1984 7 Essay, Research Paper

1984

Book Overvieew

Winston Smith, who worksin the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, revising the past as it appears in the newspapers, is dissatisfied living under the inflexible, outwardly paternalistic government of Oceania, epitomized in the ever-present picture of Big Brother. His dissatisfaction increased by the austerity characteristic of daily life, at first he rebels in small ways: writing in a diary, an acy viewed with suspicion by the Thought Police; speculating about the political orthodoxy of O Brien, an important official in governing oligarchy; becoming unaccountably disturbed by a young woman who watches him; dreaming, over and over, of an idyllic scene in which sexual expression is as natural as the landscape. Winston even goes among the proles, the excluded class, seeking some kind , any kind of human contact. The young woman Julia, instigates a liasion between herself and Winston, and they make love in a scene exactly like that in his dream. He knows that their lovemaking is political in meaning; it is his overt act of rebellion against Oceania.

Winston and Julia, their relationship becoming domesticc, rent a room to which they can go to be apart from others. Winston and O Brien meet, the latter taking the initiative, and Winston and Julia together visit O Brien in his quarters. He leads them to believe he is also in revolt and allows Winston to read a seditious book. Just when Winston is certain that he and Julia will soon be detected- from the beginning he has had a little hope they would not be- they are arrested in their rented room.

Winston and Julia are imprisoned separately in the Ministry of Love, and Winston is given over to O Brien for what he learns will be his complete rehabilitation, not immediate execution. By physical and then psychological torture, O Brien puts Winston through the first two stages of his retraining: learning what is expected of him; then understanding it. During the process, Winston comes almost to love O Brien; together day after day for nine months, they converse finally as if friends.

Preparation for the final stage in Winston s education, acceptance, comes in the dreaded Room 101, where Winston is made to face what he secretly fears most. Completely subjugated- physically, emotionally, and mentally- Winston is released. Upon the occasion of a threatened attack on Oceania and the defaet of the enmy, Winston feels gratitude for, and love for, Big Brother.