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George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Literary Analysis

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George Orwell’s classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, follows the life of 39-year-old Winston Smith in Airstrip One, a city in Oceania, a super-state controlled by a totalitarian government called the Party. Wherever he goes, Winston is haunted by massive posters of the Big Brother, the supposed leader of the government. When Winston starts keeping a journal, which warrants torture and execution, he begins to question everything that has been taught to him since the Party took over. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel because of the Party’s perpetual lying to all of its subjects, conscious effort to reduce the quality of everyday life, and cruel treatment to people deemed heretics.
At the beginning of the book, Winston …show more content…

On part two, the woman goes through an elaborate ploy in order to pass Winston a single note: I LOVE YOU. They decide to meet in secret, doing illegal deeds and falling deeper in love, while discussing the Party and the possibility that an opposing movement, the Brotherhood, exists. When O’Brien, a member of the Inner Party and a person of note to Winston invites them over to his house, he initiates them into the Brotherhood and informs them of the Book, a famous piece of writing by the instigator of the Brotherhood, Emmanuel Goldstein. While reading through the Book, Winston comes across information he seems to already know, but it is a relief to him that his thoughts are not limited to himself anymore. In Chapter 3, Goldstein outlines how the Party remains in power by staying in perpetual war, “The war, therefore, if we judge by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture...It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs” (Orwell 155). This shows that the suffering the people of Oceania and almost the whole of Earth are going through is merely so their will is bent towards their own government instead of having a life quality and education level that are high enough to rebel. The Party is imposing itself as the savior of the people, protecting them from foreign …show more content…

When Winston discovers that both Mr. Charrington and O’Brien are loyal members of the Party, he is arrested and taken to the Ministry of Love. There, his mental stability is slowly and meticulously shattered by various forms of torture. First, he is beaten within an inch of his life and forced to confess to a myriad of crimes he didn’t commit, then he is mercilessly bullied by Party members questioning him from every angle until he is reduced to tears form shame and fatigue. However, the most powerful form of torture is delivered by O’Brien himself using a dial set to deliver changing degrees of pain. The point of this, according to him, is to convert Winston to the Party fully, stating that, “Never again will you be capable of human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living… You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves” (Orwell 201). While being tortured and destroyed both mentally and physically, Winston discusses the fundamental ideals of the Party and how they remain in power for so long. O’Brien then points out the flaws with other government systems, including communism, stating that they fail because they deny their claim for power. The Party does not attempt to explain itself it its people or present itself as a utopia. The Party demands

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O’brien enters the cell. Winston thinks that O’brien has been captured too, but soon learns that O’brien is a member of the party. Winston is tortured in all kinds of ways. He is kicked, beaten, forced to tears, and a man in a white coat connects him to a dial that has levels of pain. Winston is tortured until he is humiliated and his power to argue or reason is destroyed.

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Yash Patel Mrs. Choi AP Literature October 2015 1984 Dialectal Journals for Part 2 Text Response 1. “In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him; in front of him, also was a human creature… He had indistinctively started forward to help her,” (Orwell 106) This quote shows that even in this time where they live in a life where they are being manipulated, Winston is still living in a time where he is experiencing hatred, but still maintains what keeps him normal or humane, which keeps him separated from everyone else. This hate is showing that people still have hate for each other and still want to kill each other but it also shows the true human he is by helping her when she was threatened.

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He then continues these thoughts by questioning everything that he has been taught by the party. The one person he would like to talk about this with in the book is O’Brien, another party member. Winston thinks, “ O’Brien’s political orthodoxy was not perfect. Something in his face suggested it irresistibly… if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone. Winston never made

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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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In the Ministry of Love torture chamber, O'Brien tells Smith that he will be cured of his "insanity", which O'Brien claims is undeniably manifest in the form of Winston's hatred for the Party. During a long and complex dialogue, O'Brien reveals, in what is the most important line in the book that the motivation of the Inner Party is not to achieve some future paradise but to retain power, which has become an end in itself. He outlines a terrifying vision of how they will change society and people in order to achieve this, including the abolition of the family, the orgasm and the sex instinct. It will be a society that grows 'more, not less merciless as it refines itself, a society without art, literature or science. During a session, O'Brien explains the purpose of the torture Winston is to alter his way of thinking, not to extract a fake confession, and that once Winston has been cured — that is, once Winston unquestioningly accepts reality as the Party describes it — he then will be executed; electroshock torture will achieve that, continuing until O'Brien decides Winston is

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In the world of Oceania there are many control mechanisms that are used to keep the members of the society with the most power.. Winston Smith, the main character in George Orwell's 1948 novel “1984” demonstrates plenty of the ways Oceania controls. Prime examples of this would be their usage of propaganda, surveillance, and language control. The ways the party controls their society varies.

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Threat of forced labor and torture is constant and looming, displayed in the literal looming of the Ministry of Love: “[The Ministry of Love] was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air” (4). The citizens fall in line out of fear, shifting even their subconscious. Orwell demonstrates that the threat of physical pain will make humans change their very nature. However, Winston defies this rejecting the Party and refusing to change his nature. But, when enough physical pain is applied, he breaks,conversely rejecting his humanity in devotion to the party: “Do it to Julia!

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What is a hero? A hero is someone who has the ability to rise above challenges and is brave enough to sacrifice himself for others. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, by definition, Winston Smith can be considered the novels hero. This is because of his strength and bravery to go against the party. While reader can admire Winston, they can over exceed his actions.

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O’Brien speaks in a kind and encouraging way; his words are encouraging in that he is pushing Winston to realize the how the Party has utter control over history and society itself. O’Brien explains that “[The Party controls] life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us” (Orwell 269). In reality, Winston is actually being unreasonable by not accepting that the Party has total control. O’Brien reveals his true identity as a friend by pushing Winston to accept this total control, justifying Winston’s torture to see five of O’Brien’s fingers instead of

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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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In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the main theme is of conformity to the wants of society and the government. Themes of dehumanization of our species, as well as the danger of a totalitaristic state are repeatedly expressed. Orwell demonstrates this theme by using setting and characters in the novel. The setting helps to convey the theme because of the world and kind of city that the main character lives in. Winston’s every move is watched and controlled by the governmental figurehead known as “big brother”.

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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.

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He gives up and realizes that he cannot change anything or prove anything against the supreme power of the Big Brother. He pays his allegiance to the government. Winston had to go through a series of tortures out of which Room no. 101 was the symbol of pain. He is made to face his ultimate fear that is rats, which makes him betray Julia and he loses everything. What is shown here is how the people, who rebel, who try bringing change and or try to understand and remember the past are treated.

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