Discuss the presentation of dreams in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In the book Nineteen Eighty Four, Winston’s dreams often appear to be very hazy and unclear, usually interlinked with his past experiences which he tries very hard to extricate from his memory. The significance of his dreams are in that they are telling of his fears, desires and hopes, that he subconsciously harbours despite being suppressed by the oppressive ruling party of Oceania. An expression of his innermost feelings, the underpinnings of Winston’s dreams perhaps reveal more about himself as well as the world of Nineteen Eighty Four than the actuality of events that occur in the book. Through the use of subterranean metaphors, natural imagery, diction and the characteristic dreamlike atmospheres, Orwell presents his dreams as a plausible foreshadowing of events, unspoken regrets of the past and Winston’s unwavering hope for the future.
The settings and atmospheres in Winston’s dreams are particularly crucial in revealing his emotions. Though description of atmosphere is subtle and often left to the reader to discern, it forms the basis of Winston’s general sub conscious feelings. His dreams are normally set in the past in his childhood or in the “Golden Country” – a future that he hopes for, while others take place in the present time - and the people in his dreams are those whom he admires, or holds in high regard, thus reflecting his innermost thoughts and desires, or fears.
Through the presentation of dreams, Winston’s deep longing for the past is revealed. Where the ability to assert individualism, independence, as well as to allow feelings and emotions that flowed freely, had existed in the past, they have now been eradicated by the government. In his dreams, Winston’s mother and sister sacrificed their prerogatives and lives so that he might live. Evident through images of them “drowning deeper” or sinking into “darkening water” in a “saloon of a sinking ship” while he “was [being] out in the light and air”, these subterranean underwater metaphors create the illusion of losing something to unknown and uncontrollable forces that are paralleled to the government brutally eliminating items and memories that might trigger the past, something that no one, not even Winston, can control or stop.” In this context, it is their unconditional love – in itself pure, sincere, “private and unalterable” - that he had lost, because it now “belonged to the past” and a sense of regret for forsaking his mother and sister for his selfish and superficial needs is easily identifiable when Winston recounts his dreams. To him, unconditional love is authentic, pure, genuine and personal, an emotion that one felt for others, and transcended oneself. Winston observes that “Today, there were fear, hatred and pain, but no dignity of emotion.” Families like the Parsons’ children are more than happy to rat out their parents even though they know that their parents will get vapourised. “Another year, two years, and [the children] would be watching [Mrs Parsons] day and night for symptoms of unorthodoxy.” It exhibits a total severe of family ties, affection and feelings that the government has achieved. Another evidence that points to his longing for the past was when he woke up from the dream of the Golden Country with the word “Shakespeare” on his lips. In this case, Shakespeare signifies something of the ancient time, which Winston can neither bring back nor attain. Involuntarily, Shakespeare plays were very complex and full of deep emotions. This shows that Winston associates freedom of expression He especially feels the acute absence of such unconditional and qualities in the cold and emotionless world of Big Brother, which only his yearning for the past, expressed in the form of dreams because his desires cannot be fulfilled.
