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Critical Analysis Of 1984 By George Orwell

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1984: Critical Analysis Hopelessness, deep and gaping ever lasting hopelessness. If the course of humanity fails to change, to this everyone will succumb. That is the message that George Orwell has left for the future, and it would be in humanity's best interest to heed. Winston Smith of 1984 lived in a world that had been consumed by the everlasting abyss of injustice. Eventually this world became too much for our hopeful protagonist and thus, like the future that is bound to a horrific fate, he succumbed. “It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it” (Orwell 248). No one in this world is any different than Winston, they will follow his path like all of those before them, following the five stages of Kübler-Ross. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance make up the cycle that every feeble life will follow and that Winston grew to know all too well. The life of Winston Smith followed the cycle perfectly, starting with denial. In the dystopian world Winston called his home, no one was safe. One could not think the wrong thoughts, one could not make the wrong movements, and one could most certainly not speak the wrong words. “Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system” (Orwell 56). Despite this fear of one’s own self, Winston chose to simply deny the unjustness. His first act of this was doing something sickeningly unforgivable and punishable by death, writing a diary. This was a deed of which was horribly forbidden yet he did so just the same. “For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn?” (Orwell 6). Incidentally he was in fact writing this diary for the future and unborn readers. His unconscious denial that the world could truly be so corrupt led him to such a rogue act. He was already thinking the forbidden thoughts, thus he could not be any more at fault for simply putting these thoughts onto paper. The next step along his journey, was Winston’s anger. The burning hatred for the societal rules that were unfairly placed upon him. After a life of following the rules and being

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