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Fallibility Of Individuality In 1984 By George Orwell

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On the Fallibility of Human Individuality The way of man is to err. This truth cannot be denied, even with the most innate valor of individuality. George Orwell’s 1984 and Solomon Asch’s 1955 line conformity experiment illustrate the fallibility of human individuality. George Orwell’s society of Oceania is one in which individuality is always subdued and conformity is inevitable for every individual. The protagonist of 1984, Winston Smith, is not loyal to the government that he works for, which is a serious crime. Consequently, he is sent to the correctional institution called the Ministry of Love, where he is told that “[n]o one who has ever gone astray is ever spared … We shall squeeze you empty and fill you with ourselves” (256). To achieve …show more content…

Within the context of the Ministry of Love, there is a room called Room 101 that holds a person’s deepest fears. Of it, Winston’s chief torturer O’Brien explains, “The worst thing in the world … varies from individual to individual” (283). Room 101, the most vital part of the Ministry of Love’s correction, is a changing object that helps the Party produce a perfectly conformed society. Even though conformity is one common idea, it also varies among people. For Winston, it was betraying his illicit lover Julia: “The one thing that matters is that we shouldn’t betray one another” (Orwell 166). That was his defining characteristic as an individual person; without it he was not Winston. However after going through his own unique torture, rats, in Room 101, Winston succumbed and “betrayed [Julia]” (Orwell 239). Only Winston’s conformity would have looked like this, and only Winston’s journey involved rats in Room 101. While there is not much research regarding the individual nature of conformity, important work has been done over the conditions and the nature of …show more content…

The testing did not touch upon unique ways to make people conform as was seen in Orwell’s 1984. Its layout followed the format that a card with a line on it was shown to a group of seven to nine college-aged males, then a second card was shown with three lines, and they proclaimed which line on the second card matched the length of the first. (3). There was no room for individuality to be expressed, much less quelled, in any fashion with the study setup like this. Nonetheless Asch’s investigation did hold a parallel to 1984

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