Use Of Cruelty In George O 'Brien's Novel'

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In the novel “1984” by George Orwell, the Inner Party uses cruelty in a politically and socially effective way by using methods such as torture, starvation, imprisonment, and room 101 as crucial motivation for those being tortured to not only confess but repent of their sins against the party. Furthermore, the use of cruelty by the Inner Party unveils both the victim and perpetrator’s inner conscience. The use of cruelty throughout “1984” by the Inner Party and O’Brien reveals how cruelty functions in the work as a means of oppression and a catalyst of subservience. Throughout the novel, Big Brother systematically oppresses the citizens of Oceania by bombing, torturing, and unnecessarily starving them by way of entities such as the Ministry …show more content…

O’Brien’s use of starvation, the electric chair, and mental bullying serves as a crucial motivator for intelligent, problem causing citizens such as Winston to confess and repent willingly eventually. Finally, the use of cruelty by Big Brother reveals the inner and destructive conscience of the party in order to ensure that society is orderly and continually worshipping Big Brother. The suffering and eventual destruction of citizens such as Winston reveals that a free-thinking society is still intact, however, any government’s use of torture could and did destroy the will of a majority of those that were so horribly imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps across Europe. Therefore, the cruelty used throughout the novel “1984” functions in the work as an effective scare tactic that is able to exterminate an entire society while simultaneously creating a new master race that is intellectually void and completely subservient to Big

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