is a third-nine years old man who is a member of the 'outer-party'--the lower of the two classes. Winston works for the government in one of the four main government buildings called the ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history books in order for people not to learn what the past used to be like. Winston's occupation is the major factor which lets him to realize that Big Brother is restricting people's freedom. However, Winston keeps his complains about Big Brother and the party for his own secret because the party will not allow anyone keeping a rebellious thought. The tension between them gets serious when Big Brother becomes suspicious of Winston. Winston is therefore watched by O'Brien, an intelligent execute at the 'Ministry of Truth', who is a member of the 'inner party'--the upper class. Without doubting Big Brother's trap, Winston shares his ideas with O'Brien. O'Brien mentions a gentleman named Emmanuel Goldstein whom he claims to know the leader of the rebels against the party. O'Brien also promises to help winston, and promises him a copy of Goldstein's book. But O'Brien betrays him as Big Brother has planned.
O’Brien tortures Winston due to his acts of thoughtcrime, Winston is told that the Party will be satisfied with nothing less than Winston completely giving in. O’Brien explains, “We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him” (210). Winston is tortured for the goal of eradicating the cause of Winston’s fight, to consider himself happy and free. O’Brien wants to destroy any possibility of Winston becoming a martyr for his cause. The use of the telescreens, microphones, and all other sources of the government spying on its people ensures a lack of freedom: “Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed- no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull” (26). The members of this society are monitored at all times for the sole purpose of government control, with constant monitoring they are able to discover the most they can about individuals and later use it against them to gain an upper hand in controlling any possible uprising. Fear is used as another tactic to gain control. Winston is aware of the fact that “More
Authors often use their works as a way to express their own opinions and ideologies. However, it is the skill of the author that determines whether these ideas are combined with the plot seamlessly, making a creative transition of ideas from the author’s mind, to the reader’s. There is no doubt that George Orwell is a masterful writer, and one of his most popular works, 1984, clearly expresses his negative views of the Totalitarian government. A common theme in the dystopian society in 1984 is betrayal: The Party is very intolerant towards any form of disloyalty, and anyone who plots against them or Big Brother will eventually either betray their own mind and accept Big Brother as their leader, or be betrayed and revealed to The Party by one of their so-called comrades. Overall, Orwell is using this constant theme of betrayal to show how alone and alienated the protagonist (Winston Smith) is in his quest against Totalitarianism, thus showing how flawed and hopeless the political system is.
In conjunction with psychological manipulation is physical control. The Party is a totalitarian government and controls every aspect of life. Technology is yet another important theme. Technology is what gives the Party their power and influence. Big Brother, the symbol, as well as the telescreens are motifs that help drive the main conflict.
This happens because it is the party’s way of getting into the citizen's heads. On page (??) O’Brien says to Winston, “There are three stages in your reintegration. There is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance.” This quote from O’Brien tells us how the party manipulates the people into loving Big Brother. Their definitions of these three stages, however, are tortuous. They use learning to get the selected person to learn their crimes that they are accused of. For Winston, the first stage consisted of numerous beatings and degradation of his character. He is accused of all crimes of sexual perversion to spying. The party uses this technique to humiliate Winston and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. Winston gives in and admits to all these crimes since he is afraid of further violence. Furthermore, Winston must understand to love Big Brother. At this point, O’Brien confesses to Winston that he is the author of Goldstein’s book. Winston continues to protest but then O’Brien shows him a powerful image which consisted of his own malnourished body. While Winston blames O’Brien for his health, O’Brien says “This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party. It was all contained in the first act. Nothing has happened that you did not foresee.” (??) Since Winston is still not convinced, this
The Party is a totalitarian government. Neither the Outer Party nor the proles (proletariat) have any influence on the direction of their country or the rules that govern their lives. The Inner Party manipulates the media and infiltrates citizens' private lives to gain complete control over every aspect of human existence, including love and sex. When the propaganda, deprivation, and rigid guidelines
O’Brien is already aware of Winston and Julia’s thoughtcrime, but he does not turn them in. He knows that the more he can hold against them with their illegal activities, the more control he will hold over them. To obtain this control, he begins to develop a relationship with these two characters. O'Brien invites Julia and Winston over to his place in order to make sure they are ready to join the Brotherhood. By making others be part of this group, it holds them accountable to carry out their tasks. O’Brien knows that this relationship will enable him to manipulate these two characters, thus increasing his control over them. O’Brien portrays himself as the leader of the group and tells Winston that “When you receive orders, they will come from me” (Orwell 144). Winston agrees to give almost anything to O’Brien and responds, “We want to put ourselves at your mercy. If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are ready” (Orwell 140). The dedication that Winston has, makes it easier for O’Brien to control
Much of the success in creating the Parties artificial reality and thus controlling the people was due to the Parties ability to control history through a process called revisionism. This work is done by the Ministry of Truth, in the Records section, where Winston is engaged. Daily, people like Winston, destroy old documents and create new ones to cover policy changes. In addition, everything printed before 1960 has been destroyed by the Party. A good example of this is the work Winston has to do in the Minitru one day.
The Party changes records of the past constantly to match its needs. If someone commits a crime, they are vaporized, and then erased from any and all historical records. There are no more martyrs, because no one remembers them after they are killed. The government also changes history to make people believe that the Party has been in power since the beginning of man. Using the tactic of doublethink, the population is able to believe this, even if they possess memories from before the Party rose to power. This is an example of mental control.