Human Nature In 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.

The main character in George Orwell’s 1948 novel, 1984, Winston Smith can be seen as many things. To some, he may be a hero, but to others he is a coward and a fool. Throughout the novel, Winston’s characteristics are explored, and readers are shown the reasoning behind Winston’s twisted mind. It is evident that although Winston thinks he had control over his own mind and body, this is an imagined factor. The world of 1984 is one of a totalitarian society, where no one can be trusted, and no one is safe, Winston being the primary example of one who trusted thoughtlessly.

What does it mean to be human? According to Winston and George Orwell, it doesn’t take that much to be considered human. Winston shows, multiple

In the novel 1984, George Orwell relates the tension between outward conformity and inward questioning by allowing the reader to see inside of the mind of Winston Smith. Orwell uses Winston’s rebellious thoughts to counteract his actions in order to show the reader how a dystopian society can control the citizens. Although Winston is in an obvious state of disbelief in the society, his actions still oppose his thoughts because of his fear of the government. Winston’s outward conformity and inward questioning relate to the meaning of the novel by showing Winston’s fight to truth being ended by the dystopian society’s government.

Once caught, Orwell writes that Winston must undergo a form of drastic mental “treatment.” “You are mentally deranged. You suffer form a defective memory…fortunately it’s curable”(Part 3, Chapter 2). O’Brien describes Winston’s mind as the same way Freud would diagnose a patient with a disorder. Winston in fact goes under a similar process that closely relates to the psychoanalytic treatment. “We gather in detail what the peculiarities of the Unconscious are, and we may hope to learn still more about them by a profounder instigation of the processes…”(Freud 324). According to O’Brien, Winston seems to have developed a mental disease that causes him to have delusions. Winston’s dreams, which Freud considers “a highly valuable aid into psycho-analysis technique” and an “insight into the unconscious,” are put under inspection and further investigated by O’Brien to study and gain knowledge of how to “cure” Winston’s mind. It is then when Winston’s nightmares of rats gives O’Brien the key component to understand how he will strengthen Winston’s ego and superego according to the views of the Party.

In 1984, the last and largest work of Orwell’s life, the oppression becomes even more sinister. Winston, a member of the “party,” decides to break away from the melancholy lifestyle in which “freedom is slavery” and rebel against the government that restrains him. The party even erases all of history and claims that reality is within the mind; “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” He becomes conscious of all the trickery and lies of the party and joins a secret organization to fight for freedom. The organization, however, is a lie and Winston is tortured until he learns to truly love Big Brother. 1984 makes prominent stabs at the

Famous philanthropist Stephen Hawking once stated, “We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.” In the world of George Orwell’s 1984, this shared human spirit is abused, neglected, and utterly destroyed. This is most apparent when O’Brien deconstructs the argument of Winston and, in turn, tears down his human spirit. While Winston clings to a persistent hope of the failure of The Party, O’Brien uses logos and pathos strategies to methodically tear apart this belief. This maniacal argument for The Party, the strong imagery involved in the interrogation, and the mental collapse of Winston produce one of the most thought-provoking, saddening, and terrifying scenes in 1984.

The novel “1984” by George Orwell exemplifies the issues of a government with overwhelming control of the people. This government controls the reality of all of their citizens by rewriting the past, instilling fear, and through manipulation. This is an astounding story because of the realistic qualities that are present throughout the text about an extreme regulatory government and its effects. This society is overwhelming consumed with the constructed reality that was taught to them by Big Brother. George Orwell brings significant aspects to the novel like the complexity of relationships during a rebellion and The Party’s obsession with power. The main character Winston struggles throughout the story trying to stay human through literature, self-expression and his individuality. The party uses human’s tendencies, weaknesses, and strengths in order to dehumanize their citizens to gain control over them.

Orwell uses Winston and Julia’s relationship to show the power of the human emotion of love. Winston is a pessimistic man that has nothing to live for except for life itself, until he meets a love interest; Julia. Orwell narrates “At the

In Book I Section II, Winston helps his neighbors,the Parson family, with their plumbing. While he is in their apartment,Winston views the “scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother” hung on the wall. A short while later, the son and daughter come in and accused Winston of being a “thought criminal” and “traitor”. Both of these are slanderous imprecations that, if true, could lead to death. After this interesting interaction, Winston reflects, “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy” (Orwell, 24). This quotation shows that the Party has succeeded in indoctrinating children at a very young age to their philosophies and ideas. The government uses organizations such as the Youth League and the Spies to “systematically turn” children into mindless members of the Party. ______________’s essay from The Abuse of Power in 1984 reads, “Orwell describes a world in which familial loyalty is deliberately undermined so that the displaced emotions can be appropriated by the state. The solidarity of the family is treated as a threat to party loyalty and is therefore systematically weakened” (_____,___). This quotation reveals that the Party intentionally removes the love and devotion that normally

Totalitarianism, derived from a society which proceeds without cautiousness towards governmental power, can induce many limitations among citizens and every aspect of their lives including individualism. In George Orwell’s 1984, the artificiality of the dystopian country influenced the protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, to try and deceive the government in any way possible. Winston and many others view individuality as immensely important, but a large challenge to achieve due to the diminished hope evident in dystopia. Hope is prominent among Winston in his actions towards the totalitarian government, referred to as Big Brother, throughout the novel. From the beginning of the novel when readers are introduced to a dismal setting to

In 1984 by George Orwell, Winston Smith lives in a communist society, known as Ingsoc, where the totalitarian government oversees each aspect of human life. This regime, known as The Party, procures its power from shattering the relationships that hold individuals together. From the beginning, children are instructed to eavesdrop on their parents and expose them as enemies of the state for exhibiting the slightest of unorthodoxy. Moreover, loyalty towards the state supersedes even the trust between friends and spouses, eliciting a perpetual fear of being denounced as criminals. Thus, betrayal of loved ones allows for unrestricted subjugation of the populace through of isolation.

Winston's wife, Katherine, was like a human machine. Kathrine, like many others, spent all of their life reciting the telescreens chants. The loss of humanity shows through everyone. The reason why loss of humanity is a warning for communism, is because everyone is the same and there is no higher level, people stop trying to live their lives successfully. Emmanuel Goldstein is an example of true humanity, which is why the people hate him. Orwell states, how E. Goldstein was a leader that implemented rules like humanity has currently, in the following: Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared…”. Humanity is key for population, once it’s gone it’s almost impossible to get it back. The reason the people in 1984 could not remember exactly what day it was and what has happened in history, is because the media and all forms of records were altered. This was an important piece of the book because if the records were not altered than the past would be know and doublethink and newspeak would be

based on love can rarely exist in the right tense as it use to years

In the novel “1984” by George Orwell, Winston undergoes a metamorphosis of character, which changes his life forever. At first Winston is just like everyone else, a dull drone of the party. Then he changes his ideals and becomes true to himself with obvious rebellion towards party principles and standards. Finally, Winston is brainwashed and is turned against himself and his feelings and is made to love the party. This is a story of perception, and how different it can be from one person to the next.