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George Orwell 's ' Caged Birds Accept Each Other But Flight Is What They Long For ``

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Tennessee Williams said, “Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.” In George Orwell’s book 1984 the main character Winston Smith felt like a caged bird and wanted to be free of the totalitarian regime that was Big Brother. In the book, Orwell portrays a society in which life as we know it is none existent. People are stripped of their individualism, programmed like zombies and made to suppress each other. In the book, kids are used to and it would seem with really good effect to spy on and monitor the parents and neighbors. Winston defies the regime by thinking sacrilegious thoughts and then acting on them, a hero in this sense because everyone else it would seem has accepted the faith that Big Brother has set …show more content…

“In the far distance, a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the Police Patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered” (1984 3). In his living room was the dreaded telescreen, a monitoring device installed in all homes that could be dimmed but never turned off. The telescreen pulled double duty, it had the ability to transmit and receive simultaneously. Any sound above a whisper could be picked up and there is never an indicator to let you know when you are being monitored by the Thought Police. “You had to live— did live, from habit that became instinct— in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized” (1984 4). The telescreen in Winston’s living room for some reason was in a very unusual position, instead of the usual position where it would have full view of the entire room. His was placed in a position that allowed for a shallow alcove where he could hide from view but could still be heard. It is here, in the alcove away from the telescreen that Winston exposes the book and starts his first diary entry. “For the first time, the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it

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