1984 Orwell Freedom Analysis

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“ WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (PG 4, Orwell). The three slogans of the Party in George Orwell's book 1984. Oceania claims to be free, with no written laws, sounds like freedom right? Freedom is just being allowed to do whatever you want, isn’t it? No! Freedom at it’s heart is having absolutely no conditions or expectations over one's thoughts, action, or beliefs/feelings. Oceania may not have written laws but what it does have is a whole lot of conditions and expectations. The Party strives for mind control, to control one’s thoughts, the one thing they can’t do. Winston, feeling hopeless due to the suppression of free thoughts, says, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”(PDF 162, Orwell) The thought police would be on anyone’s tail that they expect had thoughts that they didn’t like. Winston is later arrested by the thought police and taken to the Ministry of Love, his encounter with his neighbor Parsons. Parsons was taken in …show more content…

O’Brien said to Winston after one of his torturing session, “We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us…We burn all evil and illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him ourselves before we kill him.” (PG 255, Orwell). Meaning anyone who doesn’t believe or feel the same way they do will be broken as a person and ultimately killed. People are not even free to believe or feel how they please, they have to conform to a certain criteria. Winston didn’t conform, they broke him down and beat him to a point he was a shell of a man. He went from hatred toward big brother to a conformed zombie who, “won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” (PG 298

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