Cruelty In George Orwell's '1984'

Through his failure, Orwell portrays the dangers of a disunited society for the individual. Even though Winston willingly chose to oppose the Party and offered his life towards the eradication of his oppressors, his sacrifice proved futile without communal support to usurp the tyrannical regime. Despite the common suffering the people endured, their fear of the individual torment each would suffer motivated them to submit to the government. In Winston, Orwell highlights the frailty of an individual person in comparison to a mob. When imprisoned at the Ministry of Love, Winston’s will crumbled under torture and he even offered the life of the one individual he had earlier seemed hesitant to sacrifice, Julia. Hence, Orwell illustrates the need for a united social front for individuals to change the society in which they live in. Otherwise, self-preservation shall remain dominant within each individual, leaving them vulnerable to continuous manipulation through propaganda.

Following World War Two, Europe was thrown into chaos and despair. The major world countries, such as the Soviet Union and America, were still suffering from the wide spread fear caused by Hitler and fascism. From this fear, George Orwell’s 1984 was born. It served as a warning to where he feared the world’s leading countries were headed, and the dystopian that he fretted would become a reality. While the party may have held total dominance, it would not be able to control human nature forever. In George Orwell’s 1984, he posits through Winston’s observations of the proletariat that while one individual would not be able to overpower the party, the collective group would.

George Orwell’s 1984 is more than just a novel, it is a warning to a potential dystopian society of the future. Written in 1949, Orwell envisioned a totalitarian government under the figurehead Big Brother. In this totalitarian society, every thought and action is carefully examined for any sign of rebellion against the ruling party. Emotion has been abolished and love is nonexistent; an entire new language is being drafted to reduce human thought to the bare minimum. In a society such as the one portrayed in 1984, one is hardly human. In George Orwell’s 1984, the party uses fear, oppression, and propaganda to strip the people of their humanity.

History reveals that when a totalitarian regime seizes a nation, violence and brutality are often utilized to take control of its citizens. 1984 depicts a world engulfed by the totalitarian ideology. George Orwell applies cruelty as a way to condition the people of Oceania to abide by the philosophies of the Party, Oceania's ruling body. Although the Party promotes ideas of welfare and diligence, their true intent is to accomplish complete dominance over every facet of humanity.

George Orwell uses his novel 1984 to convey that human beings, as a species, are extremely susceptible to dehumanization and oppression in society. Orwell demonstrates how a government’s manipulation of technology, language, media, and history can oppress and degrade its citizens.

In 1984, Smith is trying to be an individual in a society that is governed by Big Brother. As a result of him trying to be an individual, he is testing and trying to break the rules of the society. The individual in an authoritarian society is forced to follow the rules and beliefs of the rest of the society.

Hate is considered to be the extreme opposite of love in today’s society, but what if in another sense hatred can lead to love and love lead to hatred? In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, the idea that a hate based society can survive is explored. This hate based society managed to survive due to the sheer control the “top” of the society has on it, the “top” being the Party. The rest of the people in the society are controlled as a mob by the Party. Through constant surveillance, enforcement of law, and manipulation of life itself, the people are left to do what the Party bids of them through a god like figure known as Big Brother. The most apparent manipulation that can be seen throughout the book is the manipulation of love and hatred. The Party uses the hatred for Emmanuel Goldstein and Eurasia or Eastasia to rally the people in hating the enemy and loving Big Brother. Through the manipulation of human emotion the Party can do whatever they want because they have the power to do so. Given how one's hatred can fuel one's love and vice versa for an entity which in turn causes the person to do anything for said entity, virtually anything can be possible due the fact that it is demanded through emotion. This is why in the novel 1984 shows that a society based on hate can survive.

Because Winston is a member of the Ministry of Truth, an area of Oceania’s government specifically devoted to spreading lies and propaganda to his society, Winston finds himself in the position of knowing that his government is spreading lies which adds to his overall

In the novel, O’Brien says those who are sent to the Ministry of Love are there not to confess their crime, but to cure them. Winston and Julia are sent there by the Thought Police to cure their hatred towards Big Brother, but their love affair was broken when she betrayed him. Orwell states that Room 101 are for those to confess by enforcing them with their greatest fear. Winston has been tortured in Room 101, but he stayed strong for a long time until tears came from his eyes and down to the sides of his nose, and in

George Orwell presents us with an interesting portrayal of love in his novel 1984. In the nation of Oceania, the government tries to eradicate love in order to isolate deviation to solely Big Brother. In many ways, it is successful in doing so. The absence of love caused Winston 's marriage with his wife Katharine to be indifferent, cold, and to end in separation. Even occasional affairs that seem to sneak by the Party 's watchful eyes, like Winston and Julia 's, are eventually stopped and the two are forced to stop loving each other. Perhaps, the strongest love that remains in Oceania is the love of Big Brother. This love is displayed when Winston is tortured by O 'Brien so that

The ministry of love handles law and order for Oceania. The ministry of truth controls all news articles, entertainment, education, and art. Winston Smith, being the protagonist, works in the ministry of truth. He secretly hates Big Brother and the rest of the party.

Based on events from the past and what is shown in 1984, I believe a society focused on fear and hatred will not be able to flourish. O’Brien argued, in the novel, that The Party has control over external reality because nothing exists outside the mind, only The Party exists (Orwell). Winston responded to this by saying that a society that lives on fear and hatred would have no vitality, it would disintegrate, and it would commit suicide (Orwell). I personally agree with Winston because a society needs to breathe or have freedoms in order to survive. In essence, I believe a society based on hate and suffering, such as what O’Brien described, could not exist for long, and the intoxication of power and thrill of victory could not be enough motivation for people to continue living without friendship or love, and I could not live in such a suffering society.

As human beings, there are distinct characteristics that separate us from feral animals; the ability to create, to appreciate art, to curiously question the world and most importantly to sympathize for our kind. However, when that exact nature is stripped from us, we tend to become mindless, restricted, cold, and degraded as an entire race. This is the setting of George Orwell’s last book, 1984. A world where human thought is limited, war and poverty lie on every street corner, and one cannot trust nobody or nothing. It is all due to the one reigning political entity, the Ingsoc Party, who imposes complete power over all aspects of life for all citizens. There is no creative or intellectual thought, no art, culture or history, and no

In 1984, George Orwell criticize the many flaws of the totalitarian government. The main flaws of the government system demonstrated in the novel are the deprivation of freedom of the citizens of Oceania. In 1984, the life of Winston is always filled with dread until the end when he starts to believe in Big Brother. It is due to Big Brother keeping him alive during the torture process because of him believing in him made the torture ease for Winston. Winston rebels against the government because he realized that the laws in Oceania are prejudice and unfair to man. The happiness of Winston found at the end of the book is due to him falling into the trap of a totalitarian government. After Winston, had been tortured by the ministry of love, he was sitting at a café and was listening to the telescreen as he started to constantly say “2+2=5” and “I love big brother” after he had been tortured (Orwell 263). Winston found that the trap to be his form of happiness because it allowed him to survive the torture session, making the totalitarian government very dangerous because Winston would have tragically died if he had not fallen under Big Brother’s fist. The happiness of Winston found at the end of the novel relates to the fact a person’s worth

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.