D’Angelo Cowherd
English Lit and Comp August 13, 2013 Summer Reading Analysis: 1984
The whole setting of 1984 took place in the fictional country of Oceania; most of it was made up of Great Britain, Spain and some of Italy. The entire continent of Europe was just another country in itself. The location around where the story is centered is in London; around the end of World War 2.The author uses a totalitarian prominent London in order to tell the story of 1984. No one in this world he’s created has any freedom; they’re a slave to the government and even their own thoughts. Everything they do is monitored closely by the “Party”, an incompetent group of unknown individuals who seek only to conceive and expand the power of their party’s control. They seem to have complete and utter control over the whole populace as citizens are berated by televisions screens spreading the propaganda throughout the whole city. No one is safe from this kind of security. Orwell has created a society who is a complete prisoner of its self. The citizens have no control at all of what they do, how they act and of their own thoughts. The main protagonist even knows that he is in a hopeless situation throughout the entire book. He longs to meet someone who wants to overthrow the government power but knows that it may even come at a cost. Overwhelmed by this sense of overbearing security of the antagonist party, the protagonist buys a journal from a store in order to keeps all his opinions on paper, in order to keep the “Thought Police” from capturing him and finding out his plan. Well conveniently a woman with that invokes somewhat of the same ideologies he has comes along. They pursue a very promiscuous and sexual relationship throughout the book, even though they both know what would happen if the Party found out what they were doing. They continue to rebel and pursue ideas that weren’t in the party’s interest as if they we’re hoping something would upstart a rebellion. By this time O’Brien comes along as a type of savior or dream that Winston had been trying to encounter his whole life. He even envisions meeting O’Brien in a “place where there is no darkness”, but to his dismay this is just from behind a jail cell where the light is always on. Orwell created a sense of hopefulness’ in the beginning when he brought O’Brien in the book, and having him swoop down to induct Winston into the Brotherhood; and ready him for what he thought was the start of something new. Only to turn his back on him and betray him to what they call the party.
The sense that you’re always being watched and monitored by someone known as Big Brother creates a sense of an unknown paralyzing feeling. For the words “Big Brother” is usually meant for someone who you look up to and too sticky by your side, and that’s what the citizens of Oceania feel when they look up at the posters of this man staring down at them. It creates a sense of warmth that they’re being looked over by someone they can trust and exhibit they’re feelings and thoughts too, but he is only just what they think of as a protector, when he is actually a figurehead used to employ extreme work and poverty. Free-will used be possible but instead it is banned from this type of society where everything around is dictated by individuals that only live for themselves. Orwell pushes the possibility that know is under control of what they do. You have to love the Party of control or you’re going to be placed under arrested and indoctrinated to an extreme degree. The side character that Winston was having a sexual escapade with seems to have avoided them for this long, even sleeping with a few members of the party in order to stay one step ahead. But sense Winston is a fatalist he only believes this relationship as a one night stand. He knows that eventually he’ll get caught for the actions he’s committed against the
