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1984 Free Will Analysis

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Recommended: In winston smith, the protagonist of 1984, orwell creates an ordinary person, an “everyman” who stands for all the oppressed citizens of oceania

Free Will in a Totalitarian Society
Imagine living in a society where every word and every action is tracked by the government. Where thinking is a crime punishable by death. Where fear is used as a way to keep its members in check. What has just been described is the reality of the novel 1984. 1984 follows Winston, an everyday man who works within the government he resents. He is not like the other people who reside in Oceania, he is aware of the corruption and hypocrisy of The Party and Big Brother. Throughout the novel he is so concerned with acting against The Party’s Wishes that eventually he is caught by the thought police and becomes the man he so resents. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four the author uses setting and characterization …show more content…

In Oceania sex for pleasure and not for the sole purpose of reproduction is illegal. "Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." (Orwell 69). The Party ingrains it in the people’s head that sex is bad and disgusting, despite it being a very natural part of humans. Striking down this natural desire prevents people acting truly how they were meant to be, the people have no free will in how they act. This causes a lot of frustration within Winston until he finally meets a women. Winston continues to rebel against The Party anyway he can when he finds Julia, a sexually active women who is both part of the system and capable of corrupting those within the party, Winston finds hope as he believes that The Party can be taken over, that it is not a lost cause (Parascandola). Winston considers sex the ultimate form of rebellion, and before finding Julia he believes there is no hope in overthrowing the Party. Sexual desire is a natural part of humans that can be awaken that it will be easy to destroy the idea of sexual puritanism, and all the other beliefs eventually. These destructions of these ideas could led to the destruction of the totalitarian system and the revival of free will. The animal nature of our body is considered free, it can be caged by governments but once …show more content…

At the very end after the torture he endures from The Party and O’Brien he finally breaks, this is the last line Winston speaks before the novel ends , stating “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” (Orwell 311). This quote shows that Winston no longer thinks independently, he thinks how society wants him to think, how The Party wants her to think. He resented Big Brother in the beginning of the novel, this drastic change in opinion is not Winston’s own thoughts, it is the product of hours upon hours of torture. He lost his free will both mentally and physically. Winston’s path towards free will is cut short when he is caught by the thought police when the movement of his memories and discovery of the past stops (Phillips).The thought police are unable to stop Winston when he’s in movement and discovering new things. But once he feels he knows enough already that’s when they catch him. To exercise free will one must keep striving to learn the truth and never settle. After being caught he is put through the mind games of The Party which leads to the metaphorical betrayal of Julia in the Room 101 shows the love he lost for Julia, and his complicity in the government’s oppression. (Carpentier). His betrayal of Julia is exactly what the Party wants him to do, cut all emotion ties with Julia, and for Big

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Big Brother was never one to be questioned, and he made the consequences known to anyone who did so. Winston clearly expressed his hatred for Big Brother and all of the restrictions placed on members of society in the beginning of the book. Despite this, he constantly hid his facial expressions and thoughts from the telescreens, in great fear that the thought police would catch him. Contrary to that outward conformity, he was always inwardly questioning Big Brother. He directly broke the law by writing in a journal, especially since

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Winston knew that his time would come when the thought police would finally catch him. He knew this since he committed thoughtcrime by writing in his journal and he didn’t like big brother. Knowing this information, he tried to eventually pry deep into the secrets of his world and stand out. However, this just ended up making him meet someone that eventually would be the person who tortured him. All this would happen because he was different and he couldn’t be himself or have a different personality than the rest.

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Winston fails to stay true to his belief of staying loyal to Julia going against how a hero is someone who is idealized for being moral. As part of the Party’s plan to reintegrate those who have rebelled against them, the final step is going to room 101 that holds “the worst thing in the world” (283). Winston and Julia have fail to betray each other throughout their obscure time in the Ministry of Love until one of Winston’s greatest fears, rats are literally brought to the table. Winston fears rats more than anything and he did not want to interact with them in any negative way causing him to yell out “'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!

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Winston continues to disappoint further as because of the lack of his usual paranoia and good instinct in identification of character, he is defeated by Mr. Charrington’s avuncular mask, trusting him even with the notion that the Thought Police and telescreen surveillance is everywhere in the Party’s jurisdiction. His fatalism proves fatal in this scene as he falls with little resistance, allowing Julia to be violently captured in the process, conflicting with what a lover and a hero would normally do. Although unrealistic, it is to my belief that a heroic character would not betray their loved ones as well as themselves, which Winston eventually did as he developed love for Big Brother, detaching the connection he shared with Julia in the final scenes of the

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At the beginning of the novel, Winston made it prominent that he dissented Big Brother and his party’s idea. He wrote in his diary, in Book 1 Chapter 1, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER…” (Orwell 18). This shows that Winston dissented his country’s government and was willing to rebel for he knew deep inside that

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In Winston’s believes, liberation is an entity hidden behind a mist of futility, an endless cycle of failed uprisings caused by the insolence of the general masses. The cycle also represents the situation that Winston finds himself within, regardless of his awareness he is still paralyzed by the irrational animalistic instinct to cower in fear of the party’s promised punishment. Resulting in his apathy towards revolution which causes him to abstain from any true revolutionary undertaking; as a result, the cycle of despair continues infinitely. Moreover, the paradox may highlight the extent of Winston’s indoctrination by the party. Winston views the revolution as fantastical due to the Proles oblivious nature, which is an assumption that is made by Winson as a result of party propaganda, which states that all “proles and animals are free”.

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After meeting her, Winston realizes that he rebels because it is the only way to gain freedom. “The sexual act, successfully preformed, was rebellion. Desire was a thought crime” (Orwell, 68). In a way, Julia gives him the strength he needs to continue to fight for freedom. “I have not betrayed Julia” (Orwell, 273.)

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Freedom is when you are able to do what you want, when you want, being worry and trouble free. In George Orwell 's book, 1984, some of the characters, like Winston, do not have freedom due to the fear instilled by the Thought Police. The Thought Police, which are affiliated with The Party, prevent the occurrence of Thoughtcrime, much like the law enforcement system system in the United States. The Party they choose for Winston a career that he might or might not be suited for. He is not even able to pursue a marriage partner that he wants to spend his life with, The Party chooses for him.

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In the novel 1984, by George Orwell, he uses truth and reality as a theme throughout the novel to demonstrate the acts of betrayal and loyalty through the characters of Winston and Julia. Orwell expresses these themes through the Party, who controls and brainwashes the citizens of Oceania. The party is able to control its citizens through “Big Brother,” a fictional character who is the leader of Oceania. Big Brother is used to brainwash the citizens into whatever he says. Orwell uses truth and reality in this book to reflect on what has happened in the real world such as the Holocaust and slavery.

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George Orwell’s 1984 is a precautionary tale of what happens when the government has too much control in our lives. The protagonist, Winston Smith, is at odds in a world in which he is not allowed to counter the government’s surveillance and control. Perhaps more striking is the noticeable relationship between the novel and modern society. In George Orwell’s novel 1984 the book predicts the surveillance of Big Brother in modern day societies.

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The heroic efforts by Winston and Julia were completely thwarted. Winston had finally shown signs that he could be a hero. But they were ruined by O’Brien. Julia and Winston are forced to separate and then they are both subject to torture. The downfall of Winston begins at this point, any heroic signs that had begun to sprout out of Winston were utterly destroyed.

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Therefore, even wanting to pursue a relationship with this woman is punishable. Overall, Winston’s curiosity and desires directly oppose the government's ideals, laws, and

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The main character in this story is Winston Smith who in constantly living in fear of what The Party will do to him if he is caught saying something negative about them or about Big Brother, who is the leader of The Party. An example of Winston being controlled by fear is when Julia, a woman who was following him, sent him a letter saying that she loved him. “drew the next batch of work toward him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting: I love you.”

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In 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society pervaded by government control and the obsolescence of human emotion and society. Winston is forced to confront the reality of a totalitarian rule where the residents of Oceania are manipulated to ensure absolute government control and servitude of the people. The theme of totalitarianism and dystopia is employed in 1984 to grant absolute power to the government and ensure the deference of the people through the proliferation of propaganda, the repudiation of privacy and freedom, and the eradication of human thought and values. The repudiation of privacy and independent thought and the ubiquity of government surveillance is employed to secure absolute power to the government over the populace

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Test: Jordon Ponder “Who controls the past controls future. Who controls the present controls the past” Book 1, Chapter 3, Pg 34. This is a powerful quote in this book. Its entirety is really explaining the theme of this book. The people are brainwashed they don’t remember the past before big brother.

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