#8

   Throughout Orwell's novel, 1984, protagonist Winston Smith has develops and changes drastically in character.  A major area of development for Winston is in his relationship with Julia.  In the beginning Winston and Julia's relationship is seemingly one of pure lust and rebellion, however, as time goes on the relationship grows to one of affection signaled by Winston's sadness at not being able to see Julia on certain occasions.  Rebellion further changes Winston's relationship with Julia.  Winston who seems irrevocably bound to Julia, so much so that he promises never to betray her if caught, is hesitant when posed with the option of being separated from Julia.  This  change is seen during Winston's conversation with O'Brien and Julia, " You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never see one another again?  "No!" broke in Julia.  It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he answered.  For a moment he seemed even to have been deprived of the power of speech.  His tongue worked soundlessly, forming the opening syllables first of one word then of the other, over and over again.  Until he said it, he did not know which word he was going to say.  "No" he said finally" (Orwell 173).  Here it is seen that Winston has regressed to back to a mindset of pure rebellion.  This rebellious mindset is reflected in his hesitation to say no to the possibility of not being with Julia.  Unlike Julia, Winston's answer is not immediate and resolute.  Winston's hesitation signifies doubt, he doubts that his relationship with Julia is more valuable than taking down the Party.  This doubt reflects Winston's regression back to a want for pure rebellion.  Had he real value for love over all other things he would not hesitate to give up rebellion in order to remain with his paramour.  Winston has gone back to holding rebellion against the party in higher regard than love.  This is a regression for Winston because at one time it seemed he was returning to the basis of humanity: human connection made through love.  With rebellious fervor on his mind and rebellion being  a higher priority than love, Winston loses his progress in becoming more human, and instead reverts back to the rebellious passion comparable to the Party's subjects passion for hate.  In the end this hesitancy and regression could cost him.

#7

      In today's society impulses and emotions have a considerable impact on humans and the way that they interact.  George Orwell characterizes the importance of human impulses and emotions through Winston's reflections on memories of his mother from childhood.  Winston's reflection comes from a place of serious regret.  In a dream Winston remembers how his selfishness aided the demise of his mother and sister.  Although Winston's selfishness hurts his mother and sister, his mother still chooses to love him and embrace her other starving child in love though it will not undo the damage of Winston's unkind deed.  Upon reflection Winston realizes, "The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world...once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel , what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference" (Orwell 165).  Here Orwells depicts the major difference between  a world filled with humanity and the world of 1984.  The Party has taken emotions and actions and seemingly made them null and void.  Whereas in the world past where Winston's mother still existed her love and embraces showed strong feeling and had meaning, under the the regime of the Party such feelings and actions account for nothing.  The Party successfully eliminates these strong and influential human impulses by persuading its subjects that such enterprises have no real meaning.  There is a direct causation between feeling and action, feeling motivates people to act based upon a given emotion.  Destruction of emotion destroys action.  These pieces of human nature destroyed leave a powerless man with no way to touch the world.  In reality feelings and the actions for which they are responsible have the greatest impact upon humanity.  It is feeling and action that are the very essence of humanity.  These things create connections between people.  The impotence of connection is that it anchors one person to another and helps to give a reason for living and thus gives people power over the world.  With connections people realize that their action or inaction impacts the life of another person.  When sentiment and its resulting actions are eliminated humanity is eliminated, connection is eliminated.  People lack emotion and thus have no emotional impulses to translate into action.  In the end the Party's annihilation of humanity  creates a world in which human connection no longer exists and a generation of forlorn powerless people.

#6

            George Orwell's 1984 gives a new meaning to the idea of living and dying.  As Orwell develops Julia and Winston's relationship he creates the concept that both Julia and Winston are dead already: it is inevitable that they will be caught in their iniquitous thoughts and actions against the party.  This is seen clearly during one of Julia and Winston's intimate meetings: "We are dead," he said.  We're not dead yet", said Julia prosaically.  "Not physically.  Six months, a year-five years, conceivably.  I am afraid of death.  You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of death than I am.  Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can.  But it makes a very little difference.  So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing" (Orwell 136). In Oceania to live means to die, eventually the party will kill a person. Winston's statement begs the question: if human beings are as good as dead from the start why go on living?  Why invest in survival when in the end it will make no difference?  The answer is simple, within human beings in Oceania there is an inherent drive to survive.  There is a want for life and to live even though logically it seems that in the end life does not matter.  They are dead before they even begin.  It is this same reason that allows Winston and Julia to continue to meet and disobey Party rules.  They proceed with caution in order to put off death for as long as possible.  Winston and Julia want to live.  Yet there is an inherent knowledge that  already they are dead, they are caught, eventually their lives will have meant nothing because they will have been erased from existence.   In the end Winston and Julia's want for life will destroy them because as said by Winston, "death and life are the same thing".

#4

     George Orwell's 1984 tells of a society where everyone is seemingly asleep.  Those found in the Outer Party are asleep in that they go through the daily motions of being loyal party members while watching as the Party deals corruptly.  They accept everything the Party says even when they know for a fact that the Party is wrong.  Then there are the Proles, the Proles are the lowest class in Big Brother's society.  Though they are the lowest in all of Oceania their population is the largest with 85% of Oceania being Prole.  Such a large group would logically have the most power, yet due to their low position in society and the oppression of Big Brother this group has no voice in any matters of political and social importance.  The Proles have something that the other social groups lack: potential.  This potential is kept down because they do not realize it.  Winston writes that "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious" (Orwell 70).  The Proles are completely ignorant of their potential to completely shake up the Party's regime in Oceania, this is due to them being treated as mere animals by the government.  If only the Proles would wake up and find some way to be educated.  If they would look around them and realize that the lowly position they have been pressed into as beasts of burden for the government is a pure injustice.  Then and only then can the Proles rise up and take a stand.  However in the second part of Winston's statement he mentions that after the Proles have rebelled they cannot become conscious.  Here Winston says that even though the Proles have the potential to revolutionize Oceania after becoming conscious of the fact  that the way they have been treated is wrong they cannot keep the country in a stable state.  Like other peasant revolutions due to lack of education the Proles would falter and lack the consciousness and knowledge to know how Oceania should be run.  Thus there be hope in the number of Proles their ignorance limits their potential for bringing the change Oceania needs under Big Brother's totalitarian regime.

1984 #3

         George Orwell's 1984 brings a whole new meaning to the word orthodox.  In chapter five Orwell explains what it means to be orthodox under the regime of Big Brother.  The definition of orthodoxy is brought to light by Winston's fellow comrade and closest thing to a friend: Syme.  Syme works for the Party as a philologist helping to destroy Oldspeak and creating Newspeak, a language that anihalates language itself.  In Syme's explanation of the destruction of language for the amelioration of the party he articulates that as words are destroyed the way people think will change.  In turn there will be drastic results; "The whole climate of thought will be different.  In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now.  Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think.  Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" (Orwell 53).  Syme's words are a clear revelation of what Big Brother and the Party intend to do.  This strange definition of orthodoxy is not so abstract, rather it is the perfect model for a totalitarian society.  The Party requires that all citizens adhere to strict orthodoxy.  This orthodoxy calls for thoughts that do not dissent against Big Brother.  In the eradication of words the Party acts brilliantly.  Words are very important, they allow people to transfer thoughts and ideas to one another.  As words are destroyed people's vocabulary is limited.  With a limited vocabulary people are incapable of communicating. Lack of communication leads to the impediment of ideas.  With no new ideas being brought to light people will have nothing to think on.  Should the Party succeed in giving people nothing to think on save blind obedience to the Party itself, Big Brother would have the perfect group of subjects.  Dissonance would never be found within Oceania because not one dissenting idea would exist.  "Unconsciousness" would be the norm.   In Big Brother's totalitarian regime the government thinks for the people, this works best with an unconscious people.  The minute that the people stop thinking for themselves and follow this orthodoxy is the moment that Big Brother and the Party gain total control.

1984 #2

         Life under Big Brother is a continual process of writing, rewriting, and effacing history.  This includes personal history, political history, and social history.  Winston Smith participates in the "rectifying" of the official history of Oceania.  His job in the Ministry of Truth entails altering articles and pieces of media that Big Brother feels necessary to correct, or as Big Brother's government calls it rectifying.  History is something that never changes, the past can never be adjusted.  Under Big Brother's regime; "Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.   In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.   All history was palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.  In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place" (Orwell 40).   This eerie description of how history can be micro-managed and controlled is very disturbing.  At any point in time the national history of a nation is "reinscribed exactly as [is] necessary".  History is supposed to be truth.  History is immutable fact.  Yet in this totalitarian regime history is recreated to fit the needs of the government.  The official history can never be verified as the truth  due to the destruction of all other records created before.  The constant bringing of history to date serves the government well.  With official documentation of history the way Big Brother wants it to be, citizens are kept subservient.  The Party systematically creates an uninformed society.  Citizens are essentially vulnerable to the government and the government's written word.  Truth is relative to what the regime wants the truth to be at the given time.  In general people look to the written word in order to find out the truth. Written word is assumed infallible.  Facts are supposed to be indisputable. The facts that the Ministry of Truth puts out are assumed indisputable because it is documented history.  When people constantly hear one an official history from a source of authority the truth is easily forgotten, and lies believed.   This also brings to mind the question of whether or not official histories are actually truth.  If the Party is able to rewrite history continuously and publish it in text while keeping those who may have known the truth silent, is it so far fetched to believe that today's governments could not also do the same?  In this passage Orwell inadvertently states that it is necessary for humans to keep record of history themselves.  Otherwise humankind might find immutable facts found within textbooks to be the fabrications of a government working to keep its citizens submissive.

Inside the World of Big Brother

    George Orwell's 1984 depicts a dystopia unlike anything ever seen by mankind up to date.  The protagonist Winston Smith lives in a world where Big Brother perpetually watches the actions of the citizens of Oceania.  The essence of Winston's world is Big Brother.  As Winston looks out from his watched abode Orwell describes the world he lives in: "Outside even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold.  Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere.  The black-mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner" (Orwell 2).  In the world of Big Brother life is completely bleak.  Orwell describes it as having "no color in anything" and the sky as being "harsh blue", and the world as looking "cold" despite the shining sun.  Color is usually a symbol of life, the fact that in a place where there are residents still there is no color implies that the world is barren.  The piece of color found within the sky is described as "harsh" further demonstrating the austerity of Winston's world.  Though color is not clearly evident it is not absent.  It is seen in this very same passage that the posters plastered everywhere are the only color found outside.  This splash of color produced only by Big Brother demonstrates the fact that life in this dystopia is only found in Big Brother and his government.  Orwell also says that "The black mustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner" (Orwell 2).  Here Orwell's severe diction in describing the places that carry posters of Big Brother as "commanding" is very important.  In describing the corners as "commanding" Orwell creates the image of  Big Brother commanding all that is in Winston's world.  His poster commands each area reminding everyone of his reign and power.  In essence the world commanded by Big Brother contains no life outside of Big Brother himself.  Life in Oceania is Big Brother.