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1984 By George Orwell Literary Analysis

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“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives” (James Madison). This is the situation presented in George Orwell’s 1984, where a totalitarian government, The Party, rules and oppresses the people of the fictional country of Oceania. The Party utilizes many methods of controlling the people including, taking away their privacy via constant monitoring, countless restrictions, and the most crucial device of all, the regulation of knowledge. This regulation is what keeps the people in ignorance and enables the party to easily control them due to their inadequate understanding of the situation. While the implications are so high it could be considered as barbaric, the concepts surrounding the premise are not. For Orwell is not prophesizing a future of governmental tyranny but instead warning us as to the dystopian possibilities that Western society’s may hold. Today, his work serves as a modern-day parable that not only warns us of such possibilities, but does so using various distinct elements …show more content…

Orwell utilizes symbolism in several occasions to captivate on bigger ideas, while also adding additional depth and manning viewable through the reader’s own personal interpretation. One prominent use of symbolism comes in the form of a paper weight that Winston purchases from an antique shop. It symbolizes the past and even Winston himself. So, when the Party breaks in to where Winston was staying and picks “up the glass paperweight from the table” and smashes “it into pieces on the hearth-stone”, it signifies the Party destroying the past and successfully breaking Winston (Orwell 279). The idea behind this symbolism is showing how an all controlling government has the power to shut down and annihilate all that oppose it, be human rebellion and defiance or even history

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