George Orwell’s Nighteen Eighty-Four powerfully expresses the definition of a dystopian society, a society where greed takes control to illuminate an individual’s freedom and their role in the community. 1984 collides with the loss of identity and thought as a way for the government.
Dystopian stories are often written to immerse humans into a world where significant events take place to ensure the dangers of a totalitarian society. Nighteen Eighty-Four examines the inevitable consequence when priority is given to the government, using the Part’s forms of oppression to examine the ensuing coerced collective human experience which further leads to the feelings of loneliness experienced by the individuals. The lack of empathy and compassion brings a whole totalitarian state into society, where human being’s instincts of love and respect grow and without these emotions, no one can feel truly happy or free.
Displayed through Nighteen Eighty-Four, love is the biggest element in which the government forbids. Although marriage is allowed, partners are forbidden to love as Oceania only accepts forced dedication to the Party and Big Brother, in which the Party works to eliminate all physical sensations of love and to depersonalise sex to the extent that it is referred to as ‘[their] duty to the party’ rather than doing it for its pleasures.
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As Winston’s lover, Julia intensifies the connection between them in the countryside, he thought to himself a feeling which was considered as an act of betrayal, where “In the old days, he thought, a man looked at a girl’s body and saw that it was desirable, and that was the end of the story. But you could not have pure love or pure lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything was mixed up with fear and hatred. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the Party. It was a political act.” Through love and betrayal, Winston learns that the Party destroys freedom and individuality, allowing individuals to gain desires to betray the Party for their own rights.
Winston metaphorically states that love is no longer an emotion as Oceania rules with fear, trapping citizens into the feeling of human hatred and instead only provide loyalty to the Party and Big Brother. Living life through despair, Winston only has the courage to rebel against the Party through his affair with Julia, believing that she is the only hope for freedom. With emotions trapped in a dystopian society like Oceania, an individual’s human experience is controlled, resulting in loneliness and the loss of identity, which the authors portray as a warning to the responders.
Moreover, Winston demonstrates the impact of individual and collective human experiences through the society of Oceania where freedom and emotions are controlled. Ultimately through the society, Orwell portrays the Party clearly draws attention to the totalitarian society that is being faced and illustrates the damage which impacts individuals and society as a whole. With “every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.” Surveillance by the Party, Oceania becomes a society where individuals are watched constantly with no freedom.
As each prediction made by the Party could be documentary evidence, it foreshadows how Winston’s life has been recorded, with every detail being pictured and how he’ll develop knowing that the Party manipulates documents and human expressions. As a society that manipulates citizens, it demonstrates how lonely and terrified an individual becomes through the lack of communication and control, thus Orwell constructs to warn responders of how horrific a manipulative society is.
Furthermore, the Party slogan in Nineteen Eighty-Four resembles the propaganda of Oceania brainwashing each individual, resulting in the citizens to believe that the society is helping them and making them feel like they have all that they require. As the society believe that what they are doing is creating a perfect world, propaganda is demonstrated to prevent rebellious acts from the citizens. The slogan “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” and the surveillance poster “Big Brother is Watching You”, symbolises the representation of dictators and dictatorial regimes, where totalitarian power rises whilst individuals believe that it is creating a better future.
The Party’s use of the slogans controls the minds of the citizens, manipulating collectives to believe that other than the INGSOC government, nothing else would ensure their happiness. This secures the individual’s mind, with no thought of rebellion as citizens believe that the Party’s way of governing is the only acceptable way. The slogans represent doublethink, persuading citizens to believe that everything they want is what they already have. With individuals not understanding the truth behind the slogans and Oceania’s propaganda, citizens are living in a society where only loneliness takes place. Whilst thinking the Party’s intention is to protect the citizens, collectives are unaware that Oceania is creating a place where there are no emotions and love, resulting in the feelings of unnoticeable long term loneliness.
Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four successfully portrays the perfect totalitarian society, demonstrating the society’s oppression into creating a fearful and lonely environment where there are no rebellious acts with citizens being manipulated to believe that the society is perfect. Collectives are brainwashed to believe that being surveillance means that they are being protected. Nineteen Eighty-Four reflects the
