Eric Blair, more famously known for the names he leaves with the titles of his novels: George Orwell. Born in the middle of 1903 he grew up watching the ways in which the world was conforming. In 1984 Orwell turns to symbols of what he feels he can connect most with the world he was living in. In the second paragraph of the novel Big Brother is mentioned - the ultimate ruler of Oceania and the one who knows every move each person makes. After Winston discovers that Mr. Charrington will allow him to rent the room above the junk shop for his and Julia’s rendezvous, he peers out the window to see a “fat Red-Armed prole woman” outside the window singing without a care in the world. The party works to erase everything a human knows of the past but throughout the novel Winston commissions ways to prove that the past is real by holding close to his heart the glass paperweight that he buys at Mr. Charringtons junk shop.
In the mid nineteen forties when Orwell wrote 1984, Hitler’s reign to take over Europe and overthrow the government that was in place and turn all he could into the totalitarian government that Hitler viewed as perfect was dissolving. In the novel Big Brother is, in essence, equal to what Hitler was. He is the ultimate ruler that controls all thoughts and actions and watches your every move. With his loyal band of thought police and his Junior Spies and the loyalties to the party, Big Brother knows all that break the rules. The question then forms: who is the real ruler of Oceania? It is said to be Big brother but it is never truly know; one can only assume, that due to the rebellious Winston that Big Brother ultimately rules over all.
The Two Minutes Hate is a ritual in which everyone must participate; it is a daily ritual in which the citizens of Oceania show their devotion to Big Brother. One Citizen participates more actively than Winston chooses too: “The little sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like ‘My Savior!’ she extended her arms toward the screen.” P.17
The most apparent suggestions that Orwell makes about the party is how the citizens of Oceania have very limited freedoms and rights. Julia and Winston yearn to rebel against the party so that one day everyone can live without the constant fear of committing the norms that the party labels as wrongs. Freedom is the last thing that any part of the population has, but as Julia and Winston sit in the room above Mr. Charrington’s junk shop, after their meetings become more frequent, they hear a prole outside the shop singing and hanging dippers without a care in the world. Winston thinks that this “fat, red-armed prole” is anything but attractive while Julia finds her beautiful. The song she sings begins to grow on Winston as he soon begins to see the loveliness that she carries. As Winston stirs in his mind the ways that freedom can be obtained the red-armed prole woman comes to face; Julia and Winston see her as a symbol of reproductive virility. Because of her size and her willingness to preserve a woman’s duties to her family they think that she would be able to give birth too many children and that, if taught properly, could rebel and eventually overthrow the party.
Winston says, early in the novel, “If there is hope it lies in the proles”. P. 60
Throughout the novel Winston is constantly trying to find ways to prove that life has not always been the way of which people lived in the novel. Winston finds himself in the junk shop where he had purchased the diary where Winston writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” and where he also purchases the glass paperweight to which Winston holds a fascinating interest. The paperweight symbolizes much of what Winston strives to prove. Mr. Charrington himself says that the paperweight is an antique: “That wasn’t made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.” Charrington says to Winston as he notices the enthusiastic look Winston wears as he views the paperweight. Winston can’t remember what life was actually like before the revolution but he feels that the paperweight can connect him with the past in some way.
Many people think that they are lost in a world of found. Winston feels alone in a world full of others. While Orwell works to prove that totalitarianism would ruin the sanity of all. He uses the main character Winston and his journey throughout the novel to symbolize ways that would have been unknown if the mighty rulers, like Hitler, had been successful. Big Brother symbolizes what Hitler and company could have become. The “fat, red-armed prole woman” symbolizes reproductive virility and ways that party could have been overthrown. And the paperweight that Winston has a mass fascination with symbolizes the past that he is unable to record.
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