Examples Of Abuse Of Power In 1984 By George Orwell

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him power”. This quotation demonstrates that most people live with difficulties and that helps understand the struggles making it more plausible to feel empathy. However, understanding and feeling empathy when you have privilege is much harder. Thus, the normality of abuse and corruption in someone with a position of power because they lose a sense of humanity. This central idea is shared in George Orwell’s 1984, a dystopian novel about extreme tyranny. It teaches the reader that people will abuse power for selfish reasons as shown by the reduction of the Newspeak language, the advertising of the Party, and by Winston’s knowledge of Julia. The Party uses their authority to change the vocabulary

In 1984 he is a person with high moral standards and values, the one to question the Party and how they rule. Despite this, he gives into the demands of power while being tortured, in this moment Winston is facing his “unendurable fear” of rats because the Party wants him to change the way he thinks. The text says, “ But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was only one person to whom he could transfer his punishment- one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over: ‘ Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! 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