JOURNAL QUESTION 8

Journal question 8: Discuss Winston Smith as a heroic figure. What qualities does he possess that could define him as one.

Heroes, known as a group of people that are able to recognize and seek the true nature of the world, differ from ordinary people in both their willingness to fight for something great and ability to reveal the truth. Winston Smith, who refuses to believe the Party as others do, doubts the rightfulness of the Party and Big Brother. Winston is willing to risk his life for overthrowing the dictatorship of Oceania, even though he knows that he will eventually fail and be caught from the very beginning.

According to the novel, Winston tries his best to fit in society, pretending to be a fanatical supporter of the Party but holds himself apart from it at the same time. He does tiny things to fight against the Party, such as recording in the diary and having a relationship with Julia.

Winston is able to gain an insight into the nature of this sick society of dictatorship. And he always keeps his singularity and holds his belief, which sets himself apart from the ordinary people. Heroes, as I said before, are a group of people possess unique traits. Therefore, Winston can be considered as a heroic figure in consideration of his mind, thoughts, and behavior.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JOURNAL QUESTION 6

Journal question 6: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." --George Orwell The quotation above indicates a way of how dictators utilize the political means of manipulating history to control people's mind. In the novel, George Orwell presents a logic chain: when things happen in the current reality, people may view the past to see if there is any precedent in the history, which helps them to construct their own opinion and judgment of what is happening currently. In other words, the past can be treated  essentially as a set of conditions that justify or encourage future goals.  The Party, however, exploits this principle, distorting the real history and prohibiting people from knowing the truth, which compels people to work for the Party's goals. In the real world, things like that actually happen. The China government, for example, erased some historical truth from certain aspects; any trace of historical events i...
Read more

THE NAMESAKE

"Ashoke" means "without sorrow". Ashoke is a man of persistence and sheer will. He recovered from that horrible accident. He didn't get any mental issue or nightmare followed by that accident; rather, he came through and started a new life. Though his past experience is indeed appalling, there's no trace proving that he bothers because of it. " 'Not at all,' his father says eventually, one hand going to his ribs, a habitual gesture that has baffled Gogol until now, 'You remind me of everything that followed.' '' (124) For Ashima, the situation turns to be weird. ''Ashima'' means ''boundless" or ''limitless''. Ashima, however, is kind of limited by the American culture. She is absolutely not "limitless'', and she is more willing to get closer to the Bengali culture rather than the American culture. Base on her reaction of preparing two different type of party, it's...
Read more

JOURNAL QUESTION 5

Journal question 5: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH In the novel, these are the main slogans used by the Party to psychologically control its people. These slogans indicate an obvious contradictory paradox in themselves. The purpose of these slogans is to create the idea of "doublethink", weakening the individuality and convincing people that everything done by the Party is for the welfare of people and every policy passed by the government is naturally justified. Anyone with normal thoughts and common sense, however, can easily point out the contradictions: war is the opposite of peace; freedom contradicts slavery; ignorance means the lack of strength. These slogans can be interpreted in another aspect: war is cruel by nature, which reminds people to cherish the peace; freedom may cause adverse effects on people since being free means that one is able to do something dangerous or irrational to restrict himself, and slavery can protect people from ...
Read more