Dehumanization In George Orwell's Exotic Landscapes

Seeing the monkeys in the painting Exotic Landscapes and what are they trying to achieve acting like slaves, it enforces the belief of dehumanization and how the public is viewed from the government in 1984. While Winston is eating and talking to one of his friends named Syme, he begins to describe his lunch stating, “Onto each dumped swiftly the regulation lunch—metal pannikin of pinkish-gray stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet.” (Orwell 51). It may sound like a typical lunch to the ones eating it (Winston and Syme), but to me, it looks like a poor platter of choice to serve to workers. The energy required to work and process oneself is far greater than what they are serving to these workers. Winston begins to eat his pannikin
first, describing it in a dreadful fashion briefly stating, “…which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes of spongy pinkish stuff which was probably a preparation of meat.” (51-2) Just hearing how he describes the meat in the pannikin makes me want to look back and regret myself for being picky on what I eat. If we looker further into the story when Winston and Julia are together hiding once again, Julia finds a bunch of supplies hidden from the workers while talking to Winston, "'Real Sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of bread--proper white bread, not our bloody stuff--and a little pot of jam.'" (Orwell 143). I could have continued the quote, but this basically covers the food crises that all workers all know but do not want to admit. Arguing or going against the government, specifically 'Big Brother' will be put down as severe crime resulting in either a life-time sentence to a labor camp or death.
When Winston viewed the items Julia brought, he is shocked through asking obvious questions and does not believe what he sees. After he gets to taste the coffee mixed with real sugar, he describes the sugar as-- "a silky texture added to the coffee, a thing Winston had almost forgotten after years of saccharine." (Orwell 148). Obviously, committing the act of dehumanization onto a group of people is inhumane, restricting their freedom and rights, making it not the right thing to do. In a sexual-related manner, if we do commit to this act like turning humans into our personal slaves, sex can be seen as a good thing focusing on reproduction, but it can be used a sidetrack focusing more on the process of sex that will lead to sexual desires than paying attention to their "leader". Overall, we have had plenty of battles and wars here in the U.S relating to the idea of treating humans like animals or beasts; from a common sense perspective, it is clear to see dehumanization is wrong and not a "good thing". It is known that Rousseau has never left France or in that case,
has never seen a jungle in his life before, only relying on the stories given by the soldiers that has seen them. Believing the soldier's tales that changed how Rousseau thinks and allows him to paint a picture in his mind then onto a canvas, this sounds similar to how the public and even some Party Members are being told only make-believe events that does change how they think and process their thoughts differently than from before; something that Orwell's society would approve. While Winston is working on his job, he states, "As soon as all the corrections which happened to be nesscary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead." (Orwell 41). His job was basically decoding messages from other stationeries being told to rewrite past events, destroy the original copy, and replace it with make-believe events. What Winston is doing basically sums up the phrase "He who changes the past, changes the future"; if by rewriting the truth and destroying actual historical events, you can manipulate how each public and some Party members think and process their thoughts. Winston continues his discussion within himself, "this process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, and photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance." (41). Reinforcing my earlier statement, Winston does play a part in changing the past but not in a good away; hiding the factual information away from the people that might or can cause the government trouble. This is obviously not approved if we were to do this in our society; however, looking at Orwell's society and what are they accomplishing, it seems like they have no choice. First of all, if they knew what the government was doing all along, rewriting the past to change the future, and if they held a grudge to "Big Brother" from that moment on, the government could not care less due to the public not having any political power to overthrow them at the start. In a sexual-related manner, rewriting the past can conserve many sexual practices like harems and sex slaves, but that would not matter due to the government violating any other way sex is used for besides for making children (a duty perhaps). Overall, hiding or rewriting the past preventing the public from knowing the truth crosses the line, setting up limits and boundaries preventing our human minds to learn more; censorship shown and used here is not an acceptable thing to commit making it not a "good thing".