Winston Smith was one of the few people who dared to attempt to rebel against the government. His need for companionship “ He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone” (page 28), and hatred for the Party “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” (page 20), drove him to commit his first act of rebellion, writing in his journal.
1. Winston believes that the true way to defeat the Party is by the proles. He says that he knows that power lies within the proles and that power can be used to overthrow and defeat the Party. 2. To Winston, the most important thing for him is that he knows that the Brotherhood exists.
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).
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
Winston desires and feels the need to rebel, he deeply despises the Party. Conversely, Julia does not have any concrete reasons or want to rebel, except for the fact that she finds it to be an amusing activity. Winston wonders to himself how many young people think of rebellion, but are so conditioned to believe that they cannot even try to rebel that they do not try. Julia herself is an outlier, by committing her crimes with Inner Party members, but would never think of truly starting a rebellion. “He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation people...knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog” (Orwell 109).
The entirety of a country being controlled and fooled without their knowledge is the theme depicted in George Orwell’s novel 1984. The novel 1984 is a story that illustrates the use of totalitarianism and the means necessary to maintain power. It follows Winston Smith, a man who attempts to overthrow and expose the government for what it truly is. In the end, he is unsuccessful in defeating the totalitarian system and becomes a puppet for the government. The dominant theme in 1984 is the use and effects of manipulation, which is constantly developed throughout the story with the use of propaganda and a further understanding of the Party.
Winston’s motivation for his rebellion strengthens throughout the story until he is caught and it is tested. At the start of book one, Winston realizes that he wants to rebel, but is too scared of the government to start physically rebelling yet. In book one Orwell writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over again, filling half a page” (16) and then “He could not help feeling a twinge of panic… for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether.” which shows that he wants to rebel, but is too scared to commit to actually rebelling (16). At this point in the story he is debating whether or not to rebel and is not taking big risks.
At the start of the novel, Winston can be deemed as an enemy of the party. He is also hopeful that there are other people that are the same as him because if the public revolts against the government, especially the proles there is a chance of overthrowing the party. Although this novel is pessimistic, we can see that Winston is quite the opposite. Another example is when O’Brien says that the party will remain in control forever. Winston thinks that O’Brien is wrong and consequently says, “I don’t care.
The novel describes the journey of Winston Smith as he rebels against the Party and tries to maintain his human qualities. By creating a totalitarian government in the novel 1984, George Orwell is able to express how important humanity is to not only Winston but also
This is one of his first acts of rebellion against the party, by not believing in them and doubting what it’s told to him. Winston also struggles with the new war. The party announced they are at war with Eastasia and not Eurasia, and they made sure the records say that the party was always at war with Eastasia and they are allies with Eurasia. “Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia… The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it involved could not be called by their true names.
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.
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
George Orwell’s 1984 has resonated with many who have experienced first-hand what life is like under a dictator. The novel describes how everything is controlled and monitored by the government and how even mere thoughts can be detected by ThoughtPolice. Readers get to experience Oceania’s system of ruling through the eyes of an Outer Party member, Winston Smith. At first, Winston is adamant to destroy The Party and its figurative leader Big Brother, but eventually is captured and converted into a lover of Oceania’s system of government. Children, although not playing a significant role in this book, are mentioned as devious little spies.
Heroism and its Aberrancies Humanity’s fixation with the concept of gallant champions and their aptness to salvage a civilization from its cataclysmic predicaments subsists within the written works of diverse cultures and varying epochs. For instance, Classical Greek literature depicts a hero as a valiant warrior who reveres the deities of Olympus and upholds justice regardless of the perils as noted by Homer's Odyssey; however, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Sun contemporary interpretation of the conception of heroism portrays a selfless valor through the manifestation of Mariam. Nonetheless, in his novel Our Twisted Hero, an allegory of South Korean dictatorship and a struggle for democracy, author Yi Munyol shatters previous notions
The novel 1984 by George Orwell reveals the destruction of all aspects of the universe. Orwell envisioned how he believes life would be like if a country were taken over by a totalitarian figure. Nineteen eighty-four effectively portrays a totalitarian style government, in which elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation with very little citizen participation in the decision-making process of the legislative body. Although the authors ideas are inherently and completely fictional, several concepts throughout his book have common links to today’s society which is somehow a realist perspective. Orwell integrates devices such as irony, satire, and motifs to illustrate the life unfulfilling life of Winston Smith.
