1984 - Key Incident Essay

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Q7 2007 - Key Incident Essay

        “1984” is a dystopian novel by George Orwell in which there is an unexpected ending.  This is satisfactory in conveying the writer’s themes of truth, control and conflict.  Orwell is successful in depicting these themes through the use of characterisation, symbolism and key incident.

        The key incident in “1984” is not expected and this helps to deepen my understanding of the theme of control.  The key incident finally occurs when Winston is taken to Room 101. Room 101 is in the Ministry of Love and it is where individuals are exposed to their very own personal fear. O’Brien explains this to Winston “The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world… In your case, the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.”  O’Brien places a cage, filled with hungry rats, over Winston’s head. Winston, unable to take the torture any longer, screams out “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!” and the cage is not opened. Winston has betrayed Julia. This is the climax of the novel and allows us to conclude that Winston is finally a broken man, unable to love and have loyalty to anyone other than Big Brother.  It is ironic because Winston and Julia believed that the one thing the Party could not do was interfere with the mind, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”  There is also irony in the fact that Winston betrays Julia because the Party has ultimately succeeded in destroying the only thing that they believed made them human.  He had made them stop loving each other.  We are confounded by this abrupt change in emotion because Winston and Julia’s love was so strong. This allows us to understand that indoctrination and totalitarianism was employed as a way to convey the theme of control.    

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The events leading up to the key incident are significant because of the subtle ironies hidden within them. When Julia first initiated their contact with a note saying “I love you” Winston expressed to us that “At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him”.  This shows that fatalistic Winston will now do anything to stay alive and keep himself human.  He feels he now has a purpose in life, for holding onto truth and memories for the people of the future. Moreover symbolism in the novel helped me to ...

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