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Essays on 1984

Hook examples for "1984" essays, the dystopian warning hook.

Open your essay by discussing George Orwell's "1984" as a prophetic warning against totalitarianism and government surveillance. Explore how the novel's themes are eerily relevant in today's world.

The Orwellian Language Hook

Delve into the concept of Newspeak in "1984" and its parallels to modern language manipulation. Discuss how the novel's portrayal of controlled language reflects real-world instances of propaganda and censorship.

Big Brother is Watching Hook

Begin with a focus on surveillance and privacy concerns. Analyze the omnipresent surveillance in the novel and draw connections to contemporary debates over surveillance technologies, data privacy, and civil liberties.

The Power of Doublethink Hook

Explore the psychological manipulation in "1984" through the concept of doublethink. Discuss how individuals in the novel are coerced into accepting contradictory beliefs, and examine instances of cognitive dissonance in society today.

The Character of Winston Smith Hook

Introduce your readers to the protagonist, Winston Smith, and his journey of rebellion against the Party. Analyze his character development and the universal theme of resistance against oppressive regimes.

Technology and Control Hook

Discuss the role of technology in "1984" and its implications for control. Explore how advancements in surveillance technology, social media, and artificial intelligence resonate with the novel's themes of control and manipulation.

The Ministry of Truth Hook

Examine the Ministry of Truth in the novel, responsible for rewriting history. Compare this to the manipulation of information and historical revisionism in contemporary politics and media.

Media Manipulation and Fake News Hook

Draw parallels between the Party's manipulation of information in "1984" and the spread of misinformation and fake news in today's media landscape. Discuss the consequences of a distorted reality.

Relevance of Thoughtcrime Hook

Explore the concept of thoughtcrime and its impact on individual freedom in the novel. Discuss how society today grapples with issues related to freedom of thought, expression, and censorship.

The Importance of Fear in 1984

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Big Brother in George Orwell’s "1984"

George orwell’s representation of authority as illustrated in his book, 1984, orwell's use of literary devices to portray the theme of totalitarianism in 1984, the culture of fear in 1984, a novel by george orwell, let us write you an essay from scratch.

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1984 by George Orwell: Literary Devices to Portray Government Controlling Its Citizens

The use of language to control people in 1984, dictatorship of the people: orwell's 1984 as an allegory for the early soviet union, searching for truth in 1984, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

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A World Without Love: The Ramifications of an Affectionless Society in 1984

On double-think and newspeak: orwell's language, the theme of survival and selfishness in the handmaid's tale in 1984, government surveillance in 1984 by george orwell: bogus security, george orwell's 1984 as a historical allegory, exploitation of language in george orwell's 1984, how orwell's 1984 is relevant to today's audience, the relation of orwel’s 1984 to the uighur conflict in china, symbolism in 1984: the soviet union as representation of the fears people, parallels to today in 1984 by george orwell, the relationship between power and emotions in 1984, proletariat vs protagonist: winston smith's class conflict in 1984, a review of george orwell’s book, 1984, o'brien as a dehumanizing villain in 1984, family in 1984 and persepolis, the philosophy of determinism in 1984, orwell's use of rhetorical strategies in 1984, control the citizens in the orwell's novel 1984, dangers of totalitarianism as depicted in 1984, dystopian life in '1984' was a real-life in china.

8 June 1949, George Orwell

Novel; Dystopia, Political Fiction, Social Science Fiction Novel

Winston Smith, Julia, O'Brien, Aaronson, Jones, and Rutherford, Ampleforth, Charrington, Tom Parsons, Syme, Mrs. Parsons, Katharine Smith

Since Orwell has been a democratic socialist, he has modelled his book and motives after the Stalinist Russia

Power, Repressive Behaviors, Totalitarianism, Mass Surveillance, Human Behaviors

The novel has brought up the "Orwellian" term, which stands for "Big Brother" "Thoughtcrime" and many other terms that we know well. It has been the reflection of totalitarianism

1984 represents a dystopian writing that has followed the life of Winston Smith who belongs to the "Party",which stands for the total control, which is also known as the Big Brother. It controls every aspect of people's lives. Is it ever possible to go against the system or will it take even more control. It constantly follows the fear and oppression with the surveillance being the main part of 1984. There is Party’s official O’Brien who is following the resistance movement, which represents an alternative, which is the symbol of hope.

Before George Orwell wrote his famous book, he worked for the BBC as the propagandist during World War II. The novel has been named 1980, then 1982 before finally settling on its name. Orwell fought tuberculosis while writing the novel. He died seven months after 1984 was published. Orwell almost died during the boating trip while he was writing the novel. Orwell himself has been under government surveillance. It was because of his socialist opinions. The slogan that the book uses "2 + 2 = 5" originally came from Communist Russia and stood for the five-year plan that had to be achieved during only four years. Orwell also used various Japanese propaganda when writing his novel, precisely his "Thought Police" idea.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” “Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” “Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.” “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” "But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred."

The most important aspect of 1984 is Thought Police, which controls every thought. It has been featured in numerous books, plays, music pieces, poetry, and anything that has been created when one had to deal with Social Science and Politics. Another factor that represents culmination is thinking about overthrowing the system or trying to organize a resistance movement. It has numerous reflections of the post WW2 world. Although the novella is graphic and quite intense, it portrays dictatorship and is driven by fear through the lens of its characters.

This essay topic is often used when writing about “The Big Brother” or totalitarian regimes, which makes 1984 a flexible topic that can be taken as the foundation. Even if you have to write about the use of fear by the political regimes, knowing the facts about this novel will help you to provide an example.

1. Enteen, G. M. (1984). George Orwell And the Theory of Totalitarianism: A 1984 Retrospective. The Journal of General Education, 36(3), 206-215. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27797000) 2. Hughes, I. (2021). 1984. Literary Cultures, 4(2). (https://journals.ntu.ac.uk/index.php/litc/article/view/340) 3. Patai, D. (1982). Gamesmanship and Androcentrism in Orwell's 1984. PMLA, 97(5), 856-870. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/gamesmanship-and-androcentrism-in-orwells-1984/F1B026BE9D97EE0114E248AA733B189D) 4. Paden, R. (1984). Surveillance and Torture: Foucault and Orwell on the Methods of Discipline. Social Theory and Practice, 10(3), 261-271. (https://www.pdcnet.org/soctheorpract/content/soctheorpract_1984_0010_0003_0261_0272) 5. Tyner, J. A. (2004). Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(1), 129-149. (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1464936032000137966) 6. Kellner, D. (1990). From 1984 to one-dimensional man: Critical reflections on Orwell and Marcuse. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 10, 223-52. (https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/from1984toonedimensional.pdf) 7. Samuelson, P. (1984). Good legal writing: of Orwell and window panes. U. Pitt. L. Rev., 46, 149. (https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/upitt46&div=13&id=&page=) 8. Fadaee, E. (2011). Translation techniques of figures of speech: A case study of George Orwell's" 1984 and Animal Farm. Journal of English and Literature, 2(8), 174-181. (https://academicjournals.org/article/article1379427897_Fadaee.pdf) 9. Patai, D. (1984, January). Orwell's despair, Burdekin's hope: Gender and power in dystopia. In Women's Studies International Forum (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 85-95). Pergamon. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0277539584900621) 10. Cole, M. B. (2022). The Desperate Radicalism of Orwell’s 1984: Power, Socialism, and Utopia in Dystopian Times. Political Research Quarterly, 10659129221083286. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10659129221083286)

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George Orwell

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on George Orwell's 1984 . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

1984: Introduction

1984: plot summary, 1984: detailed summary & analysis, 1984: themes, 1984: quotes, 1984: characters, 1984: symbols, 1984: theme wheel, brief biography of george orwell.

Historical Context of 1984

Other books related to 1984.

• Full Title: Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel
• When Written: 1945-49; outline written 1943
• Where Written: Jura, Scotland
• When Published: June 1949
• Literary Period: Late Modernism
• Genre: Novel / Satire / Parable
• Setting: London in the year 1984
• Climax: Winston is tortured in Room 101
• Antagonist: O'Brien
• Point of View: Third-Person Limited

Extra Credit for 1984

Outspoken Anti-Communist. Orwell didn't just write literature that condemned the Communist state of the USSR. He did everything he could, from writing editorials to compiling lists of men he knew were Soviet spies, to combat the willful blindness of many intellectuals in the West to USSR atrocities.

Working Title. Orwell's working title for the novel was The Last Man in Europe .

Doublethink Is Stronger Than Orwell Imagined

What 1984 means today

No novel of the past century has had more influence than George Orwell’s 1984 . The title, the adjectival form of the author’s last name, the vocabulary of the all-powerful Party that rules the superstate Oceania with the ideology of Ingsoc— doublethink , memory hole , unperson , thoughtcrime , Newspeak , Thought Police , Room 101 , Big Brother —they’ve all entered the English language as instantly recognizable signs of a nightmare future. It’s almost impossible to talk about propaganda, surveillance, authoritarian politics, or perversions of truth without dropping a reference to 1984. Throughout the Cold War, the novel found avid underground readers behind the Iron Curtain who wondered, How did he know?

It was also assigned reading for several generations of American high-school students. I first encountered 1984 in 10th-grade English class. Orwell’s novel was paired with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , whose hedonistic and pharmaceutical dystopia seemed more relevant to a California teenager in the 1970s than did the bleak sadism of Oceania. I was too young and historically ignorant to understand where 1984 came from and exactly what it was warning against. Neither the book nor its author stuck with me. In my 20s, I discovered Orwell’s essays and nonfiction books and reread them so many times that my copies started to disintegrate, but I didn’t go back to 1984 . Since high school, I’d lived through another decade of the 20th century, including the calendar year of the title, and I assumed I already “knew” the book. It was too familiar to revisit.

Read: Teaching ‘1984’ in 2016

So when I recently read the novel again, I wasn’t prepared for its power. You have to clear away what you think you know, all the terminology and iconography and cultural spin-offs, to grasp the original genius and lasting greatness of 1984 . It is both a profound political essay and a shocking, heartbreaking work of art. And in the Trump era , it’s a best seller .

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 , by the British music critic Dorian Lynskey, makes a rich and compelling case for the novel as the summation of Orwell’s entire body of work and a master key to understanding the modern world. The book was published in 1949, when Orwell was dying of tuberculosis , but Lynskey dates its biographical sources back more than a decade to Orwell’s months in Spain as a volunteer on the republican side of the country’s civil war. His introduction to totalitarianism came in Barcelona, when agents of the Soviet Union created an elaborate lie to discredit Trotskyists in the Spanish government as fascist spies.

Left-wing journalists readily accepted the fabrication, useful as it was to the cause of communism. Orwell didn’t, exposing the lie with eyewitness testimony in journalism that preceded his classic book Homage to Catalonia —and that made him a heretic on the left. He was stoical about the boredom and discomforts of trench warfare—he was shot in the neck and barely escaped Spain with his life—but he took the erasure of truth hard. It threatened his sense of what makes us sane, and life worth living. “History stopped in 1936,” he later told his friend Arthur Koestler, who knew exactly what Orwell meant. After Spain, just about everything he wrote and read led to the creation of his final masterpiece. “History stopped,” Lynskey writes, “and Nineteen Eighty-Four began.”

The biographical story of 1984 —the dying man’s race against time to finish his novel in a remote cottage on the Isle of Jura , off Scotland—will be familiar to many Orwell readers. One of Lynskey’s contributions is to destroy the notion that its terrifying vision can be attributed to, and in some way disregarded as, the death wish of a tuberculosis patient. In fact, terminal illness roused in Orwell a rage to live—he got remarried on his deathbed—just as the novel’s pessimism is relieved, until its last pages, by Winston Smith’s attachment to nature, antique objects, the smell of coffee, the sound of a proletarian woman singing, and above all his lover, Julia. 1984 is crushingly grim, but its clarity and rigor are stimulants to consciousness and resistance. According to Lynskey, “Nothing in Orwell’s life and work supports a diagnosis of despair.”

Lynskey traces the literary genesis of 1984 to the utopian fictions of the optimistic 19th century—Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888); the sci-fi novels of H. G. Wells, which Orwell read as a boy—and their dystopian successors in the 20th, including the Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) and Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). The most interesting pages in The Ministry of Truth are Lynskey’s account of the novel’s afterlife. The struggle to claim 1984 began immediately upon publication, with a battle over its political meaning. Conservative American reviewers concluded that Orwell’s main target wasn’t just the Soviet Union but the left generally. Orwell, fading fast, waded in with a statement explaining that the novel was not an attack on any particular government but a satire of the totalitarian tendencies in Western society and intellectuals: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: Don’t let it happen. It depends on you .” But every work of art escapes the artist’s control—the more popular and complex, the greater the misunderstandings.

Lynskey’s account of the reach of 1984 is revelatory. The novel has inspired movies, television shows, plays, a ballet, an opera, a David Bowie album , imitations, parodies, sequels, rebuttals, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Black Panther Party, and the John Birch Society. It has acquired something of the smothering ubiquity of Big Brother himself: 1984 is watching you. With the arrival of the year 1984, the cultural appropriations rose to a deafening level. That January an ad for the Apple Macintosh was watched by 96 million people during the Super Bowl and became a marketing legend. The Mac, represented by a female athlete, hurls a sledgehammer at a giant telescreen and explodes the shouting face of a man—oppressive technology—to the astonishment of a crowd of gray zombies. The message: “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’ ”

The argument recurs every decade or so: Orwell got it wrong. Things haven’t turned out that bad. The Soviet Union is history. Technology is liberating. But Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance. The week of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the president’s adviser Kellyanne Conway justified his false crowd estimate by using the phrase alternative facts , the novel returned to the best-seller lists. A theatrical adaptation was rushed to Broadway. The vocabulary of Newspeak went viral. An authoritarian president who stood the term fake news on its head, who once said, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” has given 1984 a whole new life.

What does the novel mean for us? Not Room 101 in the Ministry of Love, where Winston is interrogated and tortured until he loses everything he holds dear. We don’t live under anything like a totalitarian system. “By definition, a country in which you are free to read Nineteen Eighty-Four is not the country described in Nineteen Eighty-Four ,” Lynskey acknowledges. Instead, we pass our days under the nonstop surveillance of a telescreen that we bought at the Apple Store, carry with us everywhere, and tell everything to, without any coercion by the state. The Ministry of Truth is Facebook, Google, and cable news. We have met Big Brother and he is us.

Trump’s election brought a rush of cautionary books with titles like On Tyranny , Fascism: A Warning , and How Fascism Works . My local bookstore set up a totalitarian-themed table and placed the new books alongside 1984 . They pointed back to the 20th century—if it happened in Germany, it could happen here—and warned readers how easily democracies collapse. They were alarm bells against complacency and fatalism—“ the politics of inevitability ,” in the words of the historian Timothy Snyder, “a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.” The warnings were justified, but their emphasis on the mechanisms of earlier dictatorships drew attention away from the heart of the malignancy—not the state, but the individual. The crucial issue was not that Trump might abolish democracy but that Americans had put him in a position to try. Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.

We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment. The state of mind that the Party enforces through terror in 1984 , where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now induce in ourselves. Totalitarian propaganda unifies control over all information, until reality is what the Party says it is—the goal of Newspeak is to impoverish language so that politically incorrect thoughts are no longer possible. Today the problem is too much information from too many sources, with a resulting plague of fragmentation and division—not excessive authority but its disappearance, which leaves ordinary people to work out the facts for themselves, at the mercy of their own prejudices and delusions.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, propagandists at a Russian troll farm used social media to disseminate a meme: “ ‘The People Will Believe What the Media Tells Them They Believe.’  — George Orwell.” But Orwell never said this. The moral authority of his name was stolen and turned into a lie toward that most Orwellian end: the destruction of belief in truth. The Russians needed partners in this effort and found them by the millions, especially among America’s non-elites. In 1984 , working-class people are called “proles,” and Winston believes they’re the only hope for the future. As Lynskey points out, Orwell didn’t foresee “that the common man and woman would embrace doublethink as enthusiastically as the intellectuals and, without the need for terror or torture, would choose to believe that two plus two was whatever they wanted it to be.”

We stagger under the daily load of doublethink pouring from Trump, his enablers in the Inner Party, his mouthpieces in the Ministry of Truth, and his fanatical supporters among the proles. Spotting doublethink in ourselves is much harder. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” Orwell wrote . In front of my nose, in the world of enlightened and progressive people where I live and work, a different sort of doublethink has become pervasive. It’s not the claim that true is fake or that two plus two makes five. Progressive doublethink—which has grown worse in reaction to the right-wing kind—creates a more insidious unreality because it operates in the name of all that is good. Its key word is justice —a word no one should want to live without. But today the demand for justice forces you to accept contradictions that are the essence of doublethink.

For example, many on the left now share an unacknowledged but common assumption that a good work of art is made of good politics and that good politics is a matter of identity. The progressive view of a book or play depends on its political stance, and its stance—even its subject matter—is scrutinized in light of the group affiliation of the artist: Personal identity plus political position equals aesthetic value. This confusion of categories guides judgments all across the worlds of media, the arts, and education, from movie reviews to grant committees. Some people who register the assumption as doublethink might be privately troubled, but they don’t say so publicly. Then self-censorship turns into self-deception, until the recognition itself disappears—a lie you accept becomes a lie you forget. In this way, intelligent people do the work of eliminating their own unorthodoxy without the Thought Police.

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Orthodoxy is also enforced by social pressure, nowhere more intensely than on Twitter, where the specter of being shamed or “canceled” produces conformity as much as the prospect of adding to your tribe of followers does. This pressure can be more powerful than a party or state, because it speaks in the name of the people and in the language of moral outrage, against which there is, in a way, no defense. Certain commissars with large followings patrol the precincts of social media and punish thought criminals, but most progressives assent without difficulty to the stifling consensus of the moment and the intolerance it breeds—not out of fear, but because they want to be counted on the side of justice.

This willing constriction of intellectual freedom will do lasting damage. It corrupts the ability to think clearly, and it undermines both culture and progress. Good art doesn’t come from wokeness, and social problems starved of debate can’t find real solutions. “Nothing is gained by teaching a parrot a new word,” Orwell wrote in 1946. “What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.” Not much has changed since the 1940s. The will to power still passes through hatred on the right and virtue on the left.

1984 will always be an essential book, regardless of changes in ideologies, for its portrayal of one person struggling to hold on to what is real and valuable. “Sanity is not statistical,” Winston thinks one night as he slips off to sleep. Truth, it turns out, is the most fragile thing in the world. The central drama of politics is the one inside your skull.

This article appears in the July 2019 print edition with the headline “George Orwell’s Unheeded Warning.”

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

George Orwell's Anti-Utopian Reality in 1984 Novel

The overwhelming spread of military literature in the 20th century gave readers a great abundance of books to read on these topics. Some authors take both the pro and con sides of the military states and actions in discussing the political realities of their times. Among them, George Orwell wrote a novel that depicted the future that is relevant for all centuries and all political powers. The book 1984 (published in 1949, right after World War II) talks about a personality that has to survive under the pressures of an oppressive government.

About George Orwell

George Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic known for his keen observations on social injustice, totalitarianism, and democratic socialism. Born in India in 1903, Orwell spent much of his life in England and was deeply influenced by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, where he fought against fascism.

George Orwell's life and career were marked by a commitment to truth-telling and a staunch opposition to propaganda and censorship. His experiences as a colonial police officer in Burma provided him with firsthand insight into the workings of the empire and the abuses of power. Orwell's disdain for authoritarianism extended to his critique of capitalism, evident in works such as Animal Farm, a satirical allegory of the Russian Revolution. Despite his socialist leanings, Orwell remained fiercely independent in his thinking, resisting ideological conformity and maintaining skepticism towards political movements of all stripes.

His writing style, characterized by clarity, precision, and mastery of language, continues to captivate readers and influence writers to this day. Through his literary legacy, 1984 stands as one of his most famous works, a dystopian masterpiece that continues to resonate with readers worldwide.

Throughout the whole story, Orwell depicts an invisible fight between the individual and the system. The book is pretty dark, heavy and depressing. Under enormous pressure, the protagonist of the story betrays his love, admits that 2+2 is 5 and glorifies his oppressors. He can’t afford an extra move, step, or look – Big Brother is watching him. The reader can get scared reading the book – but not reading it will leave all of us blind to the potential dangers of this world.

It would be mistaken to assume that 1984 makes a specific reference to one well-known social totalitarian state that no longer exists. The resistance to oppression was relevant before the USSR appeared; it is still relevant in many situations today and will still be relevant no matter how democratic and liberal our societies claim to be. That’s why 1984 was, is and will be the desk companion for many readers throughout the world.

Initially met with mixed reviews, the novel gradually gained widespread acclaim for its chilling portrayal of a dystopian future. Critics and scholars alike have praised Orwell's prescient vision of a totalitarian society where individual freedoms are systematically eroded, and truth becomes a malleable commodity. "1984" has been lauded for its incisive critique of surveillance, propaganda, and the abuse of power by authoritarian regimes.

Over the years, the book has become a cultural touchstone, inspiring countless adaptations, references in popular culture, and ongoing discussions about its relevance to contemporary political realities. Its themes of government overreach, thought control and resistance against oppression continue to resonate with readers worldwide, cementing "1984" as a timeless and indispensable work of literature.

What Is the Main Point in 1984?

The main point in George Orwell's "1984" revolves around the dangers of totalitarianism and the suppression of individual freedom. Set in a dystopian future where the ruling Party exerts complete control over every aspect of society, including language, history, and thought, the novel portrays a bleak world where truth is manipulated, dissent is punished, and surveillance is omnipresent.

Through the protagonist Winston Smith's journey of rebellion and disillusionment, Orwell underscores the importance of critical thinking, truth-seeking, and the inherent value of human autonomy. "1984" serves as a stark warning against the encroachment of oppressive governments on individual liberties, urging readers to remain vigilant against threats to freedom and to resist attempts to undermine the integrity of truth and independent thought.

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Main Characters and Roles of 1984

The characters of the book each serve very specific roles and purposes in the text, so let’s first briefly explore what the 1984 book is about. The book talks about a possible scenario for the development of the world. After several sanguinary wars and revolutions, the Earth was divided into 3 super states named Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Their alfa governments are in constant conflict with each other. Such never-ending conflicts are needed to distract the attention of the population from poor internal public management, terrible living conditions of the counties. More importantly, the existence of the conflict allows the government to fully control the inhabitants of the states.

Winston Smith Character Analysis

In one of such “superstates”, namely Oceania, lives the protagonist of the book. He is 39, he is thin and has a somewhat unhealthy look on his face. An employee of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith serves the government institution that works day and night to rewrite the past and destroy the facts that are unwanted by the government. Every day Winston changes the past with his own hands and makes it conform to the new standards devised by the ruling party.

In addition to changing the past, the Ministry of Truth also works tirelessly to promulgate the values and mantras of the county’s political elite. Seeing such truth tailoring and past elimination on a daily basis, Mr. Smith can’t help but wonder whether what is happening is right.

His soul grows a seed of suspicion and doubt and that induces him to start writing a diary. This diary is the only thing that hears what Winston thinks about his job, his life and his government, it marks the beginning of his protest.

The protagonist has to be very careful and do the writing in complete secrecy, hiding from other people and devices. As mentioned in Part 1 Chapter 1, his TV is not only a tool to feed him proper information, it also spies on him:

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard”.

Whatever he writes in his diary is a crime of through and qualifies for the death penalty.

Big Brother Character Analysis

Big Brother is the supreme ruler of Oceania. He has zero tolerance for individualism or diversity and absolutely no need for pluralism of opinion. He also has a network of Spies and tools set up in the country to make sure that every move of his citizens is observed, controlled and can be contained, if necessary. The Spies adore him and the Party:

Part 1, Chapter 2 “The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother — it was all a sort of glorious game to them.”

It’s impossible to do something privately in Oceania: all the houses are made of glass, all walls have surveillance and wiretapping, the Thought Police watches every move of every citizen. However, there is a difference in how Big Brother treats certain classes of its citizens. For example, for their love affair, Winston and Julia often choose secret places for dating, such as the countryside or other places where normally low-class labor workers hang out because the state doesn’t have that much security there. Low worker class is considered to have less tendency for thinking thus is treated as a lower-risk population.

Big Brother is an ultimate leader of Oceania, he is like a God and the ultimate goal is to please him. All the mistakes and loopholes of Big Brother or the Party are simply rewritten just like the newspapers. His pictures are everywhere, all the slogans are signed by his name. He is the only source of information, faith and worship in Oceania.

O'Brien Character Analysis

O’Brien is an undercover agent of the party. He secretly works for the Thought Police trying to find people who are thinking about rebellion. He is well-behaved, reserved, has a strong body. He deliberately pretends to oppose the party and Big Brother. His role is similar to that of Mephistopheles in Faust, he is the agent of the devil.

O’Brien is both a character and a concept in the book. He invades the dreams and provokes Smith to think that he doesn’t share Party ideas, he constantly pushes Smith to give birth to his unspoken internal conflict. Finally, when Smith and Julia are ready, he offers them to join the rebel movement. Later O’Brien will personally supervise the torture of his capturers, slowly killing any traces of personalities or thinking in them.

Emmanuel Goldstein Character Analysis

Emmanuel Goldstein was once a leader of the Party that brought it to power. He is now in exile and represents the only opposition available. He established an organization “Brotherhood” that is proclaimed by the Party to be the Enemy of the People. In fact, nobody knows for sure whether the organization really exists and what it does. Goldstein is an imaginary magnet for potential opposition, he serves the purpose of bringing all those who are against the Party under one roof to be destroyed then.

The Party spends a great deal of effort to publicly broadcast the hate clips about Goldstein and the Brotherhood just to give a bait for those who are seeking allies to create a rebellion.

Tom Parsons Character Analysis

Tom Parsons and his wife Mrs. Parsons live next door to Winston. Tom is a complete opposite of Smith, he follows the Party blindly and never doubts Oceania for a second. He is devoted to the war against other states and will do whatever he can to contribute to Oceania’s victory.

Ironically, he brought up a daughter who is just as fierce and loyal to Oceania as her parents are. One day she betrays her father by reporting to the Thought Police that Parsons spoke badly of Big Brother in his sleep. To aggravate the irony even more, Orwell makes Tome immensely proud of his daughter for “doing the right thing”.

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Julia Character Analysis

Julia is another protagonist of 1984. She is 26, she also works for the Ministry of Truth in the Fiction Department. She writes novels depicting the greatness of her country and its ruler. She is quite experienced sexually and is known to seduce Party members. She is instinctive, not very logical, irrational, with lots of untamed desire and energy. She is courageous and much more adventurous than her lover Smith. In fact, she is the one who tells about her feelings to Winston and takes him outside of town.

It’s difficult to elaborate on the nature of Julia’s and Winston’s relationship since they are the only creatures with a soul portrayed in this book. So it makes sense that they found each other and grew fond of each other. Would they have felt just as fond of each other if there were other options available – who knows? But the main point Orwell makes is that in such an authoritarian government as Oceania, finding people who think and have their own opinion is an extremely rare thing.

Julia’s sexual and emotional freedom is her way to protest against the strict order of her country. She wants to put her energy into love, emotions, memories and enjoyment, not for the glorification of Big Brother and Oceania. And it only makes the reader even more upset when in the end she breaks under the tortures of O’Brien and says in Part 3 Chapter 6:

“You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself”.

Mr. Charrington Character Analysis

Mr. Charrington is the owner of a thrift shop in a parole district. Proles are the majority of Oceania population who are not part of the Inner Party (those who rule) or Outer Party (those who serve the rulers) and are deemed incapable of thinking or posing a threat to the government. However, in Part 1 Chapter 7 Winston expressed his opinion in the diary that proles might rebel one day and take the Party down:

“If there is hope, it lies in the proles”.

Winston buys his diary from Mr. Charrington and that marks the beginning of Winston’s journey into critical thinking and rebellion. Later, Winston will rent a bedroom upstairs above the shop to meet with Julia there.

Winston trusts Mr. Charrington because he holds on to the past (second-hand items) and thus keeps the past intact when Oceania is doing everything it can to change or destroy the past. At some point, Winston even thinks that Mr. Charrington is a member of the Brotherhood. But as it turns out, he is an informant of the Police and spies on everything Winston and Julia do in his shop.

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1984 Full Summary

After the Second World War, the civil war broke down in Great Britain, which lead to it being occupied by a new superstate – Oceania. The citizens of Oceania live under the rule of an ideology of one Party. The ruler and impersonification of that Party is a leader called Big Brother.

The Party is divided into Inner Party (the 2% of the ruling population), Outer Party (the 13% who implement their policies) and the others, who are called proles and don’t have any opinion or importance whatsoever. But not all members of the Outer Party are in unanimous agreement with the Party ideology. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth and is starting to question the Party’s right to rule and tell him what to do. But he understands that there’s nobody with whom he can share his concerns. So he shares his thoughts in a diary, which is also quite a dangerous thing to do.

One day Smith notices that his colleague Julia is paying a lot of attention to him. At first, he is afraid that she busted him and will give him up for the Thought Police. But after some time he finds a love note from her. They start a secret relationship that is prohibited by the government. They hide and dream about a revolution. Smith believes that their relationship will not end well – such encounters between men and women are strictly prohibited in Oceania.

Eventually, they meet a representative of a real revolutionary movement, O’Brien, who gives them a book on the philosophy of the upcoming rebellion. While reading the book in the room they rented for dating, the couple is busted by the Through Police – the so-called revolution movement representative was nothing but a set-up of Big Brother to find and eliminate potential rebels.

The government imprisons Julia and Winston and tortures them cruelly. They break under the tortures and betray each other. In the end, both Winston and his ex-beloved Julia praise the majesty and powerfulness of Big Brother and sincerely believe that their country is doing great. The Through Police manages to “cure” Winston from his revolutionary thoughts. At first, Smith thinks that he gave up Julia and his freedom just to evade the torture, but once he is released, he realizes that he is now the right man who sincerely believes in Big Brother and the Party.

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1984 Essay Sample

Dive into a literary exploration with our essay sample, where '1984' is examined under the microscope of expert analysis.

1984 Theme 1: War. The author wrote his dystopian classic in 1948 and he simply changes the last two digits of the year when naming his book. The first theme that is present in the text is the war – 1948 is the time after one of the biggest tragedies in human history, Second World War, and the time when the world watched in terror the emergence of two huge military powers – USA and USSR. Despite the victory and defeat of the fascist movement, people, tired of the loss and tragedy the WW2 brought about, felt helpless when it came to the conception of potential World War Three. The danger was in the air, the fatigue was in the minds, the fear was in the nightmares lived by almost everybody around the world. 1984 was just one of the many military literature pieces heavily exploring one of the possible scenarios that were about to happen.

In 1984 there are three states — two of which are allied, while the third is an enemy. The alliances change regularly and yesterday’s ally can turn into an enemy tomorrow. The war and conflict give Oceania a powerful excuse to disregard the shortages of food, ever-present surveillance and other social problems. The war is a guarantee of internal order in Oceania – how can a loyal citizen undermine his own country when they are at war with an external enemy?

1984 theme 2: Control. Dictatorship and the right of any institution or any given personality to exercise control over people was a hot topic for discussion towards the end of the 20th century. The thing is that there are people who don’t like making decisions because with decisions comes responsibility. So they welcome others to make decisions for them and society accepts it as their right to use predefined solutions. But step by step such willingness to let others make your choices can turn into a dangerous overcontrolling net. Oceania didn’t appear in one day, some processes led to it being like we know it. In 1984 Orwell elaborates what consequences can the war between authoritarian states have and how easy it is to turn to tyranny “for the greater good of the society”.

The citizens of Oceania are in the absolute unity with their state: if they are following the state, they have nothing to worry about, nothing to hide, nothing to think about. They are the state, and the state is at war – so when Oceania wins the war, they will win as well. The control chain is eternal.

1984 theme 3: Mind Control through Newspeak language. The overwhelming control over social life was enhanced through another theme heavily explored by Orwell – the creation of a new language for Oceania called Newspeak. The new English Socialism ideology developed by the ruling party was imposed through the invention of its own language, where each word and grammatical rule were carefully handpicked. When the events in the book took place, the new language was in the process of being introduced: it appeared in the newspapers and party members wouldn’t miss an opportunity to insert a phrase or two in their speeches. The Newspeak was supposed to have completely replaced the Oldspeak (regular English language known and spoken today and in 1980s) by 2050. That would mean yet another victory of Oceania over people’s minds and freedoms.

1984 theme 4: New and improved truth. To keep the society in place and make sure the country is not disturbed and remains focused on the war with another state, the employees of the Ministry of Truth change the news. Every day they rewrite the newspapers of yesterday, backdate them and put them back into circulation.

The altered truth concept is also revealed in the fact that Winston is not actually that good of a character. He wants to be able to think and to love, but the truth is that he is also a wicked personality: he used to steal food from his mother and sisters, he ran away from home. And the readers aren’t sure whether he regrets doing it or not.

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Symbolism in 1984

The Memory Hole

Winston’s job was about changing the news so that it matched the reality that Oceania wanted its citizens to see. In his office there were three holes in the wall: for notes on changes that had to be made, for newspapers that had to be edited and for recycling of all the materials. They were called “memory holes” as symbols of ways to destroy and alter memories of thousands of people. Memory holes are also symbols for distorted communication channels Oceania used to brainwash its citizens.

Big Brother

There was one recognizable face that appeared on numerous propaganda materials (posters, TV clips, newspapers and etc.). These materials persuaded citizens how great Oceania was and also delivered a message that “he is watching” everybody at all times. It’s a message of hope (the country will be great one day) and desperation (you are watched 24/7). Big Brother is a symbol of Oceania’s national agenda, he is an idol, a person who gained enormous power not due to his leadership potential, but because of Oceania’s inhumate treatment of its citizens.

Winston had to admit to this famous calculation when he was tortured by the Though Police. This is the symbol of a vivid false statement that is accepted socially in the society governed by a totalitarian ideology.

Winston's Varicose Ulcer

The medical condition that bothers Winston represents his oppressed feelings and desires. It is an external expression of his internal pains. From one point of view, varicose ulcer is a symbol of Smith sexual desire that is prohibited to exhibit in Oceania. On another hand, it’s a mark of Winston’s dissatisfaction with what is going on around him, it’s a visible physical repercussion of living under total control.

The Red-armed Singing Prole Woman

The woman from a lower worker class (prole) is a symbol of potential rebellion. Winston believed that proles would rebel one day and that the hope for Oceania to regain its civic freedoms lies with proles. Her female capacity to give birth is a symbol that a thought can be born within proles’ minds and new generations can see the world without total control of Big Brother.

1984 is a book that will live forever. It will resonate with readers from different countries, backgrounds, and political views. It is an instruction for government managers on how to compel obedience from its citizens. It’s also a vivid demonstration for citizens how the government can make them do whatever. It’s a scary but real story, cruel but eye-opening, it changes the way we treat our fundamental freedom rights. This book helps us appreciate what we have – the possibility to choose friends, love the people we find attractive, do what we like doing, think, speak, and make decisions in our lives.

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Where Does 1984 Take Place?

What is the key idea of 1984.

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by George Orwell

1984 essay questions.

Compare and contrast Julia and Winston. How does each rebel against the Party, and are these rebellions at all effective?

Trace Winston's path towards destruction. Where do we first see his fatalistic outlook? Is his defeat inevitable?

Discuss the role of technology in Oceania. In what areas is technology highly advanced, and in what areas has its progress stalled? Why?

Discuss the role of Big Brother in Oceania and in Winston's life. What role does Big Brother play in each?

Discuss contradiction in Oceania and the Party's governance, i.e. Ministry of Love, Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Peace. Why is such contradiction accepted so widely?

Discuss and analyze the role O'Brien plays in Winston's life. Why is he such a revered and respected character, even during Winston's time in the Ministry of Love?

Discuss the symbolic importance of the prole woman singing in the yard behind Mr. Charrington's apartment. What does she represent for Winston, and what does she represent for Julia?

1984 is a presentation of Orwell's definition of dystopia and was meant as a warning to those of the modern era. What specifically is Orwell warning us against, and how does he achieve this?

Analyze the interactions between Winston and the old man in the pub, Syme, and Mr. Charrington. How do Winston's interactions with these individuals guide him towards his ultimate arrest?

Analyze the Party's level of power over its citizens, specifically through the lens of psychological manipulation. Name the tools the Party uses to maintain this control and discuss their effectiveness.

Outline the social hierarchy of Oceania. How does this hierarchy support the Party and its goals?

1984 Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for 1984 is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe O’Briens apartment and lifestyle. How do they differ from Winston’s?

From the text:

It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and...

What was the result of Washington exam

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how is one put into the inner or outer party in the book 1984

The Outer Party is a huge government bureaucracy. They hold positions of trust but are largely responsible for keeping the totalitarian structure of Big Brother functional. The Outer Party numbers around 18 to 19 percent of the population and the...

Study Guide for 1984

1984 study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• 1984 Summary
• Character List

Essays for 1984

1984 essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of 1984 by George Orwell.

• The Reflection of George Orwell
• Totalitarian Collectivism in 1984, or, Big Brother Loves You
• Sex as Rebellion
• Class Ties: The Dealings of Human Nature Depicted through Social Classes in 1984
• 1984: The Ultimate Parody of the Utopian World

Lesson Plan for 1984

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to 1984
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• 1984 Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for 1984

• Introduction
• Writing and publication

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Common Module State-Rank Essay Showcase: Nineteen Eighty-Four

The following essay was written by Project Academy English Tutor, Marko Beocanin

Marko Beocanin

99.95 ATAR & 3 x State Ranker

The following essay was written by Project Academy English Teacher, Marko Beocanin.

Marko’s Achievements:

• 8th in NSW for English Advanced (98/100)
• Rank 1 in English Advanced, Extension 1 and Extension 2
• School Captain of Normanhurst Boys High School

Marko kindly agreed to share his essay and thorough annotations to help demystify for HSC students what comprises an upper Band 6 response!

Common Module: Nineteen Eighty-Four Essay Question

Marko’s following essay was written in response to the question:

“The representation of human experiences makes us more aware of the intricate nature of humanity.” In your response, discuss this statement with detailed reference to George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.

State-Ranking Common Module Essay Response

George Orwell’s 1949 Swiftian satire Nineteen Eighty-Four invites us to appreciate the intricate nature of humanity by representing how the abuse of power by totalitarian governments degrades our individual and collective experiences. (Link to rubric through individual/collective experiences, and a clear cause and effect argument: totalitarian governance -> degraded human experience. Also, comments on the genre of Swiftian satire. Value!) Orwell explores how oppressive authorities suppress the intricate societal pillars of culture, expression and freedom to maintain power. He then reveals how this suppression brutalises individual human behaviour and motivations because it undermines emotion and intricate thought. (Link to rubric through ‘human behaviour and motivations’, and extended cause and effect in which the first paragraph explores the collective ‘cause’ and the second paragraph explores the individual ‘effect’. This is an easy way to structure your arguments whilst continuously engaging with the rubric!) Ultimately, he argues that we must resist the political apathy that enables oppressive governments to maintain power and crush human intricacy. Therefore, his representation of human experiences not only challenges us to consider the intricate nature of humanity, but exhorts us to greater political vigilance so we can preserve it. (Concluding sentence that broadens the scope of the question and reaffirms the purpose of the text).

Orwell makes us aware of the intricate nature of humanity by representing how totalitarian authorities suppress intricate collective experiences of culture, expression and freedom in order to assert control. (This is the ‘collective’ paragraph – a cause and effect argument that relates the question to the loss of human intricacy in the collective as a result of totalitarian rule). His bleak vision was informed by Stalin’s USSR: a regime built upon the fabrication of history in Stalin’s ‘cult of personality’, and ruthlessly enforced by the NKVD. (Specific context – an actual specific regime is named and some details about its enforcement are given). The symbolic colourlessness and propaganda-poster motif he uses to describe London reflects the loss of human intricacy and culture under such leadership: “there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.” (First example sets up the world of the text, and the degraded collective experience). Orwell uses the telescreens, dramatically capitalised “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” posters and allusions to Stalin in Big Brother’s “black-moustachio’d face” as metonyms for how governmental surveillance dominates both physical and cultural collective experiences. Winston’s metatextual construction of the fictitious “Comrade Ogilvy” serves as a symbol for the vast, worthless masses of information produced by totalitarian governments to undermine the intricacy of real human history: “Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed…would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.” Similarly, Orwell’s satirical representation of Newspeak ignites the idea that political slovenliness causes self-expression to degrade, which in turn destroys our capacity for intricate thought and resistance: “we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” (The examples above prove that the government’s leadership style truly is totalitarian, and that it results in a loss of intricacy and ‘humanity’ in the collective. It’s good to cover a variety of examples that explore different facets of the collective – for example, the first example establishes the extreme surveillance, the second example establishes the loss of ‘truth’/history, and the third example establishes the loss of language). The political bitterness that marks Nineteen Eighty-Four as a Swiftian satire (This is a link to the ‘Swiftian’ term used in the thesis statement. It’s important to refer back to any descriptive terms you use in your thesis) ultimately culminates in O’Brien’s monologue, where Orwell juxtaposes the politicised verb “abolish” to symbols of human intricacy, “we shall abolish the orgasm…there will be no art, no literature, no science…when we are omnipotent”, to express how totalitarian rulers suppress collective experiences to gain metaphoric omnipotence. Thus, Orwell makes us aware of the intricate nature of humanity by representing a future in which totalitarian governments suppress it. (A linking sentence that ties it all back to the question and rephrases the point)

Orwell then argues that the effect of this suppression is a loss of human intricacy that brutalises society and devalues individual experiences. (Cause and effect argument that links collective suppression to a loss of human intricacy on an individual scale – continuous engagement with the question and the rubric!) Orwell’s exposure to the widespread hysteria of Hitler’s Nazi regime, caused by the Nuremberg Rallies and Joseph Goebbels’ virulent anti-semitic propaganda, informs his representation of Oceania’s dehumanised masses. (More specific context around the Nazis, and a specific link to how it informed his work) The burlesque Two Minute Hate reveals human inconsistency by representing how even introspective, intelligent characters can be stripped of their intricacy and compassion by the experience of collective hysteria: even Winston wishes to “flog [Julia] to death with a rubber truncheon…ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax”, and is only restored by compliance to the Christ-like totalitarian authority, “My-Saviour!”, Big Brother. (A link to the rubric with the ‘human inconsistency’ point) Orwell frequently juxtaposes dehumanising representations of the proles, “the proles are not human beings”, to political sloganism: “As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free’”, to argue that in such a collectively suppressed society, the upper class grow insensitive towards the intricate nature of those less privileged. (It’s important to link the proles into your argument – they’re often forgotten, but they’re a big part of the text!) He asserts that this loss of empathy degrades the authenticity and intricacy of human relationships, characterised by Winson’s paradoxically hyperbolic repulsion towards his wife: “[Katharine] had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had every encountered”. (Continuous engagement with the question and rubric: make sure to recycle rubric terms – here, done with ‘paradoxically’ – and question terms – here, with ‘intricacy’)  Winston’s “betrayal” of Julia symbolises how totalitarianism ultimately brutalises individuals by replacing their compassion for intricate ideals such as love with selfish pragmatism: “Do it to Julia…Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me!” Therefore, Orwell makes us more aware of the intricate nature of humanity by demonstrating how it can be robbed by suppressive governments and collective hysteria. (A linking sentence that sums up the paragraph).

By making us aware of how totalitarian governments suppress meaningful human experiences both individually and collectively, Orwell challenges us to resist so we can preserve our intricate nature. (This third paragraph discusses Orwell’s purpose as a composer. This can in general be a helpful way to structure paragraphs: Collective, Individual, Purpose) Orwell’s service in the 1930s Spanish Civil War as part of the Republican militia fighting against fascist-supported rebels positions him to satirise the political apathy of his audience. (Integration of personal context is useful here to justify Orwell’s motivations. It’s also a lot fresher than just including another totalitarian regime Orwell was exposed to) Orwell alludes to this through the metaphor of Winston’s diarising as an anomalous individual experience of resistance, ““[Winston] was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear,” which highlights how his intricate nature persists even in a suppressive society. Often, Orwell meta-fictively addresses his own context, as “a time when thought is free…when truth exists”, to establish an imperative to preserve our intricate human nature while we still can. The Julia romance trope (It’s good to include terms such as ‘trope’ which reflect your understanding of narrative structure and the overall form of the work.) represents how Winston’s gradual rejection of his political apathy empowered him to experience an authentic, intricately human relationship that subverts his totalitarian society: “the gesture with which [Julia] had thrown her clothes aside…[belonged] to an ancient time. Winston woke up with the word ‘Shakespeare’ on his lips.” Orwell juxtaposes Julia’s sexuality to Shakespeare, an immediately-recognisable metonym for culture and history, to argue that human intricacy can only be restored by actively resisting the dehumanising influence of the government. Orwell also represents Winston’s desensitised and immediate devotion to the Brotherhood to reflect how the preservation of human intricacy is a cause worth rebelling for, even by paradoxically unjust means: “[Winston was] prepared to commit murder…acts of sabotage which may cause the deaths of hundreds of innocent people…throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face.” (More chronological examples that show Winston’s transformation throughout the text. It’s useful to explore and contrast those who resist with those who don’t resist, and how just the act of resistance in some way restores our humanity! That’s why this paragraph comes after the ‘brutalised individual experience’ paragraph) However, Orwell ultimately asserts that it is too late for Winston to meaningfully restore humanity’s intricate nature, and concludes the text with his symbolic death and acceptance of the regime, “[Winston] had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” (It’s important to remember that Orwell ends the text so miserably so that he can motivate his audiences not to do the same thing). The futility of this ending ignites the idea that we must not only be aware of our intricate nature, but must actively resist oppressive governments while we still can in order to preserve it. (A linking sentence that ties the paragraph together and justifies the futility of the ending)

Therefore, Orwell’s representation of human experiences in Nineteen Eighty-Four encourages us to reflect personally on our own intricate human nature, and challenges us to fight to preserve it. (Engages with the question (through the reflection point), and includes Orwell’s purpose as a composer). His depiction of a totalitarian government’s unchecked assertion of power on human culture and freedom, and the brutalising impact this has on individual and collective experiences, ultimately galvanises us to reject political apathy. (Your argument summaries can often be combined into a sentence or two in the conclusion now that the marker knows what you’re talking about. This reinforces the cause and effect structure as well.) Thus, the role of storytelling for Orwell is not only to make us more aware of our intricate nature, but to prove that we must actively resist oppressive governments while we still can in order to preserve it. (The clincher! It’s often useful to add “not only” in your final sentence to reinforce the massive scope of the text)

If reading this essay has helped you, you may also enjoy reading Marko’s ultimate guide to writing 20/20 HSC English essays .

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A Short Guide for Film Techniques for HSC English

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George Orwells 1984 - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

1984 is a dystopian novel by George Orwell that explores the dangers of totalitarianism and surveillance. Essays on this topic could delve into the themes of surveillance, truth, and totalitarianism in the novel, discuss its relevance to contemporary societal issues, or compare Orwell’s dystopian vision to other dystopian or utopian literary works. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to George Orwell’s 1984 you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Dissecting Dystopia: George Orwells 1984 and the World of Oceania

George Orwell's "1984", a terrifying portrayal of dictatorship seen through the prism of a made-up superstate called Oceania, is still regarded as a classic piece of literature. Examining how Orwell's dystopian picture of the world mirrors larger concerns of power, surveillance, and the human spirit under authoritarian control, this article explores the complex world-building of Oceania. In the film "1984," Oceania is shown as an authoritarian society marked by ongoing conflict, constant government monitoring, and widespread public manipulation. Orwell painstakingly […]

1984 and Brave New World Comparison

As years pass by, human society has advanced in very unpredictable ways due to the evolution of ideas and technologies. It is somewhat cloudy to forseek what new advancements that may arrive in the future. In the 20th century, two dystopian writers had predicted the fate of the world that we live in today. The novels Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell and Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley both envisioned how society would end up as a dystopia. […]

1984 Compared to Today

In the world today, the internet is at the center of our actions. The internet and technology enable the recording of everything we do, which can be accessed by millions of people within a short time. This leads to the question of privacy in this age. In the novel "1984" by George Orwell, the main character, Winston Smith, and the rest of the population in Oceania are being surveyed. All their moves are followed with the help of telescreens purposed […]

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Winston against the Party in the Novel 1984

In 1984, the main character, Winston Smith goes through moments where he is in need; His needs consist of physiological needs, safety, and security needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. Winston is the main character in his novel it follows his around during this time. In 1984 Winston has his physiological met. These physiological needs include; water, pleasure, and food. Winston had taken up his spoon and was dabbling in pale-colored gravy that dribbled across the […]

1984 the Soviet Union the Parallels

George Orwell is an author who wrote the book 1984 and Animal Farm, two famous Dystopian novels. But what is a dystopian novel? A dystopian novel is where the author writes about a society being oppressed or terrorized from a group of people or person(Jennifer Kendall). Typically in dystopian novels, we are shown a character who don’t agree with the government structure and tend to rebel against them. Although dystopian novels are fictional, it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen […]

1984 Surveillance Essay

George Orwell's 1984 writes of a dystopian society that has become severally oppressed by the methods ‘The Party' uses to control its society. The people do not think for themselves, and there is no independence from the government’s rules. One form that the party has control over everyone is with mind manipulation and constant surveillance, watching people actions and reactions to their messages that ‘The Party’ shares via the ‘telescreen’. A ‘telescreen’ is a two-way connection screen that people watch […]

Lack of Privacy in 1984 Essay

Privacy is a loose term in our world today because no one abides by it and the privacy of many people is invaded every day. People don’t even think about being watched when they’re posting personal experiences in their life on social media. Invasion of privacy is a serious issue concerning the Internet, as e-mails can be read and/or encrypted, and cookies can track a user and store personal information. Lack of privacy policies and employee monitoring threatens security also. […]

Main Themes in 1984

There are many Themes in 1984 however there are two that show themselves as the most important throughout the story: The disastrous effects of both the control of information and complete and total domination of the people, or Authoritarianism. These two themes show themselves many times throughout the entire story. The main Villain of the novel, Big Brother, exists to show the reader what will happen when one single organization or entity controls all information, and every other facet of […]

Nature and Animals 1984 Essay

In George Orwell's 1984, the reader follows a middle-aged man named Winston Smith. In Winston's society, people can be under surveillance at any time, in any place. The reader follows Winston through his affair with a woman named Julia, and the consequences that they face after. Throughout 1984, many motifs are represented, one of them being nature and animals. The motif of nature/animals demonstrates how Orwell connects characters in his book to animals. In 1984, the first time the reader […]

Parallels between a Novel 1984 and Soviet Union

George Orwell is a politically charged author who writes novels as warning issued against the dangers of totalitarian societies. The novel is dystopian literature. A dystopian society is the not so good version of an utopian society which is pretty much a perfect world. While an utopian society IS a perfect world, a dystopian society is the exact opposite as it is dehumanizing and unpleasant in regards to trying to make everything ideal. The novel 1984 by George Orwell is […]

1984 Literary Essay

In the novel 1984 war ment peace, freedom ment slavery, and ignorance ment strength. This novel very intriguing yet dark and twisted, the novel all began with an average man with an average job and an average life named Winston Smith, but what you don't know is how unruly the government is. The government believes everyone they have in their grasp they completely and utterly control, they have dehumanized humans to the point where they can't hardly think for themselves […]

Current Events Shaped Themes in 1984

Throughout history there have been dozens of examples of how the book 1984 relates to current events. A Prime example of this is Fidel Castro and 1960's Cuba, Throughout his rule he was responsible for housing many soviet missiles, and limiting the freedoms of his people. The only news allowed in cuba was the news that was verified by either castro himself or his higher up officers. This is an example of censoring/controlling the media. Throughout the book there are […]

George Orwell’s Fiction Novel 1984

With new technology and advanced programs, the government is gaining more power than one may realize. George Orwell’s fiction novel 1984, depicts Oceania’s control upon it’s party members thoughts and freedom showcasing the harsh effects that it had on its population. Too much control can often lead to social repression, Winston being a product of this repressed society. The cruelty Winston is faced with serves as both a motivation for him throughout the novel and reveals many hidden traits about […]

The Party and Power 1984

William Gaddis once said, “power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power”; a truth that perfectly articulates the relationship between man and power. George Orwell’s prose novel, 1984, and James McTeigue’s theatrical film, V for Vendetta, are such quintessences of power abused by those in pursuit of reaching authoritative domination. They differ in textual form and perspectives however at their core, both texts are works of dystopian fiction and juvenalian satire against authoritarian style leaderships, depicting their respective protagonists as victims […]

A Political Novel 1984

1984 is a political novel composed for the humans below a totalitarian authorities and to give consciousness for the feasible dangers of it. George Orwell, the author, purposefully created the e book give emphasis to the rising of communism in Western countries who are nonetheless uncertain about how to approach it. He additionally wrote it due to having an insight of the horrendous lengths to which authoritarian governments that ought to possibly go beyond their power such as Spain and […]

The Power of Words and Rhetoric in 1984

In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the ring of his chair (Orwell 14). Winston Smith is an average man in the world of 1984, at least that is what readers believe at first glance. However, there is a hidden life under the surface of his skin, this being the brewing hatred he feels for the, otherwise, worshiped Big Brother. Smith meets an unlikely companion in a young […]

About the Hazard of Controlling Governments in 1984

Dystopian literature has been around for quite some time, shaping the minds of young readers. However, in the course of recent decades, it has turned out to be increasingly popular, especially after the turn of the century. In a time of fear and anxiety, the dystopian genre has become more popular in pop culture, in that they provide audiences with a different aspect of entertainment, while offering a sense of comfort and control. The world that young adults of today […]

The Tools and Actions of Totalitarianism in Cuba and “1984” by George Orwell

George Orwell’s book 1984 displayed an example of a real-life dystopia. Totalitarianism is shown in this communist-based society so ghastly that it coined its own term “Orwellian” in the dictionary. However, a country living in full surveillance with extremely nationalistic views in cookie-cutter world is not entirely fictional. Historical dictatorships are similar to Orwell’s telling of Big Brother, the man in control of Oceania’s economy and strictly enforced values. An example of such was the Cuban regime under control of […]

Wake up its 1984 again

War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength In the book 1984 by George Orwell, Big brother is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent dictator of Oceania. Big Brother symbolizes the face of the Party and its public manifestation, which controlled people's thoughts, actions, knowledge and way of living. By using secret police, surveillance, torture, propaganda, misinformation, and corrupted languages to control all aspects of one's life. Even though the book was meant to be fictional, there is some elements […]

The Parallels of 1984 and the Soviet Union

George Orwell, a pen name for the author’s real name Eric Arthur Blair, is a man that had multiple professions, such as an essayist, imperial police officer, and a critic. However, he is best known as a novelist, writing such stories like Animal Farm, Burmese Days, and the main focus novel that will be talked about today, 1984. 1984 is the story about a man named Winston Smith, a man that lives in a totalitarian society where no one is […]

What did 1984 Steal from 1922

There have been many dictators in the history of the world. They have been mostly bad for the people of the society, reducing their ability to stand up for them self. Most dictators used fear and intimidation to scare their opponents into complying with them, but in 1984 they limited their vocabulary (newspeak) and twisted what they were saying to make it sound nicer (doublespeak) to get the people to comply with the rules. The Party in 1984 is influenced […]

The Party Control in 1984

1984 is a story of tragedy and warns of a dystopian future, which day by day looks like it is becoming closer to a reality. The story starts out with Winston Smith, a member of the Party, living inside the conglomerate super-nation Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, he is being watched by the Party's leader, Big Brother, who is constantly monitoring to stop any and all rebellion. The Party controls everything and are trying to indoctrinate people, inventing a brand new […]

My 1984 Story

INTRODUCTION The Party did the people wrong and treated them poorly because the Party wanted them to do what they asked for and manipulating their minds. Orwell wanted to tell people how the Party treated other people and what they had to sacrifice in order to do what was told. For it to be one of the most powerful warnings that ever happened in the totalitarian society. George Orwell’s 1984 is a interesting and constructive book that is filled with […]

Dystopian Literature – 1984

The destruction of history causes people to obey the party more and become mindless objects to the party. The party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past ran the party slogan controls the future who controls the present controls the past And the through of its nature alterable never has been altered{ Orwell p.31}. It represent imagery and talks about how the party controls them and […]

1984 and Brave New Word: Literary Criticisms

Although they seem to portray two completely opposite dystopias, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 are two sides of the same coin, as they both warn of the dangers of an all-powerful government. Both their personal lives and the social climate in which they lived in contributed in the shaping of their novels into the disturbingly brilliant pieces of literature that are praised today. Huxley’s childhood provides great insight into some of the many influences of his […]

The Shadow of 1984

When people read dystopian text they often include topics with darker views of our political structures. George Orwell's novel 1984 is about a place named Oceania in which the main character Winston, a member of the outer party,journeys into his end. He finds himself with these viewpoints no one else seems to have of how Oceania is runned and only continues to question and dig further until he is put to stop by the party. Although Orwell’s work is fiction […]

George Orwell’s 1984 Oppression

After reading and discussing the outcomes of high tech policing, I strongly take a stand with the critics of it. This is not only opinion, the data received by high tech policing technologies distort the true meaning of privacy and is a form of biased policing against poor and minority communities. Police are using high tech policing to target poor and minority communities. The main facts that support my claim are how high tech policing results in biases against minorities […]

What does the Paperweight Symbolize in 1984: Metaphor for Loss of Individuality

Introduction “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows” (Orwell 81). George Orwell wrote a book called 1984 about Winston and how he lives in an oppressive government. The government manipulates them so much that they have no freedom and no way to express themselves. They cannot even say 2+2=4. Imagery, symbolism, and figurative language are used to convey the theme of the loss of individuality by totalitarianism. Metaphor […]

Decoding Dystopia: George Orwell’s 1984 Explored

Picture a world where your every move is watched, where your thoughts aren’t even your own. Welcome to George Orwell’s "1984," a novel that isn’t just a story but a warning bell that still echoes loudly today. Written in 1949 and set in a future that's now our past, Orwell spins a tale of a world caught in the grip of total government control, a place where the very idea of truth is as malleable as clay. At the heart […]

George Orwells 1984 Theme: Rejecting Political Apathy through Orwellian Insights

In George Orwell's iconic dystopian novel, "1984," the theme of rejection to political apathy emerges as a powerful undercurrent. Set in a totalitarian regime where Big Brother's watchful eye permeates every aspect of citizens' lives, the novel serves as a stark warning against the dangers of political passivity. As an environmental studies student, I find intriguing parallels between the oppressive political climate depicted in the book and the urgent need for active environmental engagement in today's world. Orwell's masterpiece provides […]

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How To Write an Essay About George Orwell's 1984

Understanding the context and themes of 1984.

When setting out to write an essay about George Orwell's "1984," it's crucial to first grasp the novel's historical and literary context. Published in 1949, "1984" is a dystopian novel that paints a chilling picture of a totalitarian regime. In your introduction, outline the key themes of the novel: the dangers of totalitarianism, the manipulation of truth, and the erosion of individuality. It's important to contextualize these themes within the post-World War II era during which Orwell was writing, as well as considering their continued relevance in today's society. This foundational understanding will inform your exploration of the novel's complex narrative and thematic structure.

Analyzing Orwell's Characters and Narrative Techniques

The body of your essay should delve into a detailed analysis of the novel's characters and narrative techniques. Focus on the protagonist, Winston Smith, and his journey of rebellion and subsequent downfall. Examine Orwell's portrayal of the Party, particularly the character of Big Brother, and the ways in which it exercises control over individuals. Discuss the novel's key symbols, such as telescreens, Newspeak, and the concept of doublethink, and how they contribute to its overall message. Analyze Orwell's use of language and narrative style, considering how these elements enhance the novel's themes and its impact on readers. Use specific examples and quotes from the text to support your analysis, ensuring each paragraph contributes to a comprehensive understanding of Orwell's vision.

Contextualizing 1984 in the Broader Literary Landscape

In this section, place "1984" within the broader context of dystopian literature and its historical background. Discuss how the novel reflects the anxieties of its time, including fears of fascism and communism, and how these concerns are woven into the fabric of the narrative. Consider the influences on Orwell's writing, such as his experiences during the Spanish Civil War and his observations of Stalinist Russia. Additionally, reflect on the novel's impact on later literature and culture, including its influence on the genre of dystopian fiction and its relevance in contemporary discussions about surveillance, privacy, and political power.

Concluding Reflections on 1984

Conclude your essay by summarizing the key points of your analysis, emphasizing the enduring significance of "1984" in both literary and socio-political contexts. Reflect on the novel's warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the importance of preserving individual freedoms. Consider the novel's relevance in today's world, particularly in light of current technological and political developments. A strong conclusion will not only provide closure to your essay but also underscore the novel's ongoing relevance, encouraging readers to continue contemplating Orwell's warnings and insights in relation to contemporary society.

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