Page 1of4 S College of Law Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful Big Brother. Defying a ban on individuality, Winston dares to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with Julia, These criminal deeds bring Winston into the eye of the opposition, who then must reform the nonconformist. George Orwell's 1984 introduced the watchwords for life without freedom: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. The three most important aspects of 1984: The setting of 1984 is a dystopia: an imagined world that is far worse than our own, as opposed to a utopia, which is an ideal place or state, Other dystopian novels include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's own Animal Farm, When George Orwell wrote 1984, the year that gives the book its title was still almost 40 years in the future. Some of the things Orwell imagined that would come to pass were the telescreen, a TV that observes those who are watching it, and a world consisting of three megastates rather than hundreds of countries. In the novel, the country of Eastasia apparently consists of China and its satellite nations; Eurasia is the Soviet Union; and Oceania comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies Another of Orwell's creations for 1984 is Newspeak, a form of English that the book's totalitarian government utilizes to discourage free thinking. Orwell believed that, without a word or words to express an idea, the idea itself was impossible to conceive and retain. Thus Newspeak has eliminated the word "bad," replacing it with the less- harsh “ungood." The author's point was that government can control us through the words. Nineteen Eighty-four, novel by English author George Orwell published in 1949 as a warning against totalitarianism. The chilling dystopia made a deep impression on readers, and his ideas M.K.E.S College of Law - SmritiPage 2 of 4 entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by very few books. The book’s title and many of its concepts, such as Big Brother and the Thought Police, are instantly recognized and Understood, often as bywords for modern social and political abuses. The book is set in 1984 in Oceania, one of three perpetually warring totalitarian states (the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia). Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into unthinking obedience to its leader, Big Brother. The Party has created a propagandistic language known as Newspeak, which is designed to limit free thought and promote the Party’s doctrines. Its words include doublethink’(belief in contradictory ideas simultaneously), which is reflected in the Party’s slogans: “Wan is'peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.” The Party maintaing¢ontro through the Thought Police and continual surveillance. The book’s hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary liyifig in a London that is still shattered by a nuclear war that took place not long after World:War'll. He belongs to the Outer Party, and his job is to rewrite history in the Ministry of Truth bringing it in line with current political thinking. However, W: rebel against the government. He embarks on a forbidden affair with Julia, a like-minded woman, and they rent a room in a neighbourhood populated by Proles (short for proletariats). ston’s longing Yor truthidind decency leads him to secretly Winston also becomes increasingly ‘interested in the Brotherhood, a group of dissenters. Unbeknownst to Winston and Julia, hoWever, they are being watched closely (ubiquitous posters throughout the city sWarn residents that “Big Brother is watching you.”). When Winston if'approached by O’Brien—an official of the Inner Party who appears to be a secret member of thé Brotherhood—the trap is set. O’Brien is actually a spy for the Party, on ” and Winston and Julia are eventually caught and sent to the Ministry of Love for a violent re-education. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and re- the lookout for “thought-criminal: education of Winston are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root dut his independence and destroy his dignity and humanity. In Room 101, where prisoners are forced into submission by exposure to their worst nightmares, Winston panics as a cage of rats is attached to his head. He yells out for his tormentors to “Do it to Julia!” and states that he does not care what happens to her. With this betrayal, Winston is released. He later encounters Julia, and neither is interested in the other. Instead Winston loves Big Brother. M.K.E.S College of Law - SmritiPage 3 of 4 In the given text, Winston Smith is lying on a camp bed, where he has been for many days, being tortured almost constantly. O’Brien oversees Winston's “treatment.” Finally, O'Brien personally takes over, torturing Winston when he does not give the correct answer to the questions O'Brien asks, many of which have to do with memory and objective truth, OBrien finally answers Winston's primary question, the question that has haunted him throughout the story: the why of the Party’s behaviour. Winston also learns that he is thought to be insane, and O'Brien, who acts strangely like Winston's friend, says that he will cure him O'Brien allows Winston to ask him whatever he wants, and O'Brien seems to answer honestly In the given text, Winston enters the second stage of his "reintegration," understanding. Here, in his conversations with O'Brien, Winston learns about the Party's ideology and debates with O'Brien about the spirit of Man. Winston is able to look at himself in the mirror, a ruined, crushed human being, for which O'Brien mocks him. Winston discovers that Julia has betrayed him, but he has not yet betrayed Julia. Finally, O'Brien tells Winston what he knew all along — that he will eventually be shot — but is ambiguous about when. Analysis Winston's horrors and fear are brought to light in these chapters: He is betrayed by Julia and O'Brien, he is tortured and ruined, and every hope he had for a future without the Party is destroyed. Winston leams that Goldstein's book was written partially by O'Brien and that Big Brother exists just as the Party exists, eternal and omnipotent. These chapters function much like the chapters of “the book," which Winston read earlier in the story; both serve to answer unanswered questions about the Party and its ideology. However, these chapters are more revealing and shed light on many of the things Winston has wondered about throughout the novel. He always understood how the Party wielded its power, but he never understood why; O'Brien explains to him that the Party seeks power solely for the sake of power, ironically like the bird or the prole woman singing just to sing, as Julia had observed earlier O'Brien tries to make Winston understand and employ the concept of doublethink; doing so will be Winston's only salvation, but Winston finds mustering the mental strength to do so M.K.E.S College of Law - SmritiPage 4 of 4 difficult. This unwillingness to use doublethink has been Winston's downfall from the beginning and ultimately proves to be his breaking point. Again the theme of the importance of objective truth returns. Here, Winston takes the position that memory and objective truth must win out over falsehood because the Party cannot destroy memory. O'Brien is set on proving Winston wrong in this case. O'Brien tells Winston that the Party is far superior to Nazi Germany or the Russian Communists because, unlike those other regimes whose enemies were eventually turned into martyrs, the Party refuses to let a stray thought get through. Controlling all thought is the Party's power, a power that will remain timeless, Here Orwell takes totalitarianism a step further — into the mind, The equation that Winston writes in his diary, 2 +2 =4, comes back to haunt him; itis the one objective truth that Winston cannot give up. The equation is the sticking-point between Winston and O'Brien and ultimately becomes the proof of Winston's reintegration. If Winston can believe that 2 + 2 = 5, then the Party has gotten inside of him O'Brien knows about every “criminal” activity that Winston has engaged in to this point — even something as "minor" as Winston's memory of the photograph of Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford upon which he had been basing much of his evidence that the Party was deliberately changing history. Even without the physical photograph, the image still exists in Winston's memory, and O'Brien uses this image as an example of Winston's inability to want to change for the better — the better of the Party. O'Brien tells Winston that Julia has betrayed him, but there is no evidence in this chapter to prove that it is true. Winston has not betrayed Julia, and that fact is the only thing that keeps him from being “reintegrated'" — the only thing keeping him human Reference — » C. Lowne, “Nineteen Eighty Four: novel by Orwell”, Britannica. , Accessed on 15/03/2021 at 01:00 pm. > “1984: George Orwell”, CliffsNotes , Accessed on 15/03/2021 at 12:30 pm. M.K.E.S College of Law - Smriti