Humanity In 1984

Believing that O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood and he too is opposed to the Party, Julia and Winston pay him a visit at his apartment. O’Brien tells the two that they must be willing to lose their own lives in order to take down Big Brother; however, when he asks if they would be willing to betray one another, they refuse. Winston’s hatred for Big Brother has accumulated so much that he is now willing to die solely for the sake of taking down the Party. At the start of the novel, Winston could not stand the thought of his own death. The thought haunted him, and he was not prepared for that to happen. As the story progresses and Winston is being oppressed in more and more ways, he despises the Party more than ever, and eventually is

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.

O’Brien’s relationship with Winston provides him a much-needed justification for his thoughts, and even after revealing himself to be a thought police, the respect from Winston is unwavered. From the first chapters of the novel, it is clear that Winston desires O’Briens justification. When Winston and O’Brien meet eyes for the first time, Winston says that he “ was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. “. Even though brief, the eye contact with O'Brien right after experiencing the 2-minute hate speaks more than

O’Brien tortures Winston, making him doubt himself and his ability to remember changes in the party then eventually breaking him. Firstly O’Brien shows to Winston that he could harm him and make him suffer for as long as he wanted by simply turning a lever, then he tells him he is ‘mentally deranged’ and that he is curing him by making him suffer. After O’Brien makes Winston suffer for days or weeks or even months or years he takes him to room 101. Here Winston is exposed to his biggest fear. Rats. This is where all the inmates at the Ministry of Love were finally broken.

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.

You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself” (Orwell 298). Plot: This occurs near the end of the novel and this quote gives proper closure to Winston and Julia’s relationship. In addition, Julia explains why she betrayed Winston and is saying what Winston wants to say to

The relationship that was formed between Winston and Julia is another example of betrayal between the characters. After their arrest, Winston and Julia were separated and forced to betray each other. When Winston asked O’Brien what happened to Julia, he replied, “She betrayed you, Winston. Immediately-unreservedly. I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly. You would hardly recognize her if you saw her...It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case" (Orwell 259). However, Winston did not betray Julia right away. Naomi Jacobs, a Professor and Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences wrote, “For we know—as, of course, did Orwell himself—that minds do not always break under torture, that some people suffer appalling pain and fear and yet refuse to betray their loved ones and their comrades in arms” (14). Unfortunately, it was inevitable that the

Winston also shows determination throughout the novel. For example, when he was caught for having an affair with Julia, he did not give up his beliefs. O’Brien tortured Winston severely for thought crime and for the fact that he was willing to join brotherhood. However, until the very end of his pain Winston still said he hated Big Brother and that he did not like what they were doing. No matter how much pain he went through, Winston stood up for what he believed and he expressed his beliefs. When O’Brien asked

The text state’s “You will understand well enough how the Party maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power? Go on, speak,’ he added as Winston remained silent...’You are ruling over us for our own good,’ he said feebly. ‘You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore─’ He started and almost cried out. A pang of pain had shot through his body. O’Brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five. ‘That was stupid, Winston, stupid!’ he said. ‘You should know better than to say a thing like that’…’Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power…Now do you begin to understand me?’(Orwell, 262-263). This embodies the fact that Winston still disobeys the Party and what they stand for. The text states “He could not fight against the Party any longer. Besides, the Party was in the tight. It must be so: how could the immortal, collective brain be mistake? By what external standard could you check its judgments? Sanity was statistical…He wrote first in large clumsy capitals: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it: TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE…His mind, as thought shying away from something, seemed unable to concentrate. He

Is life worth living? If the world in 1984 progressed further, would such a thought even be conceivable, with newspeak making the idea literally unable to be spoken? Finally, even though the production of unaltered artwork, literature or every other real human display of emotion has been systematically and absolutely eliminated, would the future people of 1984 even know any better? Is the real happiness that we, as the audience, feel in our everyday lives any better than the artificial love and happiness that the people feel for Big Brother? The answer is simple: of course it isn’t. Real love and emotion, being freely expressed, triumphs any artificial feeling or sensation. This is a main message of 1984: without real emotion, the kind that drives goals or dreams, and meaningful relationships with others we are no different from robots, or even the

“They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself remained impregnable (Orwell, 174.)” There are some citizens who realize that the inner heart and innate essence of the society members are the only things that aren’t able to be damaged by the Party. In the novel, 1984, by George Orwell, the protagonist, Winston Smith, is one of the few citizens who knows it is difficult yet crucial and possible to “stay human,” by preserving the fundamental traits of humanity and resisting the Party’s abuse of those characteristics.

“1984”, written by George Orwell, is a comprehensive picture of how life would be in a totalitarian nation. Restriction, destitute, injustice, and fear are what the inhabitants of Oceania endure every single day. Their life is full of sorrow and fear; there is no sign of joy ever exists in them. If so, why no one revolts against the regime? Keeping the people uneducated, and oppressing them with violence are the key.

The definition of doublethink is believing what the government says, no matter how absurd. If Big Brother says 2+2=5, than that is true. Winston does not understand how he will ever be able to think mindlessly. After an unknown amount of time, Winston is sent to Room 101. This is the room where they use individual fears to torture people. Winston's fear is rats. They take a cage full of ravenous rats and put it next to his face. Right before they open the cage door, Winston screams for them to torture Julia instead of him. This is the breaking point for Winston. The last scene of the book is him living out in the world again, a complete follower of Big Brother.

Winston’s strong feeling of trust and respect for O’Brien naturally drives us to believe that O’Brien is dependable. This gives us a false sense of justice, as we believe that having a member of the Inner Party on the same side as Winston would be very beneficial to

     Tired of feeling the way he is, with the monotonous struggle of everyday life Winston decides to oppose the party in more real ways; and begins to deviate from certain set behaviors to free himself from this bondage of the party. “To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone-to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone”(25-26). He has realized what the government does to people; how everyone is made to be the same, where no one is allowed to think on their own. The party is omnipotent in all affairs and he will not go along with it anymore. Winston has made up his mind; he is going to do everything he can to bring down the party. He and Julia go to O’Brien’s apartment one afternoon, and Winston’s true hatred is revealed. “We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party,