Ap Lit Q. 3 Conflicts Between Society And The Individual's Desires

George Orwell warns of society's repressions for order through the conflicted character Winston, who appears to conform to society while secretly maintaining a questioning, defiant self.

Early in the novel, this tension in Winston's character, exposed when compared to the society around him, develops the controversy behind a government that would sacrifice the essential liberty of it citizens for a little temporary safety. Before actively censuring the government in his private thoughts Winston unconsciously scribbles in his illegal diary, "Down With Big Brother." This involuntary act reveals Winston's near innate defiance of the despotic government. The audience early on is cued to his natural freethinking person. These actions are directly juxtaposed from scene to scene by transitioning to the Big Brother brain washing tapes that everyone, everyday, must watch. The tension between individual supposed undeniable freedom and a government's repressive powers is developed with this exterior and interior character conflict. Winston's writing makes him out to be a real character in contrast to the plastic world around him, shaped by the brainwashing powers of Big Brother, such as the tapes.

After Winston begins to embrace what he feels to be unalienable rights, Big Brother ultimately catches him, exemplifying ______. Winston had to be secretive about his true-self for fear of death. The conformation to the outside kept him going, but he begins to slip by not minding the Thought Police whereabouts. He writes in a diary entry that the government may only inflict physical harm on him--it would be impossible for them to take away his inner thoughts and sense of self. Once imprisoned for the secret life he led, the Ministry of Love did not kill him physically, but after a seemingly interminable torture and what remain unspoken techniques, the oppressive regime breaks what Winston once wrote was permanent. Winston emerges