1984 Free Essay

1397 Words6 Pages

There is always one thing that people want more than anything. People get just a tiny taste of this certain thing, and then they start to want more and more of it. There is never enough of it be-cause the person is always wanting more and more. Almost everyone wishes to gain this certain thing too. This certain thing is called freedom. People will become power hungry once they have just a little freedom. In George Orwell’s novella, 1984, one of the main themes that is developed is freedom. Orwell’s novel is set in a time period which is unknown to the reader. In this time period, there is no president or democracy; there is only a dictatorship. The only political power is a man called Big Brother. Presidency and democracy were destroyed during …show more content…

He tries to control their thoughts and feelings. For instance, if someone thinks or says something that goes against any of Big Brother’s laws, then the Thought Police will take them away and erase them from existence. “The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed - would still have commit-ted, even if he had never set pen to paper” (24). Winston bought a journal in which he wrote things like “Down with Big Brother” without even realizing it (24). Winston knew that if anyone found out about his diary or his thought of taking Big Brother down, then the Thought Police would get him immediately and kill him. This relates to the main theme freedom because it shows how Big Brother is taking the Party member’s freedom away. They are not even allowed to feel or think certain things. Not only does Big Brother and the Party leaders control the Party mem-ber’s knowledge about the past. The Party leaders would make changes to the past books, news-papers, etc. to make it seem as though whatever Big Brother predicted to happen came true: “Books, also, were recited and rewritten again and again and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made” (32). Everything was changed without the people realizing it. Even if anyone remembered that whatever happened in the past, the Thought Police would kill them whenever they found out. This was the Party’s was of making sure that people did not have the freedom to speak against Big