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Examples Of Individualism In George Orwell's '1984'

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During Winston’s hours of torture and questioning, O’Brien described the future of Oceania and its citizens as being equivalent to a boot continuously stomping down on a face. He preceded this by explaining the steps already taken in order to destroy humanity and individualism including breaking the ties of friendship, disrupting the love between a man and woman, and perhaps most frightening of all, creating distrust between children and their parents. Ultimately the boot crashing down on the human face is a symbol for what the Party plans to do: continue crushing the individual human spirit into being a thoughtless body that is able to be manipulated into anything the party wants it to be. The strange thing though is that O’Brien seems to be preaching collectivity but in actuality he supports the individual. Note the word “the”. To him there is only one individual, the Party, and to expand the power of this one individual others must be sacrificed. As a result of this belief held by Party members, enemies must be in constant supply. Furthermore, having enemies for those to despise creates a deeper sense of unity and allows for …show more content…

Without a doubt 1984 reflects these countries and their politics. This can especially be seen when O’Brien states, “The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism,” -Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 221. Despotism is defined as being a form of government in which a despot, a single entity, exercises absolute power in an oppressive or cruel way. In this case the despot would be Big Brother or the inner Party members. Basically their cruelty is an unending cycle that will continue to grow stronger as opposition rises because the enemy will be fought against by the

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