Analysis Of George Orwell 's 1984

No one knew if what they remembered was true or not because of all the false stories put into their heads. In Orwell’s novel, the rebels were beaten and the soul they once had floated away to never come back. “We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think… You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?” (Orwell, 273). This is clear proof that Winston was tortured and beaten into believing what the government wanted him to. He hated Big Brother his whole life and now the person that he was once was had been taken away from him. A new and government improved version appeared. No flaws, no doubts, no anger, just confidence that everything Big Brother said was true.

In 1984, George Orwell uses cultural, psychological, and social surroundings to shape Winston Smith's (the main protagonist) psyche. The society's culture is restrictive, the government brainwashes people and children into following the government's rule, and his social encounters, especially with his girlfriend Julia, shape his morality.

He first believed that “The solid world exists, its laws do not change” no matter what the Party said, and no one can change the fact that “two plus two make four” (Orwell, 103). No matter what, he thought, the government could not alter his perception of the truth. Freedom was the ability to perceive the truth, something that cannot be changed no matter how much the Party tried, and knowledge and defiance of the government’s lies were resistance. At first, he thought that they could not conceal reality, so they could not take control of his mind. However, after he is arrested and tortured by the government, Winston loses his judgement, his freedom. His brainwashed mind loses the ability to recognize that two plus two equal four; instead, he agrees that it actually is five because the Party said so. His change shows that the authorities do manage to alter the natural law in Winston’s mind so that it coheres with the Party’s claim, and his initial belief about resistance is

In the novel “1984” by George Orwell, Winston undergoes a metamorphosis of character, which changes his life forever. At first Winston is just like everyone else, a dull drone of the party. Then he changes his ideals and becomes true to himself with obvious rebellion towards party principles and standards. Finally, Winston is brainwashed and is turned against himself and his feelings and is made to love the party. This is a story of perception, and how different it can be from one person to the next.

Winston was not only compared to a sack of potatoes, but was also said to be “as shameless as an animal” (263). This was due to his behavior after being punished so much that he would roll around the floor agonizing in pain. All of those torturing tactics caused him to confess to real and imaginary crimes. This results in readers feeling extremely sorry for the proceedings that were occurring. Orwell explains, “He became simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed whatever was demanded of him” (265). This was referring to how Winston had taken too much damage and was capable of agreeing or doing anything that the thought police told him to do. He wanted to make them stop completely, it was horrific how he would confess to anything in order to make them stop hurting

Winston Smith was forced to learn under torture by O’Brien that 2+2=5 because that is what the Party says. The

Winston goes through emotional change throughout 1984 that changes his perspective and personality. At the beginning of the book, Winston is filled with hatred towards the Party. “They’ll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother-” (Orwell, 19). Winston’s fury towards the Party and Big Brother is evident. Through his diary entries, you can definitely tell that he harbors an intense anger towards them. So, it may seem that this trait will never change and make him always fight for it. The reader may at first think that he will never change views. But then, Winston completely changes perspective at the end of the book when he states, “He loved Big Brother.” (Orwell, 298). This keeps Winston from becoming another boring character who refuses to change his opinion which makes for an interesting book and a more complex character.

In 1984, the ultimate form of betrayal is introduced when The Party causes Winston to betray his own mind and accept their views, and love Big Brother. It the beginning, Winston stresses the importance of keeping your own thoughts, in a world where other opinions and alternate accounts of past events are being forced upon the population. Winston points out that “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.” and thoughts like this become important to the reader, who, as Winston does, believes that they are safe in his head as a facet of his character (Orwell 29). However, the torture in the Ministry of Love gets to Winston, and he begins to lose his individual opinions. O’Brien systematically removes all rebellious thoughts in Winston’s mind, replacing them with the ideology of The Party. In doing so, it is as if they are killing a character. When Winston is released he behaves like a new character altogether, he loses the battle with himself and betrays his original opinions against The Party. In using self-betrayal to show

Near the end of the novel, 1984, Winston’s, and the way he acts, transforms due to false consciousness. The false consciousness in Winston was generated by his persecutor, using painful methods. Winston was forced to believe whatever O’Brian, the torturer, said, “And if the Party says that is not four but five then how many?” “Four” (Orwell 255) After that point, Winston eventually began to accept that ‘four plus four is five’, due to the pain and torture he was put through. Winston constantly thought and wrote the statement ‘four plus four equals five’. This could be considered as, what is called, memory amplification. “This process tends to involve the subject remembering more trauma than they actually experienced.” (strange/Takarangi 2016). Winston’s traumatized state, caused by O’Brian, led his mind falsely recreate the traumatic events, different from how it actually occurred. This rethinking of the traumatic event, cause Winston to bring about its own sense of false consciousness. The event is in his memory forever, and therefore he begins to believe the statement, even though it’s false. Winston inevitably changes; his mind and what he believes in, all because of his newly reformed state of mind, creating false

In the novel 1984, George Orwell relates the tension between outward conformity and inward questioning by allowing the reader to see inside of the mind of Winston Smith. Orwell uses Winston’s rebellious thoughts to counteract his actions in order to show the reader how a dystopian society can control the citizens. Although Winston is in an obvious state of disbelief in the society, his actions still oppose his thoughts because of his fear of the government. Winston’s outward conformity and inward questioning relate to the meaning of the novel by showing Winston’s fight to truth being ended by the dystopian society’s government.

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” (part 1, pg 74) this not only foreshadows Winston, how he knew the truth about the party, rebelled, then chose to be ‘unconscious’ again, but also shows how one cannot be enlightened if they choose to be blind. In the first half of the book, Winston, in a way, was ‘free’, free in terms of understanding that the party was wrong. Once the party found out, they didn’t have a choice but to torture Winston into submission, instilling fear in him. This left him with the choice of having knowledge and death, or a twisted form of ‘happiness’ while being ignorant; “The choice of mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” (pg.

Winston was not able to withstand the power of a totalitarian that had unlimited resources and unchecked power. The use of pain demonstrates that only pain is needed to get someone to betray the things that are closest to them, pain changes someone's nature to the very core. Through the manipulation, Winston now stands for everything that is wrong and untrue. Due to believing what is untrue, Winston's path of betrayal now begins. After betraying

Winston also shows determination throughout the novel. For example, when he was caught for having an affair with Julia, he did not give up his beliefs. O’Brien tortured Winston severely for thought crime and for the fact that he was willing to join brotherhood. However, until the very end of his pain Winston still said he hated Big Brother and that he did not like what they were doing. No matter how much pain he went through, Winston stood up for what he believed and he expressed his beliefs. When O’Brien asked

In the book, 1984, the main character, Winston Smith, chooses to go completely against the grain of the accepted and enforced form of totalitarianism. Unlike most, Winston chooses to carry out rebellious thoughts and desires against the government. Though realizing his consequences, Winston pushes his thoughts even further into action. These thoughts and, later, actions eventually catch up to Winston and land him in jail. While in jail, Winston,

Additionally, the portrayal of this dystopian society controlled by a totalitarian government might have been understood well by contemporary audiences, mirroring the rules of totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy- the citizens have no influence on the government and have no freedom of choosing the rules that govern and control every part of their lives. Therefore, Winston blames the misery in his life totally and completely on the government and on Big Brother. In Winston’s case, we can see that the propaganda, deprivation, and strict rules fail to make him concur with the party and accept Big Brother- in this situation, the party has to use extreme force and torture to make Winston love the party as well as Big Brother, in order for the party to maintain complete power.