Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature

Nineteen Eighty-Four 855

Winston breaks and pleads with O’Brien to torture
Julia instead of him.
Winston’s heroic rebellion may not survive the
torment of Room 101, but it does not diminish his
previous actions. He constantly rebelled against the
omnipotent power of the Party, testing the limits of
its power, even though, as he feared he would, he
inevitably failed in his quest. Winston Smith is a
heroic figure because he held true to his beliefs as
far as he could carry them. He withstood excruciat-
ing pain and psychological torment but ultimately
reached a breaking point. Nineteen Eighty-Four
shows us that even the heroic can be crushed and
manipulated by the unrestrained oppression of a
totalitarian regime.
Drew McLaughlin

IndIvIduaL and SocIety in Nineteen
Eighty-Four
The citizens of Oceania are subjugated under
absolute despotism and suffer the unyielding gaze
of Big Brother and the ever-present monitoring of
the Thought Police. The Party controls everything.
They control the past: The Ministry of Truth erases
and rewrites history at will. Citizens are forbidden
to keep any mementos or records of the past, which
leaves them susceptible to accept the propaganda of
the Party without a mechanism to question it. The
Party’s political power and control is cemented in
the present by its use of “historical fact” as literal
truth that perpetuates the notion of the Party’s
omnipotence and infallibility. They have indoctri-
nated the citizens of Oceania to believe that the
world before the inception of the Party was plagued
by famine, slavery, and deprivation. Thus, the Party
liberated the human race and is an instrument of
good in the world and in the lives of the citizens
of Oceania. This past coerces submission to Party
ideology and aspirations, and it precludes citizens
from questioning the Party’s methods in the pres-
ent. The Party makes sure of this through its all-
encompassing presence:

And when memory failed and written records

were falsified—when that happened, the

claim of the Party to have improved the con-

ditions of human life had got to be accepted,

because there did not exist, and never again

could exist, any standard against which it

could be tested.

The Party controls the home as well. The

Thought Police monitor a citizen’s sanctuary

through telescreens that record everything that

occurs in any given room. The slogan “Big Brother is

everywhere” is a constant reminder to the citizenry.

The Party even controls language and programs citi-

zens to hold two contradictory ideas in their minds

simultaneously. “War is peace, freedom is slavery,

ignorance is strength” is its slogan. The acceptance

of “doublethink,” such as this slogan, emerges after

years of dilution and degradation of the individual

human mind. It is merely another means of control.

The Party also strives to create a language, New-

speak, which will eradicate all words that question

or challenge it. Opposition to the Party will be non-

existent because the people will be unable to express

it. The narrator explains Newspeak:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only

to provide a medium of expression for the

world-view and mental habits proper to the

devotees of Ingsoc (English Socialism), but

to make all other modes of thought impos-

sible. It was intended that when Newspeak

had been adopted once and for all and Old-

speak forgotten, a heretical thought—that

is, a thought diverging from the principles

of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable,

at least as far as thought is dependent on

words.

The greatest weapon in a revolutionary’s arsenal is

language. When language is removed, manipulated,

or corrupted, revolution is inhibited and maybe even

impossible. Would the American Revolution have

survived without Thomas Paine’s Common SenSe?

Oceania is a nation of suppressed individuality

and therefore subdued rebellion. The Party under-

stands that the seed of rebellion is individuality.

Individuals will think. Individuals will question.

Individuals will challenge. Individuals will over-

throw. Removing all traces of individuality elicits

submission and dependency. A citizen dependent on