Another 1984 Essay, Research Paper
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
apart! ment. 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. For Bernard it was not where he lived,
but how he lived. 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 constant! ly 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 van! ity 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 fa! irly 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.
Orwell, George, 1984, New Americ! an Library, New
York, 1981 Ibid. Ibid.