Hopeless

It ends in a stalemate. Nothing in Oceania changes because of Winston's actions. The dictatorship of Big Brother has prevailed and Winston is now a willing subject. He does not question anything the Party says. He trusts them and them alone. Any memory he has that contradicts Party ideology is a false memory. The Party rule continues on. The future is devoid of hope. Nothing will change because the Party is absolute. Change is a hopeless ideal.

The novel, 1984, ends unhappily. All Winston's efforts for rebellion and change have resulted in nothing. Oceania is still ruled by the totalitarian dictator, Big Brother. Winston had big ideas about a society that was fair an equal and these ideas did not manifest. Rather, the Party consolidated its power as well as losing an opponent. Winston was brainwashed and now is a loyal Party devotee, ending the novel in an unlikely way. The conflict was not resolved in the traditional, happier-than-before way. The problems that were present in the beginning of the novel remain. The Party is ruling unjustly, without reason, and in their own interest. Nothing has been improved by Winston's actions. There is no hope in the future. Rebellion is slowly being eliminated and the Party will probably rule forever. This ending demonstrates that when society gives too much power to their government, there is a point of no return. Their power will only grow. The hope for a better future died with Winston. He is now a tool of the Party.

Winston ends up freed from the Ministry of Love but not the same as when he entered. He now doesn't think for himself and will willingly believe anything the Party spews. He feels no loyalty to anyone but the Party. He trusts their announcements and actually looks forward to them. The hope for an improved future died in Winston while he was being tortured by O'Brien. No change will happen now. The future is hopeless.

The Betrayal

Winston has committed the unthinkable. He has betrayed Julia in the one way he thought impossible. He sells her out to save himself. Winston's love for Julia did not survive the tests and torture of the Party. O'Brien finally won. Winston repented on his feelings towards Julia. Winston and Julia, during their rebellion against the Party, felt that the Party would never win because nothing the Party did would change how they felt. They were wrong. The contents of Room 101 and the fear it instilled had that power.

Winston and Julia loved each other deeply. During the course of their rebellion they felt that nothing would ever change that. The Party did not have that power. During the preliminary stages of his capture, Winston continued to believe that. He was subjected to torture, mentally and physically and still he held fast to his feelings. This did not satisfy O'Brien and the Party. Winston had to become a complete and utter slave to the Party causes. This meant that it was necessary that he feel no connection to Julia. Enter Room 101, the ultimate torture. Winston has to face his biggest fear, rats. He betrays Julia, telling O'Brien that he would rather she be eaten alive than himself. He wants to live more than he loves Julia. Facing his irrational fear of rats forced him to do things he would never have previously considered. Fear is a driving force in humans. People can do things they never imagined when faced with terrifying experiences. When people are attacked or assaulted, it happens that someone can fight with unknown strength against their assailant. The same happened in Winston's situation. His fear or rats made him betray Julia, the one thing he said would never happen. Winston never saw it coming. He lost the war against the Party with the betrayal of Julia to save himself.

Winston betrays Julia, forsaking her to protect himself. This is what O'Brien and the Party want, for every person to feel no loyalty to anyone except the Party. As long as Winston loved Julia this was an impossible ideal. They needed Winston to sacrifice this one stronghold and he did. Room 101 and its contents forced Winston to betray Julia, submitting himself to the will of the Party. His loyalty to Julia was finally destroyed and the Party won its battle.

Memory

What is real? What makes something real? History exists because of records and memories but if those are both altered then what used to be reality is imaginary. This is the argument O'Brien poses to Winston. This is the Party mentality. They control the records as well as people's memories so they control reality. There's no way to prove the existence of something if there is no recollection of its occurrence. O'Brien convinced Winston that this is true. Anything can be changed if no one and nothing can prove it once was different. Two plus two can equal five if the Party wants it to. Reality is subjective and open to interpretation.

The Party manipulates the truth to maintain their absolute power. They have gained power over the only thing that has troubled absolutist governments in the past: the minds of their people. There is nothing that can oppose them now. Any rebellions are quickly paved over and the participants re-educated. This power over the memories allows the government to control the past, something never done successfully before. The Stalinist government in Russia tried to control history by re-writing it but they had no control over people's memories. This was their weakness. It is in this area that Ingsoc claims the most superiority over previous dictatorships. They have control over the memories and thoughts of their people. Thus they have complete control. The people of Oceania have no hope for uprising. The Party has conquered their last defence. Without control of their memory, it makes it impossible for people who do remember a different time to act. They are quickly found and re-educated. The number of potential rebels is diminishing. They are an endangered few. The Party has won the aged battle over maintaining an absolutist government.

Memories are something taken for granted. Your personal knowledge of the past makes you a person, someone with thought, substance and emotion. This is not what the Party wants. They want mindless drones, obeying every command. Thus they re-educate you, slowly eradicating any thoughts while consolidating their power. What is considered reality is relative. It is based on opinions and is subjected to the beholder. The Party wants one idea, their idea, to be reality. They achieve this artificially through the manipulation of documents and memories. They control reality and thus control everything: the past, the present and the future. No person is safe from the Party's brainwashing.

Blame

Imagine having to be saved from yourself. Your thoughts and opinions are wrong and must be fixed. This is how the Party manipulates the prisoners in the Ministry of Love. They must be re-educated and saved from their current selves. People are the cause of their own suffering. Winston has finally been caught by the thought police and is going through the long, grueling process of re-education. "I shall save you, I shall make you perfect,"(page 256) O'Brien explains to him. The party believes that there is something wrong with the 'criminals' they bring in to make them commit this 'treason'. Their personality and character is wrong and must be corrected.

The idea that people are the cause of their own suffering is not new and actually true. Your own actions directly affect your own life. Therefore you can attribute some of your suffering to yourself. The Party has manipulated this idea. They believe everything that is wrong with you is your fault. It’s all attributed to the one person. This is how they justify the torture they enact upon you when you commit 'treason' against the Party. It was you, and only you that made you do what you did. It has nothing to do with the corrupt rule of the Party. It has nothing to do with the people you meet and their influence on your thoughts. It's your own fault. This is where they find their criminals. The people who believe that there are other forces, along with themselves, that make them act and think the way they do. Winston believes the corrupt rule of the Party contributes to his crime. If they had been ruling justly and fairly, he wouldn't have felt the need to rebel. This is why the Party must re-educate him. He is still under the 'false' impression that the Party shares blame for what he did. By doing something about his feeling towards the party, Winston brought about his own suffering, but also the Party shares some blame. This is what differentiates Winston from the rest of the Party members. He doesn't share the same ideology about blame. He still wants to blame the Party.

Suffering is inevitable. Every person suffers a bit in their life. The Party is of the ideology that suffering is attributed solely to the individual. In actuality, this is not true. People as well as their environment can cause suffering. The Party needs to re-educate people so that they commit to the Party ideology. Torture and verbal abuse is used. They need the person to really believe that they are the reason this is happening to them. There is something wrong with them and they need to be corrected.

The Surprise Plot Twist

The haunting voice echoes them when they think they are alone. "You are the dead." (page 230) Winston and Julia are shocked. They are not alone as they had presumed. There is a telescreen behind the painting. They have most certainly met their end. One of the very few they have let into their secret has betrayed their trust in a shocking plot twist. The least likely person, the prole who has no position in society or a supposed care in the Party, is a member of the thought police. Mr Charrington has turned them in. It seems that in literature and film, the most shocking scenario is the most common. It serves the theme well in 1984.

Infiltrating the proles with Party members is a clever way of increasing and consolidating the Party. Seeing the proles as potential enemies is not an easy thought. They are nobodies. People don't care much for them. They are the outcasts of society and thus they are often not thought about as a formidable foe. Therefore the shock of the Prole, Mr. Charrington, being a member of the thought police is even more acute. They are the least likely candidate for political espionage because as a class they have little political power. Orwel uses this unexpected twist to effectively convey the theme of a society where the government has been corrupted by power. The government can do anything, even infiltrate the most unlikely corners of society, if they desire to do so. Winston had been so careful in judging Party members, trying to determine if they were members of the thought police. The most unlikely person, someone Winston was unguarded against, ended up being that person Winston was trying so hard to avoid. This plot twist parallels the surprise the reader feels towards the society in 1984. It is so contradictory to what is considered respectable in modern western civilization.

Winston and Julia were shocked to hear that creepy, iron voice speaking from behind the painting and even more shocked to discover Mr. Charrington was behind their capture. This surprise ending to part two, the betrayal of the couple to the Party, has ended the blissful portion of their relationship. They are now going to be subjected to torture, re-education, and the death of their lives as they know it. All of this will happen because of the actions of an unexpected enemy.

Necessity of War

Winston has finally received "The Book", Emmanuel Goldstein's book, the doctrine of the Brotherhood, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. He can finally find out why the world has become the way it is. But that's not what happens. Winston's expectation of a book that explains why the world needs help and how to help it does not manifest itself. It just reiterates what he already knows: the world in which they live is corrupt and unjust. The Party has absolute control and maintains their power by oppressing the masses through the Party slogans.

The chapters of Goldstein's book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, are titled after the Party slogans, the first being "War is Peace". War is a necessity to the society in Oceania. War brings out a sense of Nationalism within the populace of a country. Hitler used Nationalism to come to power in Germany, and Big Brother uses this to maintain power. In a state of war, people feel a desire to have a strong leader, someone who can protect them. The wars in the world of 1984 are used for the purpose of maintaining a strong leadership. All three super-powers require this to maintain their government. War is a necessity to the maintenance of a totalitarian dictatorship. If there isn't an enemy who is making the lives of the people miserable, why are they living that way? The constant war is an enabling force of the Party.

Winston receives The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism expecting answers. He doesn't get them. The book just reproduces what he already knows: the Party is maintaining a totalitarian government by oppressing the masses with the slogans. Winston went in expecting a plan from Emmanuel Goldstein, but there is no plan to remove the Party. The Brotherhood has no strategic plan but only the promotion of acts opposing the Party's rule.

Children in 1984

Big Brother and the Party's rule of Oceania are having a drastic affect on the children in society. Winston had blocked out the memories from his childhood. He did not remember the day his mother disappeared until a dream kindled its return. Hunger had plagued the days prior to the strict regulation of the Party. Most of the population was going hungry. The last time he saw his mother, he was being a selfish brute. He denied his sick, baby sister food because he wanted it all. He felt that he deserved the chocolate more and took it from his sister's hands and ran off. He never saw his sister or mother again.

The children of Oceania in 1984 are just as self-serving if not more self-serving as Winston was that day. All actions are made for their own survival or the glorification of the party. It is an honour to be a part of the Youth League or the Spies. These children would be happy to turn in their own parents, the people who raised them, if they were doing anything a little unorthodox. Children have lost almost all loyalty and compassion. The Party sees it better that way. This way they become devout followers of the Party platforms. They are good Party members who do nothing wrong. It's easy to brainwash a child because their ideas are not fully developed. They are susceptible to the influence of their environment. They are growing up in an environment where loyalty to no one but the Party is glorified. Naturally, they would want to become a rewarded citizen. Winston, as a child, also exhibited some of these qualities, but the disappearance of his mother probably changed him. A child losing their parent wouldn't understand that it wasn't their fault until they were grown. As far as he knew, it was because he wouldn't share the chocolate. He still felt some loyalty to his family. In 1984, the children seem to have lost this loyalty. This idea of the perfect Party member that Big Brother is promoting could become the Party's undoing.

The Party is promoting no love or loyalty for any other human. If the world continues in this direction, why would anyone want to get married? If you are not supposed to care for anyone else, why would you want to have sex? Why would you want to have children? It might be your "duty to the party" (page 139) but it can also be someone else's duty. It's hard to convince someone to do something they have absolutely no desire to do. People fear their own children. They will most likely be the ones who turn you in. Why take that risk? Even if you are a devout Party member, the smallest thing could send you to the Ministry of Love, to your death.

Children are becoming drones of the Party. They don't have any loyalty to anyone but the party. They are an easy demographic to manipulate as their opinions and ideas are not developed. The environment can influence them to become whatever the Party wants. Programs like the Youth League and the Spies promote the development of good Party members. Winston was spared losing the characteristics of loyalty, love and compassion but as each generation ages, they lose these characteristics.

Trust

In the world depicted in the novel, 1984, there is little trust among peers and even among families. You can't tell a person belonging to the thought police from a regular party member. Everyone is a potential enemy. Winston and Julia are particularly careful about who they talk around and when they are seen together. It must be in secret or else inconspicuous to those around them. Every time they have met, they have done it in this way save for one time: when they involve Mr. Charrington.

It is strange to consider that both Julia and Winston would trust Mr. Charrington so quickly. Historically, all their meetings had been planned so that they avoided any other people. They weren't having obvious conversations in public and they were meeting in deserted places so that they could be together. Winston is not the mastermind behind these schemes but he suggests the room above the antique shop. "When he had suggested it to Julia she had agreed with unexpected readiness." (page 146) Julia is normally the cautionary, controlled person in the relationship who knows how to avoid detection by the Party. She doesn't even check out the place first. She agrees without knowing anything about it. It seems very strange. It could possibly be because he is a Prole. Maybe the Proles do not feel the same loyalty and fear towards the Party and she knows this. Mr Charrington and his room get different treatment based on where they are which doesn't seem very smart and Julia and Winston could pay for this lack of care.

The nation of Oceania in 1984 is a place of no trust. People don't trust those they call their friends, family or co-workers. It's just not done because you never know who could be working for the thought police. Julia and Winston are particularly careful about the people who know of their affair and before Mr. Charrington that was nobody. They have let someone else into their secret and therefore diminished the likelihood of it remaining secret.

Compassion

Compassion for others, especially those you are generally attached to, your friends and your family, is a diminishing characteristic in the populace of Oceania in 1984. Winston claims that he despises the dark-haired girl with every fiber of his being. She is what he thinks is going wrong with the younger demographics. They have devoted their entire existence to the Party. Even though he despises her he still feels for her when she falls in the hallway. He even goes as far as to help her. This is what separates Winston from the majority of the Party members. He still retains the sentiments of a different time: one when people were not afraid of what others could do to them.

Empathy and love are abating characteristics in the people of Oceania. The children of this society are Party-serving drones. Every action they partake in is to glorify or help the Party. They have no sense of loyalty to their own family or friends. They just feel devotion to Big Brother and the Party. This attribute has forced parents to not love their children, but fear them. People are losing many traits which make them human. Winston differs from the younger generation in this way. He still cares about others in a meaningful way. He shows compassion for Julia when she falls, even though he hates her. Their relationship that develops later also seems to be one-sided. She is much younger than Winston and therefore was raised in a time when empathetic traits were vanishing. Her manner expels a feeling that Winston is just another affair she is having with a Party member while Winston is becoming attached. He can't stop thinking about her. Winston still has a sense of compassion and affection that Julia lacks. He feels for many people while she exudes selfishness.

The population of Oceania in the novel, 1984, has changed from generation to generation. Each generation is becoming more and more self and party-serving. Winston is quite a bit older than Julia, and a lot older than the children of society. The fear of what will happen to those who disobey the Party has changed people into self-serving survivors. They don't care what happens to others as long as they survive.

Doublethink in 1984

A society where the "natural rights" of life, liberty and property, as defined by the philosopher John Locke, are denied is a completely foreign concept to most people in western civilization. We have grown up in a world where we are entitled to certain privileges and no person, or governing group has the ability to take these rights away. The society in 1984 has deteriorated into a state where they don't have these inalienable rights. They are subjected to the will of the governing party, who is ruled by the dictator, Big Brother. Their lives are not lived for their own pleasure but for the good of the ruling body. The population has been indoctrinated with this ideology of everything being for the good of the party. They don't even question what the Party is disseminating.

Doublethink is defined as the use of two ideas together that contradict each other. The world that George Orwell depicts in the novel, 1984, is full of these contradictory statements and they are the basis of the Party slogans:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

All of these statements combine ideas that are opposites, but no one questions them. Winston Smith, the protagonist of this story, does not spend much time dissecting their actual meaning. He as well as the rest of the population of Oceania accepts these statements as they are: the foundational ideas of the party. They mean what they mean. The idea that these slogans are nonsense has not crossed the minds of the majority of the population. As Winston wrote in his diary, "If there is hope, it lies with the Proles". These people could stand up to the domineering could rule of the Party as they are the majority, and the closest thing they have to a sect not controlled by the Party. Although the Party does not directly control the actions of the Proles, their lives are dictated by what the Party has done. They do not work for the party but their lives are ever influenced. The goods and services provided to the Proles are supplied by the Party. They indirectly control the actions of the Proles using this power. The Proletariat population has been denied education and thus they are suffering. They don't know the contradicting ideologies of the Party slogan so why would they care about it. The Party has starved them of what they would need to revolt. As long as the Proles do not know there is something better out there, they have no reason to want a better life. The Party has such a strong hold on the thoughts of the populace that no one has any original thoughts and those that do try very hard to hide it. The freedom of having personal thoughts is not encouraged. After all, freedom is slavery so why would you want to have an unusual thought. It is in this way that the Party gives bad connotations to the fundamental rights that we, in our society, take for granted. No one has the courage or the understanding to say that what the Party is doing is wrong. Therefore, Oceania is stuck in a cycle of one-party control. No one can oppose the Party if there are no opposing ideologies.

Orwell’s novel, 1984, is the story of a fictional society where people have lost all of their natural freedoms. Everything done by the population is aimed at the consolidation and improvement of the power of the Party and its head, Big Brother. Even when the ideology emitted from the Party is nonsensical, people accept it because it is the statement of the Party. Having lost their freedoms, the people of this society have lost interest in their lives. They are no longer living a thoughtful existence, but are mindless drones following the Party’s every command.