1984
George Orwell’s timeless novel 1984, remains as culturally relevant today as in 1949 when it was written. This science fiction novel set in the year 1984 chronicles the daily life of Winston Smith, a run-of-the-mill government employee who lives in London. In Winston’s contrived futuristic time, London is part of Oceania, one of three global warring superpowers. The government, or the Party as it is commonly called, controls and monitors all aspects of society, using fear and force to gain and maintain power. In his novel 1984, George Orwell derives Winston Smith, the Big Brother and the police state tactics of the party, and the fear tactics employed by the Party from actual people and events in order to better convey a staunch anti-totalitarian message. Winston Smith is an average person, with an average job, who lives alone in a mediocre dwelling. Winston has no living family. Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, an agency that puts forth propaganda based on lies. This hypocrisy is only one example of hypocrisy fervent throughout the novel. Winston sees this hypocrisy, but for most of the novel doesn’t know what if anything to do about it. There is always an element of reluctance when it comes t . . .
While the oppressors are small in number, and could never possibly withstand an uprising by the oppressed, the oppressed are too fearful and feel too insignificant to rise Kilpatrick 4 up. Everyday, bombs explode in London, killing innocent civilians. George Orwell attacks the use of fear for political gain, while trying to inoculate readers to its effects. Arthur Koestler is the individual who inspired the character of Winston Smith. Ubiquitous posters of Big Brother, along with the phrase, “Big Brother is Watching You ” (Orwell 74) strike fear into citizens and remind them of the omnipotent and omnipresent nature of the government. No individual claims personal harm from Goldstein. This is evident in the name and basis for Winston Smith; the oppressive, restrictive, and violent Party; and the use of irrational fear by the Party to hold power. According to the Kilpatrick 7 Party line, Goldstein is a dangerous, unscrupulous traitor who will stop at nothing to disrupt the lives of and harm citizens of Oceania. Without basing Winston Smith on the real life Arthur Koestler, and without alluding to the heroic Winston Churchill, George Orwell never could have conveyed the underlying reasons citizens submit themselves to totalitarian government. The whereabouts or exact crimes of Emmanuel Goldstein are unknown. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. In order to understand the underlying conflict Winston holds in regard to the Party, as well as the message George Orwell is trying to convey through this dilemma, one must first understand the real life basis for Winston and the origin of his name. “The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. The photograph shows three men accused of treason: Jones, Aronson, and Rutherford, in a different place at the time they supposedly committed their crimes. Officers of this force embedded themselves in society, arresting anyone they overheard criticize Hitler or the German government, (Triumph).
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