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Examples Of Tension In 1984

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In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith, the protagonist, outwardly conforms to the harsh government of Big Brother while rebelling inwardly, and eventually outwardly, against the totalitarian control. Winston’s juxtaposing compliancy and questioning leads to a disastrous path that starts with a fatalistic rebellion and ends with complete conformity. As the novel travels through its three sections, the tension between Winston’s outward conformity and inward questioning conveys that even the act of questioning against a manipulative, oppressive power is necessary to fight against tyranny. Recognizing that even thinking against the Party is a death sentence, Winston jumps straight into actively going against Big Brother, but in only little rebellions. These little rebellions, like …show more content…

Winston, with full acceptance that the Party will kill him for his thoughtcrime, starts a vivacious love affair with Julia. This love affair sparks Winston’s full on rebellion against Big Brother, one that goes much further than just thinking. Winston, along with a less rebellious Julia, increases his rebellious acts by reading Goldstein’s manifesto, verbally rebelling against the Party, and joining the Brotherhood. As Winston’s acts of rebellion get bigger and bigger, the threat of punishment and death grows as well. Winston says that he is the dead; his actions and thoughts forces him to be among the dead. Due to his actions and crimes, Winston’s arrest contributes to his outward questioning, which causes his own death, the death of his spirit and beliefs. In the climax of the novel, Winston’s rise of rebellious actions maintains that acting against tyranny in seemingly small ways, like having a love affair or reading a book, are acts of full of rebellion, rebellions that are needed to fight

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546 Words | 3 Pages

Winston conveys the clear message to beware of the ‘eyes’ of the party, enforcing the slogan “big brother is watching you. Winston promotes this awareness towards the other rebels of the party and general people to overall spread his knowledge and hopefully influence revolt. While

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786 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the story, Winston commits various “thoughtcrimes”, which are punishable by death, against “Big Brother” in order to escape its tyranny. We see the things he commits these crimes with, specifically with his diary and Julia, to be what he cherishes most. At the start of the book, Winston’s first “thoughtcrime” was writing in his diary. In this society, expressing thought is against the law and

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431 Words | 2 Pages

Hope and defiance are played within 1984 by the Party and Orwell. Orwell instills fear, hate, obedience, and respect in his characters to follow the Party, but he tampers with the concept of hope, but only in small amounts. Orwell puts little emphasis into hope and defiance compared to the emotions stated before. Hope is expressed little by little as the story continues, having the main two who prove to have hope or defiance towards the Party is Winston and Julia. The first instance in Winston is expressed while he is writing about the Proles.

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2044 Words | 9 Pages

The main character, Winston, changed with the issues at hand. Throughout the beginning and middle of the book, Winston was set apart from everyone else; he had a rebellious soul. Rather than conforming and thinking like the majority, he felt the need to communicate with the future about the world’s current state. His diary was his first major act of rebellion. Then, his affair with Julia was a desire fulfilling act, and it went against the governing party’s rules.

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662 Words | 3 Pages

Winston warned Julia, the girl who he had a love affair with. “ We are the dead.” (137). Yet, their love is strictly prohibited under Party laws. Winston accepts himself as a dead man like those who have declared war against the Party.

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875 Words | 4 Pages

During their first meeting, Winston recounts their actions to follow that, “not merely the love of one person but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces,” (172). Their actions are one of the only ways they can rebel against the party, and Winston believes

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Not yet acting out on Big Brother’s fallacies and oppressive rule we see throughout the novel. Winston is beginning to have inklings of ideas of going against the Party and its own ideals. This passage uses allegory and the idea of doublethink to demonstrate Winston’s growing displeasure with Big Brother and all its related modes of oppression and begins to put in the minds of the audience ideas of how to bring system of oppression

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1194 Words | 5 Pages

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).

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880 Words | 4 Pages

Even in the midst of torture, Winston has been conditioned to expect pain and suffering as a consequence for his rebellion. Instead of an evil dictator torturing him, Winston sees this leader trying to save his mind. When the torture ends, Winston is back completely under Big Brother’s control and forgets any desire to rebel, even giving up his lover Julia in the process. His mind was manipulated to such extreme levels that Winston believed he deserved the mental and physical torture he received, causing him to lose his beliefs and himself in the

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847 Words | 4 Pages

The novel, 1984, can be most closely compared with the popular book and movie series, The Hunger Games. Overt comparisons between the two novels include their futuristic approach and the dystopian societies that emerged after periods of war. Additionally, both novels highlight poverty as a highly effective method of control. Building on that method of control, both novels have a strict hierarchy of society used to control the masses.

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152 Words | 1 Pages

I had a vision to enhance myself academically, professionally and personally in an English-speaking environment. I completed a Business degree in Brisbane, Australia and after successful practical and theoretical results; I have developed abilities such as lateral and critical thinking; change and relationship management. I have been fascinated by cultures for years and been traveling a lot. I love meeting new people, actively listening to their stories and that could be a reason why I have friendships from all corners around the world. I am an active community volunteer and have been representing and involved with the following three organisations: 1.

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796 Words | 4 Pages

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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2740 Words | 11 Pages

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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825 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1420 Words | 6 Pages

Do you ever feel like you're being watched by the government?The novel 1984 by George Orwell is about a man named Winston that lived and a Society where the government called big brother’s stride to regularly every aspect of public and private life. In this novel the author Orwell Portray the perfect totalitarian society. The party controls all information and history of the town. The party also manipulated the minds of the children and the town. Big brother’s role and Oceania were to control any and everyone and the town.

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