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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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