1984 - A Life of Fear

"He could keep on her track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cobblestone," (101).

This was a notion that passed through Winston's mind when he saw Julia had followed him to the antique shop and was worried she would report him. This shows how much fear and paranoia these people were living with. They would ultimately do anything to prevent themselves from being reported. Even plan how you were going to kill someone who just walked by. When reading this sentence, it also seemed somewhat animalistic of Winston to say. He spoke of tracking her to a quiet place then going in for the kill, just as an animal hunts his prey. That is what these people have basically been reduced to in the eyes of the government - animals. There is no honesty, integrity, or the like. There is only a basic knowledge of what they must do in order to survive from day to day.

1984 - Orthodoxy

"The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand now. Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness," (53).

This line is spoken by Syme when speaking of what job he was working on for the party. Syme informed Winston that he was helping to delete words from the dictionary and create a stronger knowledge of the Newspeak language. Having less words entails less ways to describe oneself. The people were becoming more limited with each new day. With limited word selection, the people would have no means of describing or even truly knowing how they feel because there would be no words for it. It limits an individual's ability to think. Everything quite honestly becomes nothing. Thought would not really even exist. How can someone truly think about things if they have no way to understand anything? Language is a key component to being aware of everything - thoughts, feelings, the surrounding world. Without it, the people of Oceania could most definitely be considered unconscious. This would give the government ultimate power and ultimate control without ever having to worry about rebellion. How could anyone consider that to be orthodox?

1984 - Imagery

"He looked around the canteen. A low ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes," (59).

Imagery is definitely one of the most noticeable aspects of this novel. Every new place was described in perfect detail with nothing left unmentioned. This is a crucial component to fully understanding the novel and what this totalitarian world was like. With George Orwell's frequent descriptions and attention to detail, the reader is truly in Oceania seeing what the characters are seeing. It provides a better foundation to understand how drastically different this new world is from what used to be. The descriptions always depict a dirty, rundown area. Everything feels gloomy and almost sickly. This also coincides with the differences in people as well as with these previously stated differences in the two worlds. People used to have more life, more freedom, more happiness. Now they lived in a world of gloom but were too brainwashed to know any better. They all just accepted the way things were.

1984 - Symbol

"The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal," (147).

Previously in the novel, Winston purchased a paperweight from the antique shop because he is fascinated with anything from the past before this new world. This object became a huge symbol for everything Winston hoped for and desired. The paperweight was glass with a piece of coral trapped in the center of it. Here he uses another metaphor to explain the symbolic nature this object represents. The outside surface of the paperweight he compared to the room in which he and Julia rented to be alone together, and the coral he compared to himself and Julia. When in this room, Winston wished they could stay inside forever, just as the coral will forever be within the glass. The glass provided protection to the coral in that nothing could damage it in any way. It was protected from everything in the outside world. When in this room, Julia and Winston were protected as well. They did not have to deal with any thought police, telescreens, etc. Winston's ultimate desire was to stay there forever inside such a safe world of freedom.

1984 - Metaphor

"The room was a world, a pocket of the past where extinct animals could walk," (150).

After spending the night at an old man's antique shop with Julia, Winston falls in love with the idea of having a place all alone to himself where no one could tell him what to do. No one could watch him or punish him. He finally felt free, if only just for a few hours every now and again. The metaphor he uses for this room was undoubtedly the best way to describe the experiences it gave him. It shows that it is everything Winston desires to have in his life once again. The "extinct animals" refer to all the people living in such totalitarianism. It shows that at one time, these "animals" were alive and thriving. But they became "extinct" as time went on and they had their lives taken away from them by dictators who gained total control over them. To Winston, being the "extinct" animal that he was, this new world where he could "walk" again or be free was the ultimate dream and desire that he wished for all people.