Here Winston example essay topic

The book opens on a cold April day with 39-year-old Winston Smith returning to his dilapidated flat in Victory Mansions. The hallway sports an enormous poster of a man known as Big Brother; the caption reads, "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU". The eyes of the poster seem to follow Winston as he moves. Upon entering his flat, Winston dims the telescreen (where someone is reading statistics about pig-iron production), which can never be turned off completely, and which both receives and transmits.

Outside, Winston can see "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU" posters, a poster with the word "ING SOC" on it, and the police patrol spying on people. Winston is living in London, the predominant city of the province known as Airstrip One in Oceania. Bombed sites reveal that some sort of war is going on. Winston tries to recall his childhood, to see if things have always been like this, but cannot. Outside his window stands the Ministry of Truth (a. k. a. "Mini true" in Newspeak, the official language of Oceania), an enormous structure displaying the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

There are four Ministries: the Ministry of Truth concerns itself with the spread of information through news, entertainment, education and the arts; the Ministry of Peace (Mini pax) deals with war; the Ministry of Love (Mini luv) administers law and order; and the Ministry of Plenty (Mini plenty) handles economic affairs. After swallowing some shocking Victory Gin and plying himself with a cheap Victory cigarette, Winston carefully tucks himself out of the telescreen's visual range with an old book, an old pen and an ink-bottle. These are compromising possessions, acquired through various means; Winston is secretly something of a rebel, unhappy with the status quo. What he is about to do -- start a diary -- is not "illegal" (since, we discover, there are no laws anymore), but is certainly life-threatening. Unused to writing by hand, Winston falters momentarily before writing "April 4th, 1984". He sits back, uncertain whether it actually is 1984, and he suddenly wonders for whom he is writing.

Here the concept of doublethink (see Analysis) hits him; his attempt to communicate with the future is impossible, futile. He is no longer sure what he wanted to write; the moment has been building for weeks and suddenly he finds himself wordless. Even when he tries to write, he finds he is not recording the incident which had inspired him to begin the diary on this day. This incident took place during that morning's "Two Minutes Hate", a daily, almost orgiastic ritual of propaganda. Winston recalls noticing two people: a girl whose name he does not know but whom he recognizes as working in the Fiction Department, and O'Brien, an imposing man and member of the Inner Party. Winston feels a dislike for the girl, whose youth gives him the sense that she is a dangerous Party zealot; by contrast, he feels drawn to O'Brien in a way almost resembling trust, because he hopes that O'Brien is secretly politically unorthodox.

The "Two Minutes Hate" begins with footage of Emmanuel Goldstein, "the Enemy of the People", castigating the Party. Apparently, Goldstein had once been a leading Party member who rebelled, was condemned to death, and disappeared to form the underground Brotherhood. The symbol of ultimate treachery, Goldstein is featured in every Hate as the source of all crimes against the Party. [Through Winston's reaction, we begin to get the sense that the image and persona of Goldstein are actually completely manufactured, hinting at the possibility that he is in fact a propagandist ic creation of the Party. This is reinforced by the observation that there are always new spies, new Brotherhood members, being exposed every day, despite the Party's brutal efficiency in creating universal hatred for Goldstein.] As the Hate goes on, people get increasingly worked up, shouting and throwing things at the screen. [It is, Winston notes, impossible to avoid joining in.] The Hate overwhelms the members, sweeping them into a blind ecstasy of hatred.

Winston directs his hatred at the girl, because, he realizes, he wants to sleep with her. The Hate reaches its climax when the terrifying images melt into the face of Big Brother, who utters soothing words before fading away into the three Party slogans. The crowd, passionately relieved at the appearance of their "savior" starts to chant, "B-B! ... B-B!" Here Winston catches O'Brien's eye.

In an instant, Winston feels that O'Brien is communicating to him that he is on his side; this is the moment which brings him to his diary. After some reflection, Winston looks again at his page and finds he has been writing automatically: DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER He knows there is no point in tearing out the page, because he has committed thought crime, and in the end the Thought Police will get him anyway; he, and every last vestige of his existence, will be completely wiped out -- "vaporized.".