Global Studies 2A:Comparative Political and Religious Systems
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
 
Andy Howe
11/17/03
Subject of the jones: Why is Winston Smith rebelling against Big Brother? Can he possibly succeed?

According the first half of the book 1984, by George Orwell, Winston Smith is a middle-aged man who works in the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth in the perceived year of 1984 through the eyes of 1948. Winston Smith lives in a very dreadfully oppressed and controlled society. The government or Big Brother controls literally everything that went on, goes on, and what continues to go on. Meaning, Big Brother does not only control what happens to the society’s population in a physical sense but he (or ‘they,’ Big Brother may not just be one person) also controls the population’s minds, controlling their perception of history, the present, and the future. With total manipulation, Big Brother can accomplish anything without question, a totalitarian, having people working for him and his manipulative purposes at all times.
Winston, having access to accurate history documents through newspapers and other print, he is able to gain enough knowledge to form a hypothesis stating that conditions of life in the past were not as bad and restrictive as the current conditions. At one point, Winston is at work and he finds a picture of some early revolutionary fathers with Big Brother and they are on enemy soil; Winston begins to question the government’s integrity. “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed-after the event: that was what counted-concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He held it in his fingers for as long as thirty seconds… Some time after their release Winston had actually seen all three of them in the Chestnut Tree Café. He remembered the sort of terrified fascination with which he had watched them out of the corner of his eye” (75-76). It is evident that Winston Smith’s suspicions of the government deceit have been proved correct. Winston finds a picture of three revolutionary leaders who had been accused of being traitors and had been supposedly “vaporized” but in reality they were not. Smith soon saw all three of them at a local café and he could not believe his eyes, realization set in.
Winston thinks that Big Brother is a false evil figure, and he rebels against it. Rebelling against Big Brother is almost literally impossible without getting “vaporized.” Telescreens, tools used by the thought police to monitor all activity that goes on in the city, make it almost impossible to initiate any sort of rebellion against Big Brother. So Winston resorts to things like thought crime by writing in a secret journal and he puts down Big Brother and writes about things that could get him killed. Smith also rebels by having a sexual relationship, going into shops, utilizing the proles, and by not applauding the telescreen’s announcements. In his mind he is trying in a subtle way to template people by showing them that he does not believe in the views of Big Brother, yet he is not trying to deal with the Thought Police by making a substantial impression on them. This fear of the Thought Police and of being “vaporized” keeps Winston and the rest of the population in line with what Big Brother wants.
There is no possible way for Winston Smith to successfully rebel against the Party of Big Brother. A successful rebellion against Big Brother would be to completely overthrow the government and establish a replacement. In the text it mentions that the only real chance of rebellion would have to come from the proles, who make up about 85% of the population. This shows little evidence of any sort of hope for a successful rebellion, but it gets shot down without mercy. Big Brother is simply too strong to be successfully overturned. The facts are that Big Brother has people from the Thought Police stationed everywhere where any possible chance of rebellion might begin.
Hence, Mr. Carrington, middle aged man, working for the Thought Police and is stationed in an antique shop and living with the proles. This is genius of Big Brother because he stops any sort of realization or enlightenment from occurring within the proles, so obviously no rebellion through the masses could occur; which is a main ingredient for a rebellion in the first place. Even if by chance, about two hundred people became enlightened and crawled back in the cave to pull others out, it would be ‘peaches’ for Big Brother to simply eliminate them and ‘bam’ the revolution/rebellion is terminated. Another important point is that Big Brother creates a fake ‘rebel’ organization called, ‘The Brotherhood,” which the people who are questioning the government will seek out. So with Thought Police agents as the contacts and handlers of the ‘Brotherhood’ information, they will be able to know everyone who is committing ‘thought crimes’ and opposes the government. The rebels are sabotaged at the outset.
By having Big Brother also control the fake rebellion, the ‘Brotherhood,’ it is impossible for anyone of any class to succeed in rebelling and overthrowing Big Brother. The rigid Big Brother has complete control and manipulation over the entire population and there is not any room for change or outside influence. Thus the country could never end war and live in peace with the other two countries for fear of influence and enlightenment. Big Brother ‘rules with an iron fist’ and will not tolerate genuine though; rebellion is an illusion.



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