Winston changes during the story. In the beginning he is a bit negative towards The Party and his contempt for it and the happenings increase, maybe because the influence of Julia and her attitude to The Party, but in the end he is indoctrinated and ends up loving The Party more than anything. He had his freedom, but it turned out to be slavery. I believe Orwell wishes to show his readers that if you spend too long time in an environment like in Oceania you, like Winston, will sooner or later go with the flow and consider it the best thing in the world. One aspect of why he indicates this might be due to the fact that many of the allied stated that every citizen in Nazi-Germany was a Nazi, believing all the same as the Nazi leaders, and later on accused them of not doing anything when they heard of concentration camps. The Germans on the other hand were deceived and just followed the crowd (people are liquid) and even if they believed the concentration camps to be true, they could not prove the existence and the horrible on goings. Another problem turned out to be the gathering of enough people to force the Nazis to put a stop to it. The act of resistance was illegal.

Another thing indicating that freedom is slavery is the fact that The Party is limiting the language in order to minimize the use of words and thereby taking away the possibilities of thinking for oneself. The Party should do all thinking for you. Again Orwell shows how important it is to think for yourself, because the people in the 50’s did not think for themselves really, especially not during WW2. If thinking for yourself you would probably get arrested and be forced to confess that you’ve lied and really believe the “right things” just as Winston is “forced” to do.

Concerning communism and equality, the war bring ransoms and Winston’s edition of “THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM” stated that the war is necessary in order to have the ransoms and therefore the people would agree to having their “luxury” withdrawn. Furthermore, the “Inner Party” members would instead get hold of many luxurious products such as sugar or coffee. It is true that in some communistic countries the leaders had it significantly better than the common man. Orwell gives his readers a hint that many people did never realize the politicians had it a lot better than they.

----

From my point of view, Orwell struggles to convince his readers that all things happening in Oceania could just as well take place in a dictatorship, such as in Nazi-Germany or the Soviet Union. He does this by telling the story about Winston in ways like how he is affected by the plot of the book and his thoughts and reflectance about it. Orwell writes about actions which the present man finds very unlikely to happen in our part of the world, while the people in 1950 (after the World War II) knew such actions really took place or strongly suspected they took place.

Take the constant monitoring from the telescreens, which are located everywhere. The inhabitants in Oceania are constantly surveiled and if thinking disagreeably with The Party they would face charges in Thought Crime. This is similar to the SS in Nazi-Germany. The people of Oceania are monitored in an equivalent way to the people in Nazi-Germany. I believe Orwell wants the reader to see for oneself what it was like living in a dictatorship especially during WW2. Orwell does therefore present his text in a very certain but critical way in order to prove these actions real and not fictitious (though it may be fiction). Ordinary people, like Julia, knew or suspected the bugging to be true. Julia even states that “I bet that picture’s got bugs behind it” I find this rather amusing because it turned out to be true. They actually were bugged but never had a thought of it, just as any person in a dictatorship. In addition to the most useful usage of the telescreens as described above, one can see another usage; the symbolic use. The Nazis had the swastika almost everywhere in order to create unity and to scare the people, to remind them what would happen if they were negative towards the Hitler regime.

/Martin   

 

Martin

3 juni 2010 11:51

Who the f**k has added smilies? :-P

 

Anders

3 juni 2010 16:44

Couldn't agree more

 

Sanna

3 juni 2010 17:48

HAHA sorry :), thought is looked so much more inviting to read ;) can take them away if you like!!

 

Martin

3 juni 2010 20:11

No, you don't have to do that. I was just very surprised. Thought I'd done it myself by mistake.

 

Rickard

7 juni 2010 22:21

LOL...

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