1984 by George Orwell

            1984 by George Orwell is entertaining and excellently written both in terms of political ideas and plot construction. It does have a few flaws, however. The ending is unsatisfactory and makes quite a tragedy (as far as democratic Americans are concerned). Questions are left unanswered. How could Winston become brainwashed? He so desperately wanted truth to stand. His failure can be attributed to a lack of confidence in his own ability to reason so that his whole intellect broke down in the face of pain, becoming a wasteland just like most of the minds in Oceania. This makes me wonder whether or not I could withstand. I want to say that I could, but under such trauma it is difficult to say. Although Orwell could be using the book make democratic countries thankful for their situation, he is most likely warning us about where our society could end up. To that end, he makes a convincing but dubious argument. The tyrannical control of people’s entire lives and most devastatingly, the complete control of truth appeals primarily to ethos and pathos because his society is illogical. In practice, people do not enjoy power as much as wealth and glory. Power is a means to an end. Rulers throughout the ages have craved power so that they could be respected, worshiped, and paid by their subjects. They would never limit themselves just to get the power. Orwell’s society may seem impregnable, but it could not arise without falling apart due to the greed of men. It is difficult enough for people to share things in a society with ownership, could the members of the Inner Party really strip themselves of all of their wealth and leave no trace of themselves when they die? Orwell’s society would have collapsed before it began. Before the society could become completely oppressive, people would have objected severely to the destruction of truth.

Reflections on the Party in 1984 by George Orwell after Reading Chapter 9

            In 1984 by George Orwell, Winston gets a copy of the Book and begins to read it in his hideout in the upper room of Mr. Charrington’s shop. The Book mostly confirmed suspicions that I already had about the way Oceania and the rest of the world worked. For instance, the Party presumably does actually send rocket bombs onto its own civilians to help keep their patriotic vehemence fired up against the enemy among other reasons. I felt like Winston, that it was nice to have a book that agreed with you even though it held very little new information. Nevertheless, I found it interesting that the wars exist to destroy materials so that people do not become too wealthy in their industriousness because wealth leads to insurrection. I already thought that the war probably existed only for the purpose of keeping the Party in power, but I had not linked the wealth part. I had also pictured a slightly more personal Inner Party that kept the Outer Party and the Proles in check not just to keep themselves in power, but also for their own pleasure, freedom, and leisure. On the contrary, the Inner Party follows much of the same frugality and doublethink. The reason the Party exists, from their point of view, is simply to acquire pure power. They are willing to sacrifice anything and everything permanently to get it. In a sense, every good Party member, no matter what class abolishes their personality. I find it hard to believe this case for pure power. People always worship something, whether it is God, a person, or an object. Orwell confuses a self-worship leading to a hunger for power with a pure desire for power. The root is worship, not power, so a power centered society should not be possible. I am missing a piece, however, because this chapter strengthened the incredibility and impenetrability of the Party, so I need to figure out how this society should collapse or why it never could come to exist in the first place.

Newspeak Summary of Hamlet and King Lear

Hamlet unchoosing foolish delay kill uncle stop King Lear property unjoin stop only unbestowed daughter faithful stop rectify too late unsurvive

"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning

            “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. The narrator has a sarcastic tone throughout. From the very beginning when he says, “I call that piece a wonder, now,” his treatment of the painting of his wife is condescending and jocular. It is ironic that he behaves this way because we would expect the narrator, presumably a duke, to have an air of respect, sadness, or at least melancholy when talking about his deceased wife. The duke comments that “ ‘twas not her husband’s presence only, called that spot of joy into the Duchess’ cheek.” Literally, this indicates that his wife was a cheery, joyful woman, but in the duke’s sarcastic manner, this is also an understatement of perhaps a lack of faithfulness on her part—as to the severity, it is difficult to tell. He again understates her wide selection of things to praise by saying that she had “a heart--how shall I say?—too soon made glad.” What he really believes is that she did not value him highly enough. He goes on to discuss all of the trifling things that caused her to smile. The problem is not so much her absence of love for her husband but all of the other things that make it too ordinary. The most sarcastic part of the whole poem is lines 31-35. The duchess’s thanks to men is good, but she somehow thanks them as if the duke’s 900 year old name is of equal importance. In other words, she hardly values her marriage by which she acquired his prestigious name. He understates his obvious annoyance by commenting consecutively that he would never stoop to blame the (not so small) trifling. Instead of stooping with encouragement, he commanded her to change her behavior and she no longer smiles at anything. The end of the poem makes it sound like he just treats the duchess as a prize of his “collection” of artifacts because he ironically simply proceeds to show off a bronze statue of Neptune.

1984 by George Orwell: Initial Impressions of Julia

In 1984, George Orwell brings a mysterious character to light and informs the reader that her name is Julia. Before she passes off the note to Winston, I agreed with much of his anger against her. Although Winston’s feelings were outright villainous, anyone who turns others in to the Thought Police is by definition a “bad guy.” I was almost as stunned as Winston when she passed him off the note saying “I love you.” Winston had not even considered that possibility for what the note could say. Although Winston and Julia live in an oppressive society, I cannot approve their behavior. She may be providing a release for Winston’s and her own pent up psyche, but their licentious behavior is not acceptable. There is also something horrid about the fact that Julia has had many indiscriminate relationships with people up to age sixty. She is very selfish as demonstrated by her reaction to Winston’s failure to push his wife off the cliff. Anyone who hinders her freedom of expression, not just the Party, deserves to be destroyed.

For the first part of their relationship, she struck me as a cunning mastermind who worked tirelessly to appear supportive of the government while at the same time plotted against it. Even though nothing has been mentioned about an actual attempt to overthrow the government, Julia is an ardent rebel. Yet her rebellion is a personal one. Her rebellion is shown through her carefree attitude in her treasured places of escape and her willingness to trash talk the Party and its ways. She finds an acute joy in being exactly the sort of person the party does not want people to be. Unlike Winston, she has no belief in the possibility of actually overthrowing the government, but at the same time is far more bold than Winston in private insurrection. She cares primarily about freedom of emotion and does not even understand political freedom. After seeing her careful instructions for directions and her well orchestrated plans of meeting, her apolitical mindset seems contrary to her carefully planned behavior. I wonder if Winston’s interaction with Julia will give him the exposure to the true public mindset and the opportunity to express his views that he needs in order to begin a large scale rebellion.

1984 Predictions After Reading Eight Chapters

            After the first eight chapters of 1984, it is difficult to make predictions about what will happen next because the book seems to be primarily concerned with the explication of the world in which Winston lives and not with actual events. Aside from the existence of Winston, Big Brother’s world seems entirely devoid of hope and Winston himself is merely his pawn, so the future does not look bright. I predict that Winston will get vaporized by the Thought Police, but I do not think that his diary will be his downfall. Although writing a diary is a radical move of rebellion in that society of oppression, it would not make a good book for Winston to die because he wrote a diary. He must commit some much greater crime first. The fact that Winston so seriously wants to get information from the old man in the bar and wants to live in the quaint room of the antique shop with no surveillance show that he is bursting at the seams. He cannot stand the suppression and he considers the ability of the proles to provide the manpower for the rebellion. Unfortunately, Winston has been brainwashed by the Party to believe that “Until [the Proles] become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” In this statement, the circular reasoning implies that the Proles can never rebel, but at some point Winston will realize that he is intelligent enough to bring them back to consciousness. After he makes them rise, he will succeed in making some advances against the Party before being vaporized. It is difficult to tell at this point, but given how extensively the Party uses doublethink, if Winston or some other mastermind set up serious opposition, the Party is probably not actually as hard to destroy as it seems.

Reflection on Privacy Today and in "1984" by George Orwell

            The book 1984 by George Orwell envisions a dark picture of suppression and despotic control. The oppression in this book is so complete that I practically leapt for joy when I finished reading the section and remembered the real world again. The telescreen is the most evident indicator of the invasion of privacy that exists in this novel. It allows the Thought Police to view and hear almost everything going on everywhere. The only freedom is the few square feet that the telescreen cannot see—if you can call that freedom. Almost as bad, the telescreen plays “radio” in the form of propaganda, news, and music 24/7 without an off button. Until reading this book, I never understood how horrible such a society could be. Not that I was not already adamantly opposed to it, but that I now understand its vile nature more fully. The way in which children are used against their parents by the children’s participation in youth programs for indoctrination is quite horrendous. An important part of personal privacy is the right to parent  your own children, and, although the Big Brother would probably deny it, children in that society are really just spies and robots to be programmed according to the government’s wishes. Although such extreme conditions are nowhere near, privacy is an important issue currently. People are concerned that their computers are watching them, that the government should not tell them what to do with unborn children, or that they may be watched by government agencies. In America, these infringements on privacy are worried about too much. Infringements on privacy have been made primarily for the safety of our country’s citizens. As long as the people who are in control can be voted out of office, despotic government observation can be removed. The way it sits currently, the people who are doing nothing wrong have nothing to fear. People who want to do evil tend to complain the most, but the right to privacy does not give people the permission to do evil when others cannot see it. For instance, even though parents should have the right to teach their own children, that does not give them the right to murder their child in an abortion.