Essay On 1984 By George Orwell
1. George Orwell’s Classic 1984 depicts a totalitarian government that aims to repress and control its people. It does this in many ways; the most notable are the destruction of the family structure, destruction of language and the most dangerous the rewriting of history. With these tools—and others not mentioned—The Party maintains control of its people and ensures its continued existence. The Party aims to replace the love a person has for a family with itself. It does this in two significant ways. The first being the Junior Anti-Sex League, which advocated and strives for the “complete celibacy for both sexes (84)” which required that “ All children were to be begotten by artificial insemination… and brought up in public institutions. (84).” Although this was not a policy, it did reflect The Party’s view of marriage and the family structure. The League is a direct result of The Party’s indirect view on the family. With the Leagues advocation of children being raised in
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essentially state-run orphanages its shows how The Party has shaped the minds of its young citizens. The youth of the nation starts to see family as a useless endeavor. The second way The Party has begun to dismantle family in its traditional sense is by the formation of The Spies. The Spies were not traditional spies; they were not James Bond or Jason Bourn whose purpose was to serve their nation against other nations. The Spies in 1984 were the children of the nation aimed at the nation its self. At a young age, the youth of the nation was indoctrinated with Party views and beliefs. They were then set loose on their family and communities. The hope and change of a nation—which is its youth—were transformed into, uncontrollable savages who’s only loyalty was to The Party (31). They held no loyalty to their birth mother or father. They could not learn from them or gain in separate insight, or feel any need to rebel at their death. By The Party destroying the family unit, they destroy any up raising. There is no need or desire for rebellion. The children don’t see the suffrage of their family members as would today’s society. The young don’t and cannot relate to their parents; because the parents are the enemy and vice verse. There is no benefit of seeing your enemy having a better life, so there is no need to rebel against The Party—the only thing they show love for. It is not only to love of family that the youth revolt it is with language. The written and spoken word can express ideas and thoughts to open a new world. A new way of thinking and a view of things can be gained by a simple word. The word “freedom” alone can convey images and intense feelings for a person. The Party’s tool to control language. To limit its ability to inspire and to inform truly was Newspeak. The purpose of Newspeak in its finally from is, “is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime impossible because there will be no words in which to express it (67).” With the party able to control the words that come into a person’s mind, they are able to control that person from within. The Party is able to eliminate the possibility of the repeating history of rebellion because the word would not exist. A person could, with all the limits placed on them, a still find a spark to light the fuel to rebel. They can do this by looking at history. But The Party controls history. Its changes history to fit it’s on lies. Lies that become truths because there is no other option. Though out 1984 people and events are extracted from history. By doing this, The Party is able to eliminate any opposition to itself. There is no copresent to another person or place. There are no heroes of old or tales of fantastic feats of mankind to inspire. There is only The Party, who stands by their motto for power of, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past (313).” Because The Party control the present—history is written by the victory—it can shape the past to its liking. And when the past is painting a picture of all knowing and all powerful government that can do no wrong; there is no need to question it or hope/fight for something better in the future.
2. Winston is brought to love Big Brother through mind manipulation and psycho torment. The combination of these events results in the complete deadening of Winston’s emotions. They, The Party, achieve this by first torturing him to near death, then bring him back to from the brink and then placing his worse fear in front of him. The Party refers to this as the three stages of reintegration: the learning, the understanding, and acceptance (329). They, The Party, do this all while telling him that it is his fault. That he is to blame and only he can end the torment. The first stage of his torment was to be taken to the Ministry of Love. Here O'Brien imposes on him horrors of food deprivation, sleep deprivation, telling him that two plus two equaled five and then shocking him if he agrees or not. Winston would receive no reprieve from this and is told that he is insane and that he must be cured. But before he is cured he has to be tormented, tell his mind breaks. With his mind broken down and his health deteriorating, he, in all intensive purposes, going insane. The point of this stage it seemed to be his un-learning, to break him until his nothing. To where he begs to be shot (345). This signals his final; he has no fight left. All he wants is death In the understanding stage, the opposite happens. He is fed and his clothed. He has conformed to their way of thinking. This can be seen by the passage, “He accepted everything. The past was alterale. The past never had been altered (350).” Here is has started to think in doublethink—that two opposite ideas can both be true. Because he believes this and is now obeying, he is being fed and allowed to heal. This shows that The Party both gives and takes away. There is no fighting The Party. And with that in his mind, they unleash his worst fear on him. They had taken him to the brink of death and brought him back. This was only to make going to room 101 that much more terrifying. In room 101 he is faced with his worse fear—rats. It is also in this room where he betrays Julia. When he is asked whom does he wish to take his place so that he pain can stop, he says, “Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her (362).” In this act, he has abandoned his love for Julia. He has done what he said was the only true betrayal, and that was to stop loving her. The Party did this by removing all love inside of him; he only could care about himself and the party. 3. Sex and intimacy in 1984 is villainized throughout the novel. So much so that no character besides Winston even says the word intimacy, and he does so with it being accompanied with “strange” (191). The outward rejection of the word in 1984 in all its forms leads to the conclusion that it is something The Party wants to suppress. This is because sex and intimacy cause humans to from a bond to something other than The Party. Intimacy is perhaps the most victimize between itself and sex; as sex is still allowed but only in the service of The Party.
This because the level in which intimacy causes human emotion. It is not as primal of an act or emotion as sex. There is an attachment associated with it. Of caring and enduring an almost unspoken bond. The only time it was mentioned in 1984 gives evidence to the point. It is when Winston is talking of O’Brien and the need to talk to him and express himself. (191-92). Winston has formed a bond with O’Brien, and although it is one sided it causes Winston to think differently. He is distracted from his duties, and he sees something more of life and purpose other than The Party. Had O’Brien not been who he was, or if they meet earlier before he was turned than it could have been the formation of a true Brotherhood. A Brotherhood composed of people whose hatred of The Party, combined them into a team, into a family. This is why intimacy is/was more dangerous than
sex. Sex on the other hand although it can cause intimacy between the lovers it is not always the case, is rejected because it brings pleasure. It brings joy to the otherwise measurable Party Members. The act of sex is thought to children at an early age that it is wrong, that it should not be enjoyed, it only creates babies for the party. The reason for this is because, “The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime (87).” Desire was/is a thoughtcrime because it was a distraction from The Party. Desire causes want, want causes need, and need cause action. Those actions are not controllable by The Party because of what, at its core, sparked those actions were desires for something The Party did not provide for you. To add further to this thought, once a person achieves their desire, that person tends to look for other forms of enjoyment. Once a person becomes happy, even for an instance, they well forever know what it is. And they will long for it, much like what happened to Winston. Winston’s story is a prime example of what can happen when a person finds an inch of happiness. At the beginning of 1984, Winston is disillusioned with the party, but he does not have any hope of happiness. Therefore, he does nothing. His frist act of rebellion is sex with a prostitute. Though this act is not viewed in good terms by Winston, it does get him thinking of other things. He buys a journal and starts to write. But he is still not really happy; he has gotten glimpses of happiness, but even those glimpses are enough to motivate him further. The next big step is Julia; here he commits his first act of rebellion with a party member. He has sex with Julia successfully. This leads him to want more. He starts to think of ways so that he can have sex. But more than sex, he gets some form of enjoyment. From there he decided to make a safe place for them to meet, then food to make their time for enjoyment. The one act of successfully obtaining his desire lead to him reaching for more. This ultimately would lead to his downfall with O’Brien. He wanted to try for his true goal, rebellion against The Party. Even when he is defeated and captured, Winston’s statement that “If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal (110).”If The Party was able to do this, to make him no longer love, they would be able to remove his happiness and thus his motivation to live.
4. If Winston is a hero, it is not in the traditional sense. He did not save any lives, nor did he start a movement, or was a catalyst for a revaluation. In the world of 1984, Winston was simply a man who was born; committed thoughtcrime, and then died. The only way that Winston can be considered is from the readers perspective. He can be seen as a hero, to the reader for his actions, because only the reader is able to witness his acts of courage and defiance. Actions the people in his world never knew, if his able to exist at all. The vast majority of the people if 1984 would have found his actions criminal, and in the case of sex, a perversion. To the other half—the nonparty members—his actions would have meet with indifference. In fact, his actions made no difference in his world what so every, and if observed and evaluated based on those reflections it would be a pointless story; and not the story of hope and warning that it aims to be. To be that, the story of hope, then it must be examined from the reader’s point of view. And the reader must ask questions like: is this possible; what would I do, and would I be as brave? It Is in those questions that the real meaning of the book can come into play. If Winston is placed into the real would and if these events took place, Winston would be a hero because his actions are that of a David vs. Goliath. He first act of being David is, he keeps a diary and writes down his one personal history. This is not considered wrong or illegal, but it is an act of defiance. It is not merely his own thoughts that are defiant, but copying from history books into his diary is. (110). Here is keeping a piece of history that is separated from The Party. It is truth, of what was and how things can change. He acted with courage--what modern people would associate with courage—by attempting to find happiness of some sort even though it could mean death. He does this with Julia after she give him a note that he could have turned her in with. Instead he choice to go forward with the woman who gave him a note that said, “I love you (136).” An act that would have meant a violation of thoughtcrime. All of his actions are rebellious in nature. He is fighting a rebellion against a system society today will condone as evil. It is in this fact that he can be called a hero. He is raging against the machine; he is raging against all that is wrong in 1984. He is the one person that can be considered “good” by today's standard, thus making him the only person to route for—the hero.
essentially state-run orphanages its shows how The Party has shaped the minds of its young citizens. The youth of the nation starts to see family as a useless endeavor. The second way The Party has begun to dismantle family in its traditional sense is by the formation of The Spies. The Spies were not traditional spies; they were not James Bond or Jason Bourn whose purpose was to serve their nation against other nations. The Spies in 1984 were the children of the nation aimed at the nation its self. At a young age, the youth of the nation was indoctrinated with Party views and beliefs. They were then set loose on their family and communities. The hope and change of a nation—which is its youth—were transformed into, uncontrollable savages who’s only loyalty was to The Party (31). They held no loyalty to their birth mother or father. They could not learn from them or gain in separate insight, or feel any need to rebel at their death. By The Party destroying the family unit, they destroy any up raising. There is no need or desire for rebellion. The children don’t see the suffrage of their family members as would today’s society. The young don’t and cannot relate to their parents; because the parents are the enemy and vice verse. There is no benefit of seeing your enemy having a better life, so there is no need to rebel against The Party—the only thing they show love for. It is not only to love of family that the youth revolt it is with language. The written and spoken word can express ideas and thoughts to open a new world. A new way of thinking and a view of things can be gained by a simple word. The word “freedom” alone can convey images and intense feelings for a person. The Party’s tool to control language. To limit its ability to inspire and to inform truly was Newspeak. The purpose of Newspeak in its finally from is, “is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime impossible because there will be no words in which to express it (67).” With the party able to control the words that come into a person’s mind, they are able to control that person from within. The Party is able to eliminate the possibility of the repeating history of rebellion because the word would not exist. A person could, with all the limits placed on them, a still find a spark to light the fuel to rebel. They can do this by looking at history. But The Party controls history. Its changes history to fit it’s on lies. Lies that become truths because there is no other option. Though out 1984 people and events are extracted from history. By doing this, The Party is able to eliminate any opposition to itself. There is no copresent to another person or place. There are no heroes of old or tales of fantastic feats of mankind to inspire. There is only The Party, who stands by their motto for power of, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past (313).” Because The Party control the present—history is written by the victory—it can shape the past to its liking. And when the past is painting a picture of all knowing and all powerful government that can do no wrong; there is no need to question it or hope/fight for something better in the future.
2. Winston is brought to love Big Brother through mind manipulation and psycho torment. The combination of these events results in the complete deadening of Winston’s emotions. They, The Party, achieve this by first torturing him to near death, then bring him back to from the brink and then placing his worse fear in front of him. The Party refers to this as the three stages of reintegration: the learning, the understanding, and acceptance (329). They, The Party, do this all while telling him that it is his fault. That he is to blame and only he can end the torment. The first stage of his torment was to be taken to the Ministry of Love. Here O'Brien imposes on him horrors of food deprivation, sleep deprivation, telling him that two plus two equaled five and then shocking him if he agrees or not. Winston would receive no reprieve from this and is told that he is insane and that he must be cured. But before he is cured he has to be tormented, tell his mind breaks. With his mind broken down and his health deteriorating, he, in all intensive purposes, going insane. The point of this stage it seemed to be his un-learning, to break him until his nothing. To where he begs to be shot (345). This signals his final; he has no fight left. All he wants is death In the understanding stage, the opposite happens. He is fed and his clothed. He has conformed to their way of thinking. This can be seen by the passage, “He accepted everything. The past was alterale. The past never had been altered (350).” Here is has started to think in doublethink—that two opposite ideas can both be true. Because he believes this and is now obeying, he is being fed and allowed to heal. This shows that The Party both gives and takes away. There is no fighting The Party. And with that in his mind, they unleash his worst fear on him. They had taken him to the brink of death and brought him back. This was only to make going to room 101 that much more terrifying. In room 101 he is faced with his worse fear—rats. It is also in this room where he betrays Julia. When he is asked whom does he wish to take his place so that he pain can stop, he says, “Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her (362).” In this act, he has abandoned his love for Julia. He has done what he said was the only true betrayal, and that was to stop loving her. The Party did this by removing all love inside of him; he only could care about himself and the party. 3. Sex and intimacy in 1984 is villainized throughout the novel. So much so that no character besides Winston even says the word intimacy, and he does so with it being accompanied with “strange” (191). The outward rejection of the word in 1984 in all its forms leads to the conclusion that it is something The Party wants to suppress. This is because sex and intimacy cause humans to from a bond to something other than The Party. Intimacy is perhaps the most victimize between itself and sex; as sex is still allowed but only in the service of The Party.
This because the level in which intimacy causes human emotion. It is not as primal of an act or emotion as sex. There is an attachment associated with it. Of caring and enduring an almost unspoken bond. The only time it was mentioned in 1984 gives evidence to the point. It is when Winston is talking of O’Brien and the need to talk to him and express himself. (191-92). Winston has formed a bond with O’Brien, and although it is one sided it causes Winston to think differently. He is distracted from his duties, and he sees something more of life and purpose other than The Party. Had O’Brien not been who he was, or if they meet earlier before he was turned than it could have been the formation of a true Brotherhood. A Brotherhood composed of people whose hatred of The Party, combined them into a team, into a family. This is why intimacy is/was more dangerous than
sex. Sex on the other hand although it can cause intimacy between the lovers it is not always the case, is rejected because it brings pleasure. It brings joy to the otherwise measurable Party Members. The act of sex is thought to children at an early age that it is wrong, that it should not be enjoyed, it only creates babies for the party. The reason for this is because, “The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime (87).” Desire was/is a thoughtcrime because it was a distraction from The Party. Desire causes want, want causes need, and need cause action. Those actions are not controllable by The Party because of what, at its core, sparked those actions were desires for something The Party did not provide for you. To add further to this thought, once a person achieves their desire, that person tends to look for other forms of enjoyment. Once a person becomes happy, even for an instance, they well forever know what it is. And they will long for it, much like what happened to Winston. Winston’s story is a prime example of what can happen when a person finds an inch of happiness. At the beginning of 1984, Winston is disillusioned with the party, but he does not have any hope of happiness. Therefore, he does nothing. His frist act of rebellion is sex with a prostitute. Though this act is not viewed in good terms by Winston, it does get him thinking of other things. He buys a journal and starts to write. But he is still not really happy; he has gotten glimpses of happiness, but even those glimpses are enough to motivate him further. The next big step is Julia; here he commits his first act of rebellion with a party member. He has sex with Julia successfully. This leads him to want more. He starts to think of ways so that he can have sex. But more than sex, he gets some form of enjoyment. From there he decided to make a safe place for them to meet, then food to make their time for enjoyment. The one act of successfully obtaining his desire lead to him reaching for more. This ultimately would lead to his downfall with O’Brien. He wanted to try for his true goal, rebellion against The Party. Even when he is defeated and captured, Winston’s statement that “If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal (110).”If The Party was able to do this, to make him no longer love, they would be able to remove his happiness and thus his motivation to live.
4. If Winston is a hero, it is not in the traditional sense. He did not save any lives, nor did he start a movement, or was a catalyst for a revaluation. In the world of 1984, Winston was simply a man who was born; committed thoughtcrime, and then died. The only way that Winston can be considered is from the readers perspective. He can be seen as a hero, to the reader for his actions, because only the reader is able to witness his acts of courage and defiance. Actions the people in his world never knew, if his able to exist at all. The vast majority of the people if 1984 would have found his actions criminal, and in the case of sex, a perversion. To the other half—the nonparty members—his actions would have meet with indifference. In fact, his actions made no difference in his world what so every, and if observed and evaluated based on those reflections it would be a pointless story; and not the story of hope and warning that it aims to be. To be that, the story of hope, then it must be examined from the reader’s point of view. And the reader must ask questions like: is this possible; what would I do, and would I be as brave? It Is in those questions that the real meaning of the book can come into play. If Winston is placed into the real would and if these events took place, Winston would be a hero because his actions are that of a David vs. Goliath. He first act of being David is, he keeps a diary and writes down his one personal history. This is not considered wrong or illegal, but it is an act of defiance. It is not merely his own thoughts that are defiant, but copying from history books into his diary is. (110). Here is keeping a piece of history that is separated from The Party. It is truth, of what was and how things can change. He acted with courage--what modern people would associate with courage—by attempting to find happiness of some sort even though it could mean death. He does this with Julia after she give him a note that he could have turned her in with. Instead he choice to go forward with the woman who gave him a note that said, “I love you (136).” An act that would have meant a violation of thoughtcrime. All of his actions are rebellious in nature. He is fighting a rebellion against a system society today will condone as evil. It is in this fact that he can be called a hero. He is raging against the machine; he is raging against all that is wrong in 1984. He is the one person that can be considered “good” by today's standard, thus making him the only person to route for—the hero.