George Orwell shows, in 1984, that a perfect conformed communistic society is impossible to reach, because of human nature. Original thought separates us from the conformed society in Orwell’s novel. 1984 is a piece of literature driven by the fears of 1949’s views of communism and a utopian society gone horribly wrong.
Around 1949, red scares flared in the United States. Having a Russian Communism government, telling people how to think, act, and feel, terrified them. “On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it” (24). In Orwell’s novel, even children were under the control of the government, being spies and police at young ages.
Congruent to the Russian communist, whether or not they once thought for themselves, the people in Orwell’s 1984, let the Big Brother Party think for them. “And if the Party says it is not four but five- then how many?” (249). Big Brother would literally watch them, placing televisions in every home and work place, everyone working together just to have their chocolate unnecessarily rationed. In Oceania conformity is not a choice, like communistic countries, but a command. Winston is a man who owned his own mind, but the government changed that.
It is human nature to have human contact and the government tired to amend that. Someone that could think for themselves is a threat to Big Brother’s ideology. The people of Oceania were taught, ‘double think’ at a young age. When goods were rationed or wars changed sides, ‘double think’ came into play and then they used ‘double think’ on the very idea its self.
Humans view the complexity of nature vs. nurture and in Oceania nurture over weighed nature, but Winston was not over conquered. He was told two and two equaled four, and he believed it to be true. Yet he was also told not to lie. When the government tired to change his way of thinking, it was like running into a brick wall repetitively. Eventually the wall gave way, or the person would. In Orwell’s novel, Winston was the person to run into the wall and Winston was the one to give way.
Numerous people give in or change perspectives when giving and unjust choices. Winston says in 1984 how much they would make a person suffer for being an individual, “There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover . Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cautherized out” (290). Big Brother’s Party would even hurt their residents to make (force) them to conform to their society. They have people placed in even porolls towns to entrap people who threaten the life style of the government. “We shall meet in a place where there is no darkness”(25). Room 101 is a symbol of the Party’s control over its presidency and workers. The lottery is a symbol of false hope for porolls, even thought they are unaware of it. 1984 is deceiving and scary; communism is an every growing threat in our economic status.
Oceania’s unconfirmed areas can even be breached by the government, if not already under the Party’s control and only there to attract the threats and diminish anyone who could hurt their chance of spreading their ideas. Goldstein may or may not be real, he even may have been Big Brother. Goldstein is a posed threat and a hated person in Oceania. He was a symbol of all that could threatened the uniform society, yet no information on him is clear. In communistic countries some books are banned and even altered to the Party’s perspective.
The free are afraid their freedoms would be taken away. In the novel 1984 makes us realize that harsh reality. “ 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: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of double think- greetings!” (28).
It is human nature to sin and to think freely. Most men think of sex on a constant basis, along with many women, but in Oceania, it is not allowed to reproduce. If the Party takes a man’s arm, he is armless, but if they take a man’s mind, he is no longer a man. Non-faulted complacent communistic society is unreachable, because God gave us free will.
That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
US (Russian-born) novelist (1905 - 1982)
Language confines a man's mind. I like how it was Big Brother not Big Sister. I wonder what would happen if we took a mind out of a women............... there would just be a man in her place.
i really feel like that would have changed orwell's novel alot, but would a utopia society really be better if it was ran by a woman? or are we just hoping it would be better and know the fate is the same.
<3Annabell
Just naturally the society would be less agressive, and combative , and much more acceptable towards compromise.
IF a society was ran by a women it wouldn't necessary be better because that would depend on your individual perspective of better.
In my view it could be perhaps better because i believe there would be less lives slaughtered...... but that is just a numbers game.
and civil rights may be severed.
in a utopian society nothing is better because that has already been achieved.
that is why it is a utopia .
LMFAO,
I love this blog. I started writing about Sarah Palin being John McCain's adopted Big Sister for America, but didn't post it because it was raw and probably offensive.
1984 is one of my favorite books, and Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is one of my favorite albums. My concept of humans (beginning with American adults in the 1940's who had just scathed the end of the Great Depression) being all too consumed with striving to be perfectly "All American" at the cost of being "all too human," has been a bit of a mysteriously dark influence in my life.
Oddly, in my own perception of social history, I have always felt there was a strong connection between the Germans of the 1930's-early 1940's and the Americans of the 1940s to the early 1960's. Before and at the beginning of the war, Germany was at it's height in industrial, film and dramatic arts. Berlin was like Paris then. After the war, most German civilians were shocked and ashamed to learn that the Jewish Holocaust was happening right under their noses. Germany took a hard, depressing fall.
Hitler's tyranny grew blatantly, yet undetected by average, every day members of society. The "Average Joe Six-packs," if you will. This because the corrupt behavior was buried by the collectively subconscious decision to accept any policy, regardless of it's negative result or consequence. The average, every day person agreed to do this in exchange for a perceived secure, mental investment in the government's ability to secure it's present and future, yet more importantly it's present. The average everyday citizen assumed itself to be insured for a lifetime of care-free pleasure.
i take issue with the effect that the insurance they bought into seems to have paid off for them, and them alone.
I am angry because I feel that the collective "geiserly" dominating male chauvenists have successfully penetrated the weak minds of hard-working, under-earning, totally DEPENDENT women and mothers.
McCain"s most successful campaign move was featuring his family on the cover of "People" magazine. They feature on the cover and in an indepth article. A sensitive journalist details such things as John McCain's wife adopting a girl from Bangladesh without his knowledge or consent, along with her depression and drug addiction to pain killers.
Very disturbingly follows an article about the pain that Jaime Spears' mother has experienced by being thrown out of her daughters' lives.
And before his article was a very 'intimate" daily schedule of Sarah Palin's daily routine which includes only one to two hours of her day actually spent with her kids.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/issue/0,,7566080922,00.html
"Consistency is not a human trait" - Maude, from Harold and Maude