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1984 By George Orwell: Summary

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The setting of this novel, 1984, by George Orwell, is set in London, Oceania, Airstrip one. Oceania is at war with Eurasia and Eastasia throughout the book. The author is trying to set the mood of this story as a dark and gloomy place with very little color, except for the Big Brother posters hung all the way through town. Everything is very plain until the middle of the book where there is more detail. Orwell sets the book in 1984, but wrote the story years before this date. Throughout this novel it is set in April and the beginning of the summer.
The main character in this story is Winston Smith. Winston is 39 years old and very stressed. At the beginning of this novel Smith looks way older than his actual age, but towards the end of the story is refreshed and looks healthier and younger than Winston has been in years. Winston says, ‘“We are the dead.”’ (135). This shows how Winston is thinking. Winston always thinks negative because that is what the party makes everyone to think. His purpose is to show the …show more content…

self. Throughout the whole novel, Winston is dealing with his terrible ulcer above his right ankle. The author said, “Winston, who was thirty-nine, and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way.” (1). This shows how much pain he is in as he walks slowly. Winston also deals with not having his mom around. He does not know if his mom is still alive and well or if she is dead. She went missing when Winston was a little boy. She was the only person that ever showed him love. Then Winston says, ‘“If I could save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.”’ (238). This quote from Winston shows how much he loves her and would do anything for her. He loves her so much that while he is in the Ministry of Love he tries to tell himself that he never loved her. But it does not work and he has to live through the pain of being without

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On page 255, O’brien says “‘Everyone is washed clean...by the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men.” Nothing sums up Winston better than this. On page 256, O’brien tells Winston, “‘We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover...never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside of you.”

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In this section, Winston’s entire out look and thought process changes extremely quickly and determinedly. Once he starts to interact with this girl who he seems to keep bumping into to, the whole course of Winston’s outwardly obedient but internally disobedient behavior becomes much more actively counter regime than it ever had before. This drastic change begins even in his first interaction with the mysterious girl who falls in front of him in the hallway at their office, “A curious emotion stirred in Winston’s heart. In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him; in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he had instinctively started forward to help her” (107-108).

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Though he was never a hero, he has lost all chance of ever becoming one when he now cannot even think his own individual thoughts. Winston has been broken down and dehumanized to become a pawn of the party, which is everything he disagreed with since the beginning. Winston is content working for the party and agreeing with all they say and do. He even feels in victorious in winning the battle over his old self, who was a traitor to Big

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Over the course of 1984 Winston dramatically changes. He was always kept to himself until he met Julia who changed in various ways. He is now worse than he has ever been before and it only gets worse. Winston has changed in many ways one being how open he is about being against the government.

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Julia does truly love Winston. Throughout the work of the novel, she is drawn to Winston even though he is around 10-15 years older than she is; this is because she is drawn to his rebellious personality. “It was something in your face. I thought I’d take a chance.” She also shows her love by her carefully planned recklessness; she does the best she can to make sure their relationship stays a secret so that they won’t be caught and separated.

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Winston and Julia’s relationship began with physical attraction, and for Winston, slowly evolved into an emotional attachment. Winston was certain that he loved Julia more than anything in the world, and that he had finally found someone that he could be happy with. Unfortunately, the government eventually manipulates Winston’s love for Julia into a love for the Party and Big Brother. After a tremendous amount of relentless torment, the party eventually makes Winston say “‘Do it to Julia! Not me!

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Winston is forced to undergo tortuous procedures and brainwashing. While incarcerated, Winston has terrible nightmares about rats, in which O’Brien uses to his advantage. Winston is forced to have a cage of rats strapped to his head and eventually these rats eat Winston’s face. After receiving such tremendous amounts of torture, Winston pleads with O’Brien to torture Julia instead of himself. This utter lack of hope and feeling of helplessness is what O’Brien desired from Winston the entire time.

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Throughout the novel, Winston experiences many acts of betrayal, both internal and external, which showcase the theme that survival takes precedence over all other personal morals and

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Winston has an imaginative mind and later in the book he claims that the “power that would one day overturn the world” lies “in the proles”. He feels that the fate of the Party would lie in their hands and “when their time came, the world they constructed would not be just as alien to him” since “at the least it would be a world of sanity” (220). Winston expresses one of his heroic qualities through displaying his vision for the good of

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The slogan fits the party so well because it reveals what they are all about. For example they discourage many positive things about the society by telling the people that they are not good. Therefore this slogan creates the grim mellow society that Winston lives in. Winston shows how little freedom he has by stating that “ Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.

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Not me!’”. This quotation establishes that though the torture he was put through by The Party was partially at fault for this exposure of information, Winston still was the one with the power of this knowledge and made the choice to hand over the punishment to Julia and free himself. This is a selfish act and even though it was provoked does not change the fact that what was done was used for his advantage and is morally

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Julia hands Winston a note saying, “I love you”, thus beginning the second strand of hope in the novel. This represents exactly the reason that the Party does not allow marriage where there is physical attraction. Winston gains passion, a will to live, and confidence to take on challenges and risks. These are the qualities that the Party is trying to suppress, as it is easier to control a population if they do not have the willpower nor reason to resist. Once again, through the hope presented by Winston and Julia’s love, Orwell displays how the proles have the ability to overthrow the Party if they desire.

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Winston had occasionally showed signs that he could be a hero. However, it was never in his own, it was only when Julia was with him. He just isn’t cut out to be a hero. He was never looking out for other and all of his

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The Party’s approach to life has not always been for everyone, including Winston who frequently gets angry at their actions. In the beginning of the book, Winston says he was writing, “as though by automatic action… DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (1.1.18). His thoughts and actions toward Big Brother and the Party have become so strong that he is involuntarily writing words against them. Winston also resents the rule that there can be no love in Oceania, and leaps at the chance to break it.

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In the case of the Nuremberg Trials, defendants were put on trial for actions that technically were not illegal at the time they were committed. The charges set against these high ranking members of the Nazi party turned them into test subjects in an unprecedented trial. The Allies had justified the prosecution of the leaders of the Axis powers “on the basis of unique warfare because of its totality and barbarity.” However they tried to justify the trial, it was still unfair and not compatible with the rule of law to prosecute a person for criminal conduct when the person could not have known that his act was illegal due to the fact that the law was not passed or created yet.

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