Winston's Use Of Fear In The Novel 1984

In the beginning of 1984 Winston sets the scene by giving information about his surroundings. When he goes to help Mrs. Parsons, light is given to the junior spy league, which both of her kids are in. Later he is called to work at the ministry of truth, where he “fixes” and destroys documents in a fashion they know one realizes that it doesn’t exist. At the hate, he meets eyes with O’Brien and knows he wants to rebel too. He also sees Julia who will later become his love interest. Winston wanders to the area of the proles in search of the shop he bought his forbidden notebook from. It was left in its original condition unlike almost every other building. He soon rents it for him and Julia because of its lack of a speakwrite, a recording

Winston conceptualizes the inescapable desire to be free through the diary he kept where “The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought; the second had been the opening of the diary. [Winston] had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions” (Orwell 160). Unfortunately, the very people Winston conspired with turned out to be government agents.

He panics on what to do thinking big brother found out he even puts a little trap as small as a hair just to to find out if someone is spying at him. Something winston wrote in his journal is” to the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free. When men are different from one another and do not live alone- to a time when truth exist and what is done cannot be undone from the ages of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of big brother from the age of doublethink greetings”. He is writing of how things used to be before it all changed with big

The language of this passage, illustrates Winston’s frantic thoughts and worries, by having long, and sometimes grotesque sentences, describing life, death, and suicide, the current topics circulating Winston’s mind. Prior to this passage, Winston’s had just had an encounter with the dark-haired girl, where he believing her to be a spy who was following him, contemplated killing her, but found himself unable to. In this passage he’s very overwhelmed by this past event and his thoughts are portrayed in long, sentences, that show the current hopelessness he feels. He thinks to himself; “On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues you are fighting are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralyzed by fright or screaming with pain, life

     Tired of feeling the way he is, with the monotonous struggle of everyday life Winston decides to oppose the party in more real ways; and begins to deviate from certain set behaviors to free himself from this bondage of the party. “To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone-to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone”(25-26). He has realized what the government does to people; how everyone is made to be the same, where no one is allowed to think on their own. The party is omnipotent in all affairs and he will not go along with it anymore. Winston has made up his mind; he is going to do everything he can to bring down the party. He and Julia go to O’Brien’s apartment one afternoon, and Winston’s true hatred is revealed. “We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party,

Winston then goes to explain how he too was strung into a rage by the crowd.” In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair”. Winston seems to be too involved into the big brother thing to escape from it due to the fact that the thought police and Big Brother are influencing and controlling them. Winston try’s to express his thoughts down in his diary at page 19 paragraph 2 but it seems that his mind has been brain wash by the controlling big brother and ministries, “ He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was linger 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”, this show you that the controlling government is influencing people and controlling the population by the big brother, this induces fear and hate towards the people who opposite big brother like

This oxymoronic diction suggests that there is an isolated and desolate mood. Furthermore, Winston’s apartment, within the Victory Mansions, is an ironic name since there is an expected grandeur; however this isn’t necessarily the case as “the hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats” (Orwell 1). In addition, Orwell further uses imagery in describing Winston’s lifestyle with “dark colored bread” for breakfast in his “tiny kitchen” (5). Therefore it is evident that Orwell is establishing a desolate mood in depicting an environment that is not inviting, but rather eerie towards the reader. Furthermore, Winston’s workplace, specifically the canteen, is described a place that serves vile food. This could be analyzed through the thorough imagery where the food is depicted as “a pool of stew, a filthy liquid mess that had the appearance of vomit” which “had cubes of spongy pinkish stuff” (51). It is ironic that the Ministry of Plenty claims there is a surplus of food, however, the conditions at the canteen say otherwise as seen through the imagery. When Winston is first introduced to the apartment, it sparks “a sort of ancestral memory” where it was reminiscent of the past with its quaint and secure atmosphere (99). The

Winston Smith arrived at his home at the Victory Mansions during a horrible blizzard. The house looked spooky with the smell of old cabbage stained throughout the halls and portraits whose eyes would follow him. Winston was a normal man, working at his job in the Records Department. Nothing really out of the ordinary. He is sort of pessimistic in some ways.

Winston realizes that Big Brother is controlling people’s lives in a way that he should not be, and he is very passionate about changing that. Winston begins his own rebellion by starting a diary in which he is writes to a time when thoughtcrime is no longer a crime. He eventually gets so passionate that he writes a major truth about himself: “...I don’t care they’ll shoot me in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother--”(Orwell 19). At this point, Winston is truly revealing what is inside him. He proves that he actually does not care about himself nearly as much as he cares about changing the world, (or at least London).

In the beginning of the movie we see a self-doubting and nervous man that does not enjoy living his life. However, he tries to think by himself and writes down his thoughts in a notebook. He writes down thoughts about the society and the government, the things he thinks is wrong or unfair. In the beginning Winston is also suspicious of people. One example of that

Initially, Winston develops thoughts in his mind, with what he believes about Julia being with the thought police. His fears of the telescreen, which leads to Winston being afraid of the party and being caught for his thought, which develops the internal conflict.

Winston’s outlook on the Party was very new and undefined. He had vague suspicions about the Party’s honesty, but he did not know how to obtain evidence that would bring their intents to light. Before Julia, Winston’s sole method of rebellion was writing in a journal. “Releasing his fury, Winston triumphs over fear by setting pen to paper in the essential rebellion that contains all other crimes in itself, thoughtcrime” (19). It worked for Winston, but it was not active. Julia, on the other hand, had rebelling down to a science. She had been defying for about a decade, and had developed firm beliefs on why she hated the Party. She understood the Party’s lies and had reasons to reject them, whereas Winston did not possess that ability. Winston and Julia’s difference in experience with negative feelings towards the Party caused them to express their emotions in very different

The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed…even if he had never set pen to paper” (Orwell 21). It is explained that the Thought Police does not require any evidence to prove one guilty of thoughtcrime as a mere expression would allow for punishment. Policing in Oceania is a prime example of how totalitarianism is a major role in how individualism is frown upon. This limit in self-expression stops people from being hopeful and Winston’s diary not only expresses his desire to be free, but also dehumanizes him as it limits him from speaking his mind. In addition to the lack of self-expression inducing diminished hope for individuality is the lack of personal freedom and consciousness.

Despite Winston's passionate hatred for the Party and his desire to test the limits of the Party's power, his capacity to carry out action against the Party is burdened (i.e. lacking positive freedom) by his intense paranoia and overriding belief that he will ultimately suffer scrutiny and brutal torture for the crimes he

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.