Nineteen Eighty Four

From the very beginning Winston and Bernard make them enemies of their society. These characters risk their lives to try and recapture what we take for granted today. Winston and Bernard try to keep their individuality and recapture through their jobs, and the way they live. Both 1984 and Brave new World show us that we must be careful to protect our ideas and way of life. Through the two main characters, Winston and Bernard, the authors show the readers that once tyranny takes hold reality and individuality are lost.

Winston attempts to keep in his individuality through the apartment he rents. The apartment, which was rented from the owner of the antique store, is one way he makes himself different. The antique store owner could sense how Winston was different from the others, and he showed that when he said, "There's another room upstairs that you might care to take a look at." (81) Winston is instantly charmed by the rooms nostalgic look and furnishing.!

At first it was, "a wild, impossible notion, to be abandoned as soon as though of."(82) One thing that leads to him later renting the apartment is the fact that their is no visible telescreen. The owner told Winston the he never had one because, "Too expensive. And I never seemed to feel the need of it somehow."(82) In truth their was a telescreen behind the etching, which leads to the capture of Winston and Julia. The apartment was a huge symbol of the past to Winston. The apartment is decorated with relics of the past: a double bed, a metal etching of a church, a bookshelf filled with ancient tomes. Winston and Julia use these items as constant reminders of the past they are longing for. They believe that they can safely enter this world, separate from the one of the Party and Big Brother. In their mind it is a safe haven, in reality it is a rat, pest and filth ridden slum. It is not even safe from the Party. As it turns out there was a telescreen in the apartment. It was hidden behind the etching of the church, that Winston thought was so nostalgic. In the end Winston and Julia could not control their own lives, just like society where no one has a control.

Bernard didn't have a nostalgic apartment, what he had was a way of life contrary to others. No one in his world wanted to worry about anything. They would drown their worries in the pleasure drug Soma. What Bernard would do is think about his problems, tell them to his friend, and find other ways to deal with them. Bernard refuses to run away from his problems. In fact the way he lives causes him to take on the problems of the society along with his own. Things like flying just to see the scenery and look at the moon. ...

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One of the biggest similarity between Bernard and Winston is their jobs. The positions they hold allow them to hold links to the past and reality the way it was. Winston would constantly review records about the past as they actually happened. He would have to correct past articles to delete people that had been vaporized. He would then know exactly who was dead. Though he did not know how, he could only guess how those people had died. They had not been 100% faithful to Big Brother. Bernard's job as a hypnopedia specialist allowed him to see why people behaved the way they did. He knew that everything was actually conditioning. He realized that everything was fake and programmed. He saw the methods by which people were programmed. This caused him to question the methods. He saw how drastically these sleep treatments changed people. He also knew how people were breed, engineered and treated to be a certain way. He wanted to question the predestination. That was the reason that Bernard wanted to go to the savage reservation. He wanted to see that way people used to live. How he believed people should live. However, the very real feeling of vanity and fame caused him to lose sight of his goal to change society. That was what both Winston and Bernard really wanted to do. They wanted to change society back to the way it was. The way it is today.

Winston articulated this so much better. He was able to put down his feelings in his dairy. The diary was an old, yellow paged, ancient book purchased from the owner of the antique store. It was supposedly a book created before the great revolution and this is symbolic. It is symbolic because most books created before the revolution were destroyed. The best articulation that Bernard could come up with was his feeble attempts to make the director of the hatchery feel bad by going to the reservation over his objections. Bernard tries to fight society and embarrass his enemies, making them mad. He should have tried to show the masses why the establishment is wrong. He should have used the savage to show how a different life can mean happiness.

It should be fairly plain to the readers of Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World that Winston and Bernard are warnings over what society is heading towards. A time when only a very few will have their individuality and sense to question the establishment. A totalitarian society in which thoughts, actions and feelings are controlled. A time were I has no meaning, and the debate over freedoms will cease. We live in an imperfect society, where people do wrong and make mistakes. The worlds in which Winston and Bernard live do not even allow them to make mistakes. They can only do what their leaders see as right. In the end Winston and Bernard fail to achieve the great change for society. They do make their great change for themselves. They may end up in bad situations, however, it was by their choice and doing. Something the rest of society didn't have. I take this as a message to cherish the most important thing we have in our society, CHOICE.

Nineteen Eighty Four