1984 Winston Paperweight Analysis

Finally, in combination with the aforementioned, the paperweight represents hope, comfort, hopelessness, and Winston's internal dissent for the totalitarian regime of big brother. By channeling his inner most thoughts and desires into the object, Winston is essentially bypassing the all seeing of big brother. However, once the paperweight broke and "the fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat" (Orwell), Winston experienced

Other than Winston’s weak characteristic and his lack of planning, the main cause that contributes to Winston’s downfall is his indulgence. Winston lacks the ability to control himself from anything addictive in life. This personal flaw makes Winston lost in his cause to the destruction of “Big Brother”. In the novel, Winston constantly drinks and smokes to distract himself instead of focusing on a plan to take down “Big Brother”. Winston’s dream is to have a love affair: “Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated” (Book 2, Chapter 1). His illegal love affair with Julia does no good to his objective of bringing down “Big Brother”. The only result that the love affair accomplishes is Winston’s

In essence, the room above the shop could be seen as a haven, where Winston and Julia would be “utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching [them], no voice pursuing [them], no sound except the singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock” (99). As seen throughout the novel, this room becomes a refuge where they can eat jam, chocolate, and drink real coffee as well as make love without the concern of the party. This setting elicited a flourishing relationship, as paralleled through the paperweight, where Winston “had the feeling that he could get inside it, and that in fact he was inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gate leg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself” (150). The imagery and polysyndeton depicts an amicable atmosphere where Winston desires to further delve into an ideal world, as opposed to the repression of the society that he lives in. The “paperweight

It is evident by the first chapter that Winston is not a fool, yet intends to play jester in public and continues the act in private. Winston is trapped in his own thoughts and is in dire need of an escape. He finds this evasive escape in the empty journal from Mr. Charrington. Winston’s diary doesn’t just represent a place where he is left free to throw his empty thoughts, it seems to be more. Winston’s secretive scraps of paper represent a place that the Party has not discovered. A place where he can think peacefully without the overbearing weight of the stress of his life or death daily performances and the rebellious thoughts confined and trapped in his head. The diary is similar to the prole apartment that Julia and Winston share. Winston desires a place that has remained untouched by the powerful influence of Big Brother. Winston and Julia have an elicit affair at the flat, which is punishable by the Party. Winston reads by himself and to Julia a book that has been neither altered nor approved of,

This paperweight represents many different things related to Winston. It symbolizes the past in which Winston strives to understand because it is a “little chunk of history they’ve (the Party) forgotten to alter.” It is something little from the past that Winston wishes he knew about. The paperweight also represents his dreams of freedom of the mind, the ability to remember something that “the Party” does not want him to. Also the paperweight does not just represent the past, it represents Winston’s desire to make the substantially important connection to the past. The glass paperweight is also significant because it shows that “the Party” cannot always control every memory that someone carries with them. Also throughout the novel Winston mentions “a place” which is also a very significant part of the novel and his journey. “The Place Where There is No Darkness” is very symbolic to the development of Winston and his thoughts about his fate. Throughout the novel Winston imagines meeting O’Brien in this place. The words first come to him in a dream and he ponders them for the remainder of the novel. Eventually Winston does meet O’Brien in “the place where there is no darkness” and instead of it being paradise like Winston imagined, it is a prison cell where the light is never turned off. Winston’s idea of “the place where there is no darkness” symbolizes his ultimate doomed fate. When the words first come to him Winston thinks

Winston is drawn to this because it gives variation to the bland society that surrounds him every day. It gives him what he desires that the Party cannot give him. Though he does not completely know what is outside of the Party, this sampling proves to him that life can be beautiful. This is all he needs to confirm his want to rebel against the Party.

The above quote enhances the setting of 1984 because it shows how Winston and Julia, Winston’s love interest, wanted to be together. Winston's has a hard time focusing the rest of the day due to the news. When the two meets up again they well do whatever they can to be together. Winston's desires are very powering. He is adamant about Julia.

Winston has an obsession with her after their first encounter, revealing she had made an imprint on his mind, which is the seed of his love for her. After making love with her, “At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive welled up in him” (Section 2 Chapter 1). This brief passage illustrates his growing affection for her along with the relinquishing of a primal desire

Chapter: “From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party”.(70)

Although the Party exercises much of its power through intimidation, psychological manipulation, and other indirect methods of control, the Victory Gin’s effect on Winston’s mental state of mind is limited. As Winston begins to completely reject social expectations and rebel against the Party, he “had dropped his habit of drinking gin at all hours. He seemed to have lost the need for it,” the more time he spent with Julia, and the “process of life had ceased to be intolerable… [now] that they had a secure hiding-place, almost a home,” (Orwell 153). When the Party’s vice to control Winston, the Victory Gin, is being consumed less, Winston brazenly uses sexuality as a weapon of an insurgency, and life becomes

The pursuit of freedom and the longing for a better life and “knowledge give people power, and truth will set people free” are the common understanding of the human nature. In novel, the Oceania’s Party controlled life in a constant state of propaganda-induced fear through the four ministries of Peace, Love, Plenty, and Truth. Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth involves revisions of historical documents and rewrites of news stories to reflect the Party’s infallibility. Because the Party was afraid of historical knowledge will form power that justify or encourage the present and the future. If history was idyllic, then people will act to re-create it; if the present was nightmarish, then people will be to subvert the present in order to create a good future. The fact of the matter, the Party, which carries out government policies in Oceania, rations food, issues clothing, and selects social activities. Both chocolate and tobacco are in short supply during this latest war. Public facilities were in shreds and patches, and most of people live in poverty. The

Winston is gazing out the small window with “his glasses”. The blackness of space meeting the gray landscape. He hears a door open and panics, quickly hiding “his” glasses. A man with a lab coat enters and says, “Winston, I think you have something that belongs from me. Hand it over.” Winston hesitated, being afraid of the repercussions. “I’m not mad bud. Hey wanna trade?”, showing a jar of Winston’s favorite, peanut butter. Winston gladly trades “his” glasses for his favorite. On the right of his lab coat, you can see the man’s name tag, Jack Morrison. Winston’s interest in the opening the lid soon gravitated back what lies beyond the window. Jack snaps Winston out of his gaze, “There isn’t much out there kiddo. Listen, I think

Winston eventually walks into the proles’ district and sneaks into a forbidden shop to buy a paperweight, a relic from the past. As he is leaving the store, he realizes that the same dark-haired girl is watching him and believes that she is a spy for the thought police, and that he has surely been found out and will be eliminated.

In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston embarks on a journey to gain knowledge on the interworking and purpose of his oppressors, The Party. The journey follows Campbell’s Hero’s Journey model rather closely and elements of this journey are often key to the progression of 1984’s plot as a whole. Winston knows that he is different from the “mindless drones” he calls his fellow Oceania citizens. He knows that he feels bound by some external force and he has a confident feeling that he knows this is the party. What he does not quite understand is how and why this external force controls him and his way of thinking the way that it does. He becomes obsessed with this question of truth and he involuntarily begins to devote his entire thinking to his metal dilemma. This is the psychological journey that Winston thrusts

The emphasis on the community as a whole, rather than the individual, pressures everyone in society to follow the social norms that were unintentionally established, such as in 1984 when Winston Smith attempts to go against the principles of Big Brother but ultimately fails when he loses the ability to control his own consciousness. He is one of a few characters who chooses to follow his “… heart and intuition” by indulging in sexual pleasure, a concept immensely degraded by the people of Oceania. The hasty act committed by Winston as a result of wanting to live life according to his yearnings created consequences that had a tremendous impact on his future. Even though he did not waste his time “… living someone else’s life,” he took for