George Orwell 1984 Analysis

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A totalitarian regime strikes fear in the hearts of those who cannot challenge. “1984” by George Orwell explores the depths of a destructive dystopian nightmare. The novel captures elements of a “negative utopia” that oppresses individuals of “Oceania” from the shadows of absolute power. This oppression is an intrinsic property of the novel, but the protagonist, Winston Smith, attempts to challenge the power of the apparatus of the state with intangible evidence of their subterfuge. Orwell constructs an unorthodox self-imagined hero who is ultimately defeated by “Big Brother”, the symbol of the Party’s unchallenged power. The novel concludes with the downfall of Winston, a symbol of rebellion, and the totalitarian regime overcomes another trivial …show more content…

Winston’s interior landscape positions the reader to understand the extreme dominancy of the Party’s power which controls the memories and emotions of the citizens of Oceania. They are drawn into the world where Winston’s scepticism and suspicions about the Party’s claims torment him. Orwell uses personification to portray the tyrannic power the Party possesses: “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened – that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?” This depicts a totalitarian world where the apparatus controls the individuals of Oceania, eradicating their individuality and the spirit of the human nature. “1984” explores the manipulation of the past in which Winston’s need to expose the truth, in a conformed society where the concept of truth belongs only to those with power, is evident in the segment where he recalls having tangible evidence of the Party’s fabrication of the “truth”: “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once…he possessed unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification.” Orwell positions the reader to understand that Winston is a developing character who goes to great extents of opposing his totalitarian world. However, the reader also understands that challenging power in “1984” is a flagrant violation of the law in