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Winston Smith's Use Of Oppression In 1984 George Orwell

803 Words4 Pages

David Ibarra
Mr. Carroll
British Literature
September 4, 2014
Happy Endings Are Too Cliché: Oppression in 1984 From 1934 to 1940 Joseph Stalin led the Great Purge in which he rid his country of all opposing powers through vast imprisonment and executions. The political genocide and imprisonments demonstrated Stalin’s oppressive power in the clearest manner possible to assure the longevity and safety of the party from its opposition. Similarly, such clear and ruthless oppression can be found in George Orwell’s 1984. In 1984, George Orwell suggests that oppression cannot be defeated. He shows this through Winston Smith’s original view of the Party and Winston’s concluding view of the Party. Winston Smith’s original view of the Party showed …show more content…

Winston although laudably trying to defend his beliefs in the Ministry of Love cannot withstand the brutal physical and psychological tactics used by O’Brien eventually this proves too much for Winston who wrote on his piece of slate: “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it: TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE” (277). Winston shows that his original views in which he refused to give into the Party and relinquish his ideals by obeying ridiculous commands such as two and two making five are failing him and unable to withstand the Party. Winston’s beliefs although strong, even among those with similar views, are succumbing to the oppressive tactics of the Party as “without a pause” he continued writing what were hypocrisies to him just a short while before. Similarly, Winston’s capitulation was shown when he was being executed: “Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” (298). This tear inducing moment Winston is undergoing demonstrates his acceptance that he was now broken down and a believer in the party and in all it does. He could no longer hold his previous defiant view of the Party, he is a drone of the Party as is the rest of society. The oppressive force of the Party took control of his life and then continued on taking from him the only thing he could say was free, his mind. Winston accepts the Party and accepts its ideologies, Winston “loved Big

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In chapter three, section one, Winston found himself in what he believed to be the Ministry of Love, starving. He was forbidden to move or he would get yelled at by the telescreen that was monitoring him. A old, Prole woman shares his last name and questions if there is a possibility that it could be his mother. Ampleforth, a poet was placed into a cell for writing the word “God” in a passage. Winston’s neighbor, Parson was turned in for thoughtcrime by his own children.

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He is not the person he was before and he has succumbed to the threats of Big Brother. He says “two and two make five” and he believes it to be true, just as the government wants. He is troubled with false memories and does not know what is true and what is told to be true by Big Brother. The party had the ability to “frighten you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your senses, (1,7)” and this is just what they did to Winston. Now, he has been trained to only think thoughts that align with the party’s goals, so he loses his sense of rebellion and individuality.

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In the book, 1984 by George Orwell, Winston is a creation of the Party as they know what he is thinking and control his every move by manipulating his environment. Winston is a fabricated rebel used to test the Party’s true power and strength; a simulated virus that must be destroyed by their defenses to ensure their victory over the people. The Party must be ready for any attack against their authority and Winston was the perfect invention. The Party plays games with Winston to instill the idea of being human in him. As they use him for training their members to purge their world of any insurgents, they also influence him for their own amusement.

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Winston dared not disobey. As the two men left, locking him in the cell once again, he couldn't help but wonder what could be going on. His hopes were higher than they had been in so long, and he imagined a massive crowd, pushing their way into the Ministry of Love, ready to overthrow the Party and release everyone from the misery of its reign. He could only smile as he thought these happy thoughts. It was then he finally noted that not even the telescreen was yelling at him to sit up straight or to wipe the smile off his face.

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Winston has an imaginative mind and later in the book he claims that the “power that would one day overturn the world” lies “in the proles”. He feels that the fate of the Party would lie in their hands and “when their time came, the world they constructed would not be just as alien to him” since “at the least it would be a world of sanity” (220). Winston expresses one of his heroic qualities through displaying his vision for the good of

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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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Despite his efforts to defy pressure and overthrow the ruling party, Winston submits to a higher authority. Winston wishes to test the limits of power, but in convincing himself that he is doomed to succeed, Winston takes risks and gets carried away in rebellion. As Winston sits with an open diary, the text details, "It was no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large, neat capitals, 'DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER'" (13). Winston exposes himself to the internal notion of failure from the start, as he indicates foresight of his future adversities.

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At the beginning of the novel, Winston made it prominent that he dissented Big Brother and his party’s idea. He wrote in his diary, in Book 1 Chapter 1, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER…” (Orwell 18). This shows that Winston dissented his country’s government and was willing to rebel for he knew deep inside that

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The aforementioned quotes illustrate the extent of Winston’s desire for change and revolution, which can be inferred by the structure, language, and context present in the quotes. For example, the leading quote displays Winston’s desperation for change, as seen by the use of “hope” and the simple sentence structure of the statement. The use of “hope” shows that Winston’s desires hinge upon the proles, thereby illustrating the extent of his nonconformity; he is willing to place the burden of his own humanity upon the undereducated masses of society, because they are not restricted by the party’s orthodoxy, as opposed to viewing them as mindless cattle. Similarly, the simple sentence structure of the leading quote displays the certainty of

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He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” (Orwell 298). The only reason that Winston changed his mind was

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