How and why George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four used Winstons memory as the drive for his hatred against the authority?

Authors Avatar

Ahmad, Khairul Sabrin

A000000

English B Extended Essay

How and why George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four used Winston’s memory as the drive for his hatred against the authority?

Orwell in his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-four tries to warn future readers to the dangers of having a totalitarian authority ruling them. Under the principle of Ingsoc (English socialism), the Party implement absolute control of its inhabitant of Oceania through technological optimization and mind-control. One would never think of this type of oligarchy accepted or even existed but contrary was happening in Oceania where its citizen upholds the system and admire Big Brother, the omniscient figure worshipped by them. Winston, being the only black sheep of his community struggle to keep himself true to his battle and survive from being caught for serious thought crime by the Thought Police. He knows that he is not the only one despising the Party and certain he does feel that one day Oceania will be freed from the Party’s claws. Orwell had painted Winston to be a man of independent thought, unlike the rest of Oceanian who bank on their fact on what the Party injects into their stagnant mind. His independent thought lets him develop hatred towards the Party. The definition of hatred taken from the common meaning might be too simplistic in the context of Winston’s real feelings towards the Party’s reign. Hate is more than just an intense disliking towards the Party. For Winston, his hatred is reasoned. He possesses independent thought because he has independent memory and this independent memory develop his hatred towards the Party. The reason of his hatred is his memory. Winston, unlike most Oceanian still have the ability to remember and to recall his memory in the past, though the ‘past’ here might narrowly refer to a small truth to the continuously revised version of it. The reason for this is the irony that Orwell had beautifully crafted by having Winston work at a place where memory is abundant though it may not be true. Ministry of Truth, or Minitrue in Newspeak is the only place where the past and future is its main business. It manipulates chronology, history and disseminates propaganda. All the Outer Party member working in the Record Department have the access to all past history but only Winston has the capacity to realize how revising the past made memory unreliable. Storing memories is a unique feature of the human mind. The Party ridicules this ability by erasing historical records. Beyond doubt, memory can never be created without reference to any records due to its dependent nature as a way of knowing. This fact had perhaps exacerbates Winston’s detestation against the Party because he acknowledge the Party had not only control external aspect of Oceanian’s lives such as their economy and knowledge but they had also conquered even the most exclusive  of any individual’s privacy which is their own mind. Comparably, Julia’s motive for a rebellion might differ from Winston’s. Lack of freedom given by the Party for personal interest and sexual desire had made Julia a nonconformist. She achieved freedom when she had an affair with Winston. Winston, on the other hand do not feel any difference in his feeling towards the Party even with Julia’s company because being with Julia does not resolve his problem of not being able to access and optimize his own memory caused by the Party. Another reason for the memory to be the dispute between Winston and the authority is because the only memory that he can fully recall with clarity is his tragic recollection with his family. This memory enables him to remember and compare how life was before the start of the Party’s power over Oceania thus kept him capable of staying unaffected by the Party’s propaganda where at times becomes so strong that one cannot resist from accepting it. However, as the only source for his reference is also the most painful memory for him, he blames the party for not enabling him to have any other memory.

Orwell’s usage of memory as a reason for rebellion can be anchored back to his own problem with authority when he was in his high school years. Corporal punishment was common during his days that he develops his early resentment for authority (Merriman, 2006). Orwell’s unpleasant memory with the authority and that memory being the reason for its continuity are presented in the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-four, Winston Smith. Apart from his personal experience, Orwell might also use Winston’s memory to relate to his reason for hatred because it is the strongest driving force for Winston to keep hating the party. This is shown in the novel that it was not until the last few remaining pages of the novel that Winston finally surrenders to Big Brother and evaporate his resentment.

Join now!

To answer the research question: How and why George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four used Winston’s memory as the drive for his hatred against the authority?, a thorough textual research on the text itself will be conducted to find the link between Winston’s memory and his hatred towards the Party. Next, the effect of memory on his hatred and also comparison with other motives that can also be used to create hatred will be discussed to find out why Orwell uses memory as the main drive of Winston’s hatred. A range of secondary source will also be referenced to evaluate parallel ...

This is a preview of the whole essay