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Symbolism In Victory Gin

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Imagine living in a society where the government rules every aspect of an individual’s life to the degree that their personal liberties are nonexistent and they are deprived of indulging in simple primal activities. Winston Smith lives in a dystopian world where he finds himself trapped in a society where individuality does not exist. The government controls every aspect of its citizens lives for the purpose of retaining power. It maintains its power by using fear tactics like the threat of perpetual war and the manipulation of its citizens’ minds by limiting expression and speech and controlling the narrative of history. This results in a loss of self, but the Party’s control over its citizens is multifaceted. George Orwell uses Victory…show more content…
“Alcohol is a depressant because it slows down the functions of the central nervous system,” so the Party has essentially assigned Winston an additive which affects his cognitive skills, which serves as a ploy to push the Party’s agenda (Stephen 3). The gin serves as a treatment the Party gives to its members to make them less conscious of the conditions of reality and to stimulate sanguineness, which serves the purpose of inevitably eliminating independent thought. Unfortunately, to the Party’s dismay, the efficacy of the gin is completely dependent on the user’s need to consume it.
Although the Party exercises much of its power through intimidation, psychological manipulation, and other indirect methods of control, the Victory Gin’s effect on Winston’s mental state of mind is limited. As Winston begins to completely reject social expectations and rebel against the Party, he “had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it,” the more time he spent with Julia, and the “process of life had ceased to be intolerable… [now] that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home,” (Orwell 153). When the Party’s vice to control Winston, the Victory Gin, is being consumed less, Winston brazenly uses sexuality as a weapon of an insurgency, and life becomes
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