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The Past In George Orwell's '1984'

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The past holds the key to the future, but when the past is constantly being rewritten, it is impossible to learn from previous mistakes. When Winston is first writing his diary he asks himself who it is meant for and writes “To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone--to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink” (Orwell 28). Winston envisions a time where there is real freedom and the past remains the past and is unchanged. By looking to the past, when things were different and in Winston’s mind, better, readers see hope for the future. Winston suggests that the route to the future lays in the past and by looking towards the future like that, …show more content…

In the shop, where he had bought the diary, he also buys a glass paperweight which the owner of the store, Mr. Charrington, estimates was made over a hundred years ago. The paperweight symbolizes hope in the darkness of the shadow of the party; “the glass paperweight...gleamed softly out of the half-darkness” (Orwell 136). In a world where the past only exists in the form the party chooses to invent, things like the glass paperweight symbolize hope from a time when things like it were common. The paperweight stands out in contrast with the darkness of the party allowing it to shine and give hope to those who believe in it. To others however, the glass paperweight is just another piece of meaningless junk from another time that is known only through the lense the party gives it. The glass paperweight also comes to symbolize Mr Charrington’s small room above the shop which is Winston’s and Julia’s safe haven. By looking at the past readers are able to see George Orwell’s vision of hope for the

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