Approaching The Year 1984 Essay, Research Paper

Most people don’t question the authority that their own government has, but should they? This is the question that George Orwell asks his readers in his Novel 1984. In this novel Orwell describes a totalitarian government with explicit detail, ever revealing its true evil. This novel makes the reader see that our society is not far from the world of Oceania.

The novel begins with a brief description of Oceania and its government system. Here people have become nothing but stoic workers, supporting their leader, Big Brother, and their government unconditionally. People are monitored non-stopped through paranoia, the thought police and telescreens. In this drab and unattractive class society, the majority of the people, the proles, lives outside the control of the government. They are seen to be simple uneducated people, and most of the society looks down on them. The next majority in Oceania is the Ministry Workers. This class works in either the ministry of love, truth or defense and is considered educated, well trained and loyal. They all work for the government and they are all control by its beliefs and ideals. The last group of people in Oceania is the Ministry and Government leaders. This class is never really explained in the novel, but the reader gets the notation that they live wonderful lives, while the rest of the population suffers.

The main protagonist of the 1984, Winston Smith, is introduced right away as a person who thinks critically about the society. Winston, although it is against the law, keeps a journal of all his thoughts. One can tell by this journal that he is a very reclusive man who has great fears of being discovered and killed. He is so paranoid that he hides in a small box area of his apartment when he decides to write in his journal so that the thought police don’t discover him by means of his telescreen. The telescreens are installed in everyone’s apartment and it appears as though their controllers can monitor your behavior through them. A prime example of this is when the exercise instructor, who leads the daily exercises via the telescreen, informs Winston to stop cheating or he will be greatly punished.

Winston works in the ministry of truth. This is a very ironic name considering Winston’s job is to re-write history. The party firmly believes that if any written material contradicts what they say is the absolute truth, then it must be destroyed and re-written. Winston is very disturbed by this idea, but he continues to do his job well simply because he fears for his life. Winston never really gets close to anybody for he fears that everyone is a member of the thought police. Winston focuses, almost obsessively, on two people Julia and O’Brien. He eventual meets secretly with both these characters later on in the book.

When Julia is first introduced into the novel Winston believes that she represents everything that he hates. She is a member of the Young Virgins and Winston is convinced that she observing him for the thought police. However, as the novel progresses this notion turns out to be the exact opposite.

One day Julia pretends to trip in front of Winston. As Winston helps her to her feet she hands him a note reading “I love you”. Winston is completely blown away, he could not even fathom why Julia had given him such a note. This is another example of Irony, for only days before Winston had considered bludgeoning Julia to death with a rock.

Soon Julia and Winston begin to meet in secret. They go to great lengths to keep their meetings hidden. The first time they make love they meet in a wooded area that is described with eternal beauty. It is at this time when Winston begins to hope again. He begins to see that life does have beautiful qualities and that there are some things to live for. This is very ironic simply because Julia and Winston do not have a chance of escaping their arrest and torture due to their explicit love affair.

Winston and Julia begin to meet so often that they decide to lease a room from Mr. Charrington, a proletariat who owns an antique shop. This antique shop represents Winston’s love for the past and his search to find truth in it. Winston and Julia go on to have many happy visits in this apartment. It is their haven from the harsh reality of their lives. Julia has many inside connections to the party leaders, so she is able to obtain many rare commodities including, fresh coffee, real chocolate and even some makeup.

Because of his affair with Julia and the items she brings, Winston begins to grow increasingly happier and healthier. He is no longer the skinny, unhappy and unhealthy introvert he once was. This displays to the reader what love can really do and why it is such a danger to the party.

Around this point in the novel three symbols of the past become apparent and Winston savors them as precious pieces of an ideal time. These symbols are a paperweight containing corral, a painting of St. Clemens church and a jingle about the London churches. Later on in the novel, however, all three of these symbols become perverted or changed greatly.

At this point in the novel O’Brien begins to become friends with Winston. Winston truly believes that O’Brien is also against the party and Big Brother. Soon O’Brien and Winston begin to meet secretly in O’Brien’s apartment. O’Brien reveals all the party’s secrets to Winston. Secrets like why it is necessary to have no individualism and why the party must kill all joy in the sexual act.

It is not long before O’Brien introduces the book The Revolution Betrayed, by Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston reads it intently while Julia has little interest in it. The book is mainly about how the party operates and how it keeps the whole system going. Winston learns that the wars that Oceania is supposed to be having with Eurasia are non-existent. They are only produced so that the public maintains some sort of brotherhood. This notion along with others sickens Winston and he becomes infatuated with the idea that there is enough power in the proles for revolt. He comes to the conclusion, however, that the masses will never revolt with out a leader and that it is unlikely for such a leader to exist.

At this time Winston’s and Julia’s worlds come crashing down. The police invade their secret room above Mr. Charrington’s shop and arrest them both. The reader does not know how this has happened, for who could have turned them in? It then becomes apparent that Mr. Charrington, the sweet old owner of the antique shop is a member of the thought police and has turned Winston and Julia in. The thought police smash the paper weight that represents their perfect world and Mr. Charrington pulls back the picture of St. Clemens and reveals the telescreen that had been there all along. To add to the unexpected betrayal O’Brien is revealed to be a leader of the party and not a rebel as Winston had thought.

Julia then disappears from the novel, never to be heard from again. Winston is taken to the ministry of love for confession and then to be rehabilitated into society. Before Winston is forced to confess O’Brien reveals the secret about why the party is doing what it is doing. He explains that the party has come up with this fa?ade simply to hold ultimate power over men. Winston cannot understand what the benefit of causing such suffering could possibly be and he will never know.

Winston refuses to confess and so he is taken to the infamous room 101 to be tortured. In this room a cage full of hungry rats is placed over his head, and at this Winston cracks and confesses.

Hungry rats ate Winston’s family, when he was a young boy, and this had induced his great fear of rats. Only Julia knew the story behind the rats and his family, so upon being introduced to the caged rats it is evident to the reader and that Julia had betrayed Winston.

Winston goes through a tortuous rehabilitation and finally he proclaims his love of Big Brother. This marks the point when Winston’s insanity is complete. His spirit has been broken and all hope that was once gained from his love affair has know been drained out of him. In the end Winston is shown sitting in a poetic coffeehouse that he once used to walk by and wonder why the people in it were all so strangely unhappy.

By the end of 1984 it is painfully apparent that the Oceania society is almost parallel to real dictatorships such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The reader gains a great appreciation for the right to think and the right to question the morals of their leaders. 1984 has a great affect on its readers simply because of its reality. It is not hard to believe that with all the technology and knowledge humans are obtaining it will be put to use in horrendous ways. George Orwell leaves the reader with the moral question, “How dangerous is technology and power?” hoping that his novel may have persuaded them to see the truly great risks in advanced technology and the quest for a perfect, controlled society.