1984 by George Orwell

Sara Bello

Ms. Moses

Adv. Soph. English, p5

12, August 2017

     In 1984 by George Orwell, Winston, a 39year-old fragile man, is against his government called Big Brother. The conflict between Winston and the government reaches its climax when Winston is caught red handed breaking the law resulting in him eventually learning to accept and love the government which demonstrates the theme of power and technology leads to limitation of freedom. The ability to express one’s own individuality is what it means to be human; Orwell is warning about the government’s power and how it can limit the freedom. 

     The ability for one to express one’s own emotions. The government gives the citizens 2 minutes to be angry and “yet the rage the once was felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one and another like the flame of a flow lamp” (Orwell 15). As a result, it destroys the people’s ability to feel any other emotion or express what they feel not what someone wants them to feel. As Winston thought about his marriage, he remembered how everyone had to be approved “but permission was always refused if the couple concerned gave the impression of being physically attracted to one another “(Orwell 63). The government doesn’t allow their citizens to get comfortable because with that comes thinking and rebellion.

     To be human means expressing one’s own thoughts and opinions. When Winston was talking to his co-worker about newspeak, his coworker said “you don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year “(Orwell 49). The words being destroyed causes the people to have poor writing and reading skills so the party takes advantage of that. As Winston thinks about the thought police and how “few agents always moved among them[us] and marked down the few individuals who were judged capable of being to dangerous” (Orwell 63). People who were seen as a threat were killed which scared the citizens into following big brother. The party controls what’s true and what isn’t, as O’brien was torturing Winston he said “we control life, Winston. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and turn against us but we create human nature “(Orwell 258). The party has ultimate control and the citizens are totally oblivious to what is really happening.

     To be human is to be loyal to whoever you want. The children were brainwashed and taught to adore “the party and everything connected with it. The songs, the hiking, the drilling with dummies, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother- it was all sort of a glorious game to them “(Orwell 24). The kids are trained from a young age to love the government and to turn in anyone who disagrees with them even if it’s the kids’ parents. For example, Winston saw parsons in a jail cell and asked him who turned him in, he replied” it was my little daughter she listened at the key hole” (Orwell 224).  Families are torn apart because the government doesn’t want them to feel like they have a “safe place”, they want the citizens as uncomfortable as possible and the citizens can’t trust anyone. When Winston and Julia were talking about betrayal, Julia said “If they could make me stop loving you- that would be real betrayal” (Orwell 157). Julia was Winston’s last piece of humanity and if he lost that he would lose what’s left of him humanity. In the end, he and Julia both confessed to betraying each other and Winston” had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother (Orwell 284).” The government destroyed what was left of his humanity and made him into an emotionless human