How Does Winston Controls The Present In 1984

Within the novel 1984, the Party has perverted many traditional human values. The Party has distorted the minds of the citizens of Oceania so that they believe what is happening is right. The Party has destroyed the value of true family, honesty, loyalty and love. For example, the Party encourages the breakup of families. In fact, the protagonist in 1984, Winston Smith, drifted apart from his wife, Katherine, due to the Party’s distortion of family. The Party told Oceania citizens that “the only recognized purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party” (65). Katherine took this advice to heart. Katherine did not enjoy the sexual act of marriage, she did it as she called it “’our duty to the party’” (67). However, because she could not bear a child with Winston, they parted.

Orwell successfully manipulates Winston physiologically through his use of technology and advancements in telescreens, control of history, and control of language. Within the society, Winston is among few who have memories of the past world. While Winston feels

Winston Smith is probably the most important and complex character in George Orwell’s masterpiece, namely Nineteen Eighty-Four. Throughout this essay I will try to explain the different aspects of Winston’s role in the novel from the question of the narrative perspective through his rebellious tendencies to his psychological problems.

In the selected passage, the novel describes how to adequately keep a secret hidden from everyone, even yourself. By stating “you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name”, this quote leads to believe that a true secret needs to stay a secret in the depth of a person’s mind. The secret has to stay there in a sort of hibernation, where its keeper has to store it without giving it any thought. In order to successfully keep a secret, it is necessary to not acknowledge the thought of it in the slightest way. However, it is also required of the person to be subconsciously aware of its presence at the same time. This method of keeping a secret appears to be impossible to achieve, since it conveys a

Granted the Party can warp laws and control knowledge, its greatest tool for taking away freedoms and controlling the public is its ability to revise history. This idea is displayed throughout the novel, and is fundamental to our understanding of how perfect the Party is. A prime example occurs when Winston is at his job at the Ministry of Truth, the manipulators of history and truth. He contemplates how he simply substitutes one lie for another in his daily work rewriting history, and explains, “And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain" (Orwell 36). This highlights the genius of the Party’s control; there is no history. As mentioned earlier, the Party controls all publications, and destroys all facts that are not helpful. Much of it is simply fake information that bolsters the Party. Thus, when Winston changes

Characters and conflict are both heavily reliant on each other and both are needed for a functioning story. In the book 1984, Winston Smith, the main character, and Big Brother both play major roles in the stories conflict. Winston Smith is a minor member of the Ministry of Truth which along with two other Ministries rules over London. Winston is an intelligent and thoughtful, but weak and frail 39-year-old man. In Order to freely express himself Winston has a diary and goes to the slums of the city where he will not be monitored by the parties of big brother. Winston believes that he has a revolutionary dream that could change his and many others lives but is being oppressed by the parties totalitarian control over his life. Throughout the

Winston Smith, a middle-aged man who works as a records editor in Records Department at the Ministry of Truth, is the novel 's protagonist. He is the character that the reader most identifies with, and the reader sees the world from his point of view. Winston is a kind of innocent in a world gone wrong, and it is through him that the reader is able to understand and feel the suffering that exists in the totalitarian society of Oceania. As a secretly rebellious free thinker, Winston challenges the societal norms placed in the story by the antagonistic government, known as the Party. Orwell wants the reader to be intrigued when vivid descriptions of advanced technology, such as telescreens and hidden microphones, are included in the text providing the feeling of familiarity and pleasure. On the contrary, constant mentions of the tyrannical rule of Big Brother keeps the reader anxious about what will happen to Winston. Furthermore, the Party, the omnipresent ruling system in Oceania, uses several techniques in order to control the minds of the citizens. By exploiting the need to fit in through the use of the Anti-Sex League, the Party is able to suppress resistance to new ideas. The Party also destroyed the ability of citizens to evaluate logically by eliminating any privacy through the form of telescreen surveillance. Finally, through the

Imagine being controlled completely by the government; cameras in every household, microphones recording every word spoken and propaganda saying “Big Brother is watching you!” all around. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, that is the reality. Thirty-nine year old Winston Smith, low-ranking member of the Party in London, Is embittered by the Totalitarian government and its brutality to the people. The Party controls everything in Oceania; languages, history, sex, free thought and even individuality, by the Thought Police. Winston writes in a diary how much he hates the government, which ultimately would get him killed by the Thought Police if he was caught. Winston believes there is a secret brotherhood which works to overthrow Big Brother and the Party, and has a suspicion that a powerful party member named O’Brien is part of this group.

The protagonist in Orwell’s 1984 is Winston Smith. In the novel the reader experiences the dangers of a totalitarian world through the eyes of Winston Smith. He, unlike the other citizens of Oceania, is aware of the illusions that the Party, Big Brother, and the Thought Police institute. Winston’s personality is extremely pensive and curious; he is desperate to understand the reasons why the Party exercises absolute power in Oceania. Winston tests the limits of the Party’s power through his secret journal, committing an illegal affair, and being indicted into an Anti-Party Brotherhood. He does all his in hopes to achieve freedom and independence, yet in the end it only leads to physical and psychological torture, transforming him into a loyal subject of Big Brother.

However, this principle of free press does not exist in Oceania; the Party decides what can and cannot be published. This disconnect between the wants and needs of the people, and the intentions of the media ensure that no change can occur in Oceania. One of the ideas that proves this appears in multiple places in the novel. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past” (Orwell 197). This is spoken by both Winston, the champion of free through, and O’Brien, the suppressor. This line is the slogan of the Party, and fully represents the control they hold. By not allowing certain things from being published in the present, they can control what its citizens know about the past. Thus, they are able to equally control the future. It is a vicious loop that breaks all hope of a rebellion or revolution. Moreover, the Party undertakes a strict regimen of ensuring all records of its misdeeds, lies, and wrongs are destroyed. This is described by Winston, who

He starts accusing the girls of being witches. After being pressured to confess, the girls began to blame others for their actions. They start naming people who are witches to save their own skin. The witch trials cause hysteria throughout the town. John Proctor confess that he is a witch but doesn’t name anyone else because he doesn’t want to spread lies.

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

In 1984 the citizens of Airstrip One are frightened to live a normal life and emotions. One thought against The Party can lead to their death or for them to be "vaporized''. The Thought Police are good at manipulating and getting into their citizen's mind to cause terror. In Oceania even thinking of love or a woman's body can cause an excruciating amount of pain on the offender. In part two chapter one Winton, the main character sees the girl with the dark hair in a sling then fall. The interaction between the both of them can cause severe punishment.

1984, written warningly by George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Blair, involves main character Winston Smith, a member of the “Party,” strongly resembling communism, in a nation named Oceania. The Party is referred to as “Big Brother” throughout the entire book due to the governments over-bearing control- no free thought, relationships, or expression of individuality is allowed, excessive spying- Big Brother watches everyone via “telescreens,” a device planted in every room, including bathroom stalls, and spying on your thoughts which creates a new crime known as thoughtcrime, and even rewrites history- erasing any recollection of the past and controlling the language so far that no part of vocabulary includes rebellion or anti-governmental ideas. Winston then becomes fed up with the oppression he’s faced

For the Party, the past not fixed and permanent; its reality is evident only in records,” (Becnel 11). Throughout the novel, it was often mentioned that the Party hired workers such as the main protagonist, Winston, to alter history the way they wanted it. If the Party has control over what was written down in history, they can easily manipulate their citizens to believe anything that they claim is true. This ability of control over history has also opened up the opportunity to alter the memories of the citizens of Oceania. Being able to control the memories of the people and causing them to believe one thing and another is an example of doublethink. The Party used doublethink in order to increase and strengthen their power over the citizens.