Happiness In George Orwell's '1984'

Perhaps it is safe to say that most everyone in the deranged world that we live in today aims for happiness. Some would even say we are simply slaves to our primal passions, shackled in our endless pursuit of fulfillments and shaping our existence around them. Gravitating towards the things in life that bring us pleasure, and recoiling away from those that could cause us pain. A lot of individuals think of happiness as an overall end goal, while others consider happiness the starting point of being great. Nevertheless, happiness is drawn from different things based off the individual.

In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the author challenges the traditional humanist depictions of love and selflessness by showing that these human qualities are unattainable in the dystopian world portrayed. Orwell, however, does instill some hope with the fact that the proles maintain some sense of humanity. The Party is determined to extinguish all humanity within the party members by controlling all parts of their lives, but if the proles can maintain their basic human goodness then there is a small glimmer of hope that the party can be overthrown. Due to the extreme repression placed upon the party members, basic human qualities like love and selflessness are reduced to nothing more than pure instinctual behaviors.

“A life without pleasure is about fulfilling as the sun without sunshine.” – Mama Gena. If the sun gave off no sunlight then it would be considered useless. The same principle also applies to humanity. If all pleasure were taken away then life itself would be dull and pointless. What reason would there be to live if life was not being enjoyed? A government can manipulate its people if they have nothing to live for. Their minds and actions would be effortlessly controlled by propaganda and brute force. In the novel 1984, the Party has reduced the pleasure the population of Oceania can have to basically nothing. The government limiting its citizens in what they can or cannot do is unjust and inhumane. There is not much to life the citizens can enjoy except for the propaganda they are being fed. When one has a certain pleasure, they become loyal and crave the action once more. Therefore, not all of their loyalty would be devoted to the Party. If the party controls and reduces pleasure from food, materialistic items, sex, and love then the population would have no purpose to live except for Big Brother.

Happiness is a fundamental right that all human beings are allowed to pursue of their own accord by the government. Yet, imagine a society in which all the thinking is done for their citizens, feelings are gotten rid of before they could be felt and it was encouraged to not accept the downsides of life. Throughout the pages of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, he describes the lives of many characters. Specifically their relationship with the emotion of happiness. Bradbury brings to the attention of the reader of whether the characters are happy or distracted. A person cannot be happy if they do are not honest with themselves and if they do not feel or think for themselves. Through the experiences of the characters spoken about, it will be seen how happiness is not felt and lived, because their distractions take place.

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury an important theme is happiness. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman whose job is to burn books. Montag realizes the importance of the books he has burned and how happy they can make people. Happiness is a theme because everyone in Montag’s community is looking for happiness, because the people who read books are happy, even though books have been outlawed, and because Montag changes his whole life when he began to question his happiness.

Essentially, seeking happiness is necessary in life. We often hope to find happiness from other people, other things around us and forget that we can create it by ourselves. The novel “The happiness project” by Gretchen Rubin is sufficient evidence. The author states, “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be.”(13) Then she started a project within a year to change her life and seek for a happier life. By making a list of things she has to do in the next twelve months, the author have done many things which affects her “Vitality” (1), her “Marriage” (38), her “Leisure” (112), her “Friendship” (141),etc. positively so that she can achieve her goal, which is a life full filed of happiness as she dreamed before. We can also do that. We know that if everyone of us set a goal and live purposely, we are all happy. However, we can be happier if we know how to change ourselves on the right way. We can make ourselves happy by doing simple things in our everyday life.

The novel 1984 by George Orwell is a story set in the dystopian superstate Oceania, a nation strictly controlled by the totalitarian government with propaganda, manipulation of “truth”, and other means of oppression. The story follows a man who develops and struggles with his secret rebellion against the authoritative Party and its elusive yet omnipresent leader, Big Brother. I decided to choose 1984 for the Independent Study Project for a couple of reasons – one of which is that many of the concepts in this book genuinely appeal to my interest in moral philosophy (ethics). An example of that is the Thought Police, whose duty is to monitor and execute punishment for “thoughtcrime”, is one of the aspects that stood out and piqued my interest

In the book, 1984 by George Orwell, the mood that has been created by using imagery is dark and gloomy while the tone is rigid and controlling. The mood is dark and gloomy because the government has put so many regulations on people and how they can express things. There was “no color in anything” because only the government could decorate and they did it with the commanding political “posters that were plastered everywhere” (2). The government wants their poster to be the only thing of color because then they will stick out and people will be more likely to see them and follow them which means that everything else is a dull and lifeless color with causes the society to feel depressed and trapped in a place where they cannot be their true selves.

For all of history there has existed the struggle between the strong and the weak. The establishment of government gives the power to a particular group to decide the amount of freedom the majority is allowed, however, though not ideal it provides necessary order. The benefits of security that limitations on freedom provides must be balanced with the individual's pursuit of happiness for citizens to be content. To prevent the governed majority from destabilizing the rulers and seeking power, the government will oppress political and personal freedom of thought. In result, the majority will live under the illusion of contentment and not wish to revolt; those enlightened to the idea that the government should be ruled by the governed, would associate happiness only with ignorance and consequently seek freedom.

Happiness is the central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. All action is goal oriented and the goal of every action, is to reach happiness. According to Aristotle, happiness is “living well

The everlasting question of "What is Happiness?" has been inquired since the creation of men. Unfortunately, the only agreed answer that humanity came up with is that all the creatures seek happiness, but no one has the concrete directions for achieving it. Our libraries are overwhelmed with books about happiness, but no dictionary definition explains which path men must take to be happy. No mathematician gave us the axiom which we could use to solve the problem of living in bliss. No scientist brought up the formula of fusing certain ingredients to produce the "drink of happiness". Still almost all the people consider that their ultimate purport in

Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time created an idea that happiness is the ultimate end goal. This world renowned philosopher argues that exercising a fulfilling life will lead to happiness. Likewise, happiness is said to be the ultimate end goal of all activities in life. Basically, Aristotle portrays every activity as a subordinate to becoming happy. He argues that being self sufficient, and leading a fulfilling life will create happiness through virtue. A virtuous person is noble and possess the ability to rationalize. In order to be noble one must posses the ability to create equilibrium of the soul. That is, staying within the mean. Similar to the mean, Aristotle depicts

Aristotle once quoted that “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Granted, times have changed since 322 BC, but this general, basic idea can still be observed and studied in our modern times. Considering Aristotle is also one of the greatest thinkers in the history of western science and philosophy, this statement could easily be widely accepted, and could certainly provide substance for thought as to what the purpose of existence really is. In agreement to Aristotle, happiness is what makes a life worth living, and it is measured by refraining from materialism and feeling inspired by our coexisting society.

It is human nature to want and desire certain things out of life. For the most part, people want the same things. No one is the same as anyone else but we all share the fact that we want to make our lives as good as we possibly can. There are many ways to achieve happiness and everything that is wanted out of life can make you happy. Whatever a person’s truest desire may be, if they obtain that desire they obtain happiness. All that is desired falls under “What will make you happy in life?” We long to be happy, but what gets us there?

The psychological purpose of two minutes hate is so that the people of Oceania could express their feelings. In this book 1984, the government tries to control how you feel towards something like a person or thing. In this instent they try to direct all the hatred towards the enemy there at war with (Eurasia) along with Goldstein and his followers. During the first two minutes of the video where they show all the hate that occurs. When Winston walks into the room where the telescreen is present he does agree with the video and he could see what the government is trying to accomplish, but yet he joins in to watch the video to not be look like a outcast waste of time and pretends to be a part of the hate. As he’s going with the flow and just