856 Orwell, George
the Party will be unwilling to threaten or remove it.
The Party permeates all aspects of Oceania society,
a society that does not permit individual thought or
expression.
The novel’s main conflict is Winston Smith’s
resistance to the Party’s fear and oppression,
as well as his quest for individuality. Winston
defies the Party’s rule through various illegal
activities. He begins a diary in which he writes
such thoughts as “Down with Big Brother.” He
begins an illicit affair with Julia, a coworker at
the Ministry of Truth who works in the Fiction
Department. He seeks to be inducted into the
Brotherhood, the secret society devoted to the
downfall of Big Brother and the Party. His rebel-
liousness is only equaled by his unmitigated fatal-
ism. As he willfully commits these illegal acts, he
is adamant in his belief that he will be caught and
tortured for his crimes. From the moment he puts
individual thought to his diary until the moment
a rendezvous with Julia at an antique store invites
his arrest, Winston is unrelenting in his path
toward his downfall.
Winston is tortured for months until he is bro-
ken. His worst fears exploited, Julia abandoned, and
his individualism eradicated, he is released back into
society. He has accepted the brainwashing program
and has become an unadulterated follower of Big
Brother. His transformation is described:
He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty
years it had taken him to learn what kind of
smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache.
O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stub-
born, self-willed exile from the loving breast!
Two gin-scented tears tickled down the sides
of his nose. But it was all right, everything
was all right, the struggle was finished. He
had won the victory over himself. He loved
Big Brother.The great casualty of the novel is Winston’s
individualism. The Party does not take his life but
removes his identity. He is assimilated into a soci-
ety of ignorant loyalists at the expense of Winston
Smith.
Drew McLaughlin
SuFFerInG in Nineteen Eighty-Four
The Party controls Oceania through fear and coer-
cion. They manipulate the mind through pro-
paganda peddled by the Ministry of Truth and
indoctrinate citizens through torture inflicted by the
Thought Police. Everyone is suspicious of everyone.
Big Brother is always watching. Telescreens installed
in party members’ homes allow the Party to be
omnipresent.
Suffering permeates George Orwell’s futuristic
nightmare. Children are encouraged to turn their
parents in to the Thought Police, the very words
of rebellion are eliminated from the language and
replaced by Newspeak, friendships are dangerous,
and romantic relationships are forbidden. Inde-
pendent thought is outlawed as well. In Nineteen
Eighty-Four, Orwell envisions a totalitarian society
where such primal human instincts and natural
rights as thought and emotions are suppressed.
There is nothing more insufferable to human nature
than the absence of normal human contact.
The novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, takes
actions to counteract the suffering imposed by
the Party. Smith begins to keep a personal diary
in which he records all his illegal anti-Party sus-
picions and beliefs. He cultivates a friendship
with O’Brien, who he suspects is a member of the
Brotherhood, the organization devoted to the Par-
ty’s overthrow. Ultimately, Smith is indoctrinated
into the Brotherhood, but more important, he
embarks on an illicit affair with Julia. His love for
her grows as his fatalistic conception of his destiny
expands as well. Winston is adamant in his convic-
tion that from the moment he first wrote “Down
with Big Brother” in the diary, met O’Brien, and
met Julia, he was doomed to be discovered by the
Party, arrested, and probably tortured for thought-
crime. His paranoia and fatalism prove correct.
He is arrested by the Thought Police above Mr.
Charrington’s shop, where he rented a room to
carry on his affair with Julia. He soon learns that
Charrington was a member of the Thought Police
all along and that O’Brien was not a member of the
Brotherhood but a Party operative of the Ministry
of Love.
Winston’s hatred and personal rebellion against
the Party is a threat to its existence and must be