theyarewatchingyou

why is the book written in such a narrow third person narrative?

2005-02-17T02:39:00.000-08:00

as i was surfing through everyone's lit blog, i saw mr wee's posting the question of "why is the book written in such a narrow third person narrative?" and i remember him posing that question in one of his replies to me if i recall correctly. so as i finally purge out my irritation for winston and the Party, ive come back to face "1984".

Honestly, i can't say for sure i know the answer to this question. But what i can think of now is that it is in line with one of a major aspect of Utopia; dehumanization and the seperation of people from each other. As seen in many utopian text, the people in the society are often disconnected from each other, forming no real bonds with each others. This can be seen in Winston where relationships of all kind are practically unheard of. Similarly in DADOES, there are no real emotions between the humans, even if they are of close relationships i.e Deckard and his wife. And in a way, this aspect of Utopia is reflected by the narrow narrative style. Isolation and distance among the people, the inability to know for sure how others are thinking, these are represented by the narrative style for throughout the book, we read only about the emotions of Winston. Is this a symbol of the isolation? probably. i know this is a rather far-fetched idea but it is the only reason i can come up with as of now. Will post more about this if i can think of more.

2004-12-20T23:33:00.000-08:00

When Winston and Juliet made up their mind to join the Brotherhood in a small effort to resist the system, they encounter O'Brien, the leader of the Outer Party, who during their meeting, explain to them what the Brotherhood is about. During their conversation, he says that Winston and Juliet will never get any help from other members from the Brotherhood nor will they get into contact with them. Only an ideal holds the Brotherhood together and that is why the organization is indestructible.

As i was reading this, I was thinking about the lifespan of Utopia. How long can Utopia last? Utopia is ultimately an ideal, an ideal of a perfect society, where everything is plentiful and there is peace in the country. Indeed this ideal is undestructible and will always be a dream among humans for they are always discontented with their life. and they will have a blueprint of the perfect Utopia drawn out in their minds. Indeed, Utopia in this sense, is immortal, just like the Brotherhood. There will always be people like Winston in Oceania, who desire to help construct the Utopia, which they have drawn out in response to the dystopia in their life and this people will always believe in this blueprint and seek to establish it.

However, when humans enter the picture in an attempt to create Utopia physically, the ideal breaks down and Utopia crumbles. The reason for this is simple, everyone's idea of Utopia is different, just like in OCeania, there is 2 very different concept of what utopia is.The brotherhood believes that there will be no ultimate control whereas the Party sees Utopia where everyone sees Big Brother as god, by establishing a totalitarian system. Therefore, when one establishes HIS Utopia, a conflict arises between him and the party that disagrees with him and it is at this point that Utopia becomes vulnerable and crumbles. For eg Oceania and More's "Utopia", crumbling into a dystopic society due to the totalitarian nature of the government. also Utopia is vulnerable to external threats. hence when Utopia becomes a system, it can be destroyed any moment and is no longer everlasting.

2004-12-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

In order to maintain power in Oceania and to make the people 'love' and believe in Big Brother, the Party rewrites history and facts, control the present and brainwash the people. In utopia, this seem to be a very common trend; whereby the government controls what people know by making them doubt what they know, or by dismissing their knowledge as fiction. In 'Gulliver's travels", the king changes the tradition of cuttng the egg by the small end and in More's 'Utopia', the govt sets down all the guidelines that essentially dictates the lives of the citizens.

One stark difference between '1984' and the other utopian texts is the fact that the the Party, besides controlling the present, controls the past too. Why is there this need? In my opinion,controlling the past and changing it so as to put the Party in a FAvourable light solidifies the existing power of the Party and is a superior plan, if carried out well, to controlling the present, for it ensures that the people reverends the Party for its suppossed accomplishment and this is essential for maintaining the stability of Utopia.

As the slogan of the Party says, "Those who control the past controls the present." By rewritting history to their favour frequently, the Party has succeeded in making the people confused about what is the truth and eventually, give up on remembering what exactly is the truth and hence, just digest whatever the Party tells them. The Party then brainwash the people into thinking that the Party has made many wonderful and important contrbutions to Mankind until the people thinks that it is almighty and powerful. It has then created a population who believes in it and even if they don't, they will not resist if for they would think that the party is immortal and invincible, a result of changing history. Hence the slogan does contain truth, those who control the past, can control the present.

Yet there will always be people like Winston, who arent confused or brainwashed by this constant change of knowledge and facts. Henc there is a need for the Party to control the prsent as well, thus the need for the thought police and alll the toher methods that the Party uses.

These two methods are essetial to mantaining the stablity of UTopia for the stability of UTopia comes hand in hand with goverment power and control. Whether the society created by the govt is utopia and dystopia is questionable, but there is no doubt that if the govt lets go of its tight control, dystopia is bound to take place for as mentioned 9iny my last post, the people have already become used to the system and taking it away will result in mass chaos. Hence, as mentioned in my argument, there is the need for tight govermental control so as to maintain the balance of utopia.

2004-12-02T23:28:00.000-08:00
The book essetially is about how a man seeks to reject the system of the Party in various ways,ie writing about his true sentiments towards the Party in his diary, being with julia (as explained in my previous post), and ultimately joining the Brotherhood. Yet what can the Brotherhood do or rather, is it even wise to overthrow the Party?

The Brotherhood is never strong enough to overthrow the Party and they themselves know it. As stated by O' Brien, the members will ultimately die without even knowing or witnessing what they have achieved. So what are they fighting for? A hope that someday the future generation will succeed? But if the leader of the organizationis going to tell every member that joins that they are fighting a hopeless fight, what are they ever going to achieve?From what i see, nothing. The brotherhood is a representation of how immense the power of the Party has become such that it is now able to cripple opposition.

In conjunction with this lack of capability to do anything to change Oceania, is the question of what makes the Brotherhood superior to the Party? When Winston joined the organization, without a moment of hesistation he agreed that he will be willing to do anything, even something as inhumane as throwing sulphuric acid on a child, for the Brotherhood. If that is true, why should the Brotherhood replace the Party if they are both as inmoral in their actions? I don't see in what way they are justified to take over the country if they themselves are able to go to such extremes to establish power in Oceania. In fact, even if they do succeed in overthrowing the party one day, they will eventually establish a system that is just as harsh as that of the Party. The only difference in Oceania will not be a societal one, but rather a political one.

But the most important issue of all is whether or not the Brotherhood should even overthrow the Party. To establish their status in Oceania, the Party has rewritten history,dictated the present and future and also brainwashed the people. If the Brotherhood comes into power and starts telling everyone the truth, there would be chaos. The population are already confused by what is true and what is not and most have already accepted what the Party tells them as reality. Stepping into their lives and telling them who was the real one who invented the airplane or that Oceania was never in war with Eastasia will confuse them even more. Those who are fiercely loyal to the Party and believe in every word it says will start to revolt against the Brotherhood and denounce them as liars. The population have generally accepted the system as their way of life, as they know none others and they will be unable to accept a new one. It is better off to leave them in their system in my opinion.

2004-11-27T23:11:00.000-08:00
"I love you"

With these 3 words, the lives of Julia and Winston became entwined together. Yet the question is, how real and true is this "love"?

Initially, when winston noticed Julia's existence, his feelings towards her were purely anger and hate, and that he wanted to rape her so as to destroy the sanctimonious, anti-sex youth league spirit in her. Yet upon learning of her feelings towards him, and the fact that she has no qualms with going against the rules of the Party, he declared to her that "the more men you bed, the more i love you." So does winston really love her or is it because he has finally found someone in the country who would dare act against the Party and by loving this corrupted figure, he has found an outlet to direct his hate of the Party towards?I think that the latter is more possible an answer. Julia is a symbol, that no matter how tight the control the Party places over the people of Oceania, they can never fully control everyone entirely. There will always be figures like Julia who will pretend that they are loyal and obedient. but are in reality, going against the rules. Winston indulges in this fact and hence falls in love with Julia but his love is based on that fact that being with her makes him feel superior because he, in a metaphorical kind of way, is going against the Party and their beliefs. Hence in reality, winston don't love julia but rather, loves her for what it represents;a challenge to the Party.

2004-11-27T12:30:00.000-08:00
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I'm really confused of what the 2nd slogan is trying to say due to its arrangement and the fact that it does not exist in the country. As you can see, for the 1st and 3rd slogan, the starting words, as in "war" and "ignorance" have very negative meanings to them and they are written to justify the current environment that the government is creating by saying that it has positive effects. Yet freedom, which is all but bad, is arranged in such a way in the slogan, such that the meaning put across that freedom is bad. Perhaps the government is using this to justify their reason of placing absolute control over the country, but the question is, why is freedom slavery? what is it a slave to? i was flipping through the book and i realised in THE book, by emmaneul goldstein, there isn't a chapter that is devoted to explaining this particular slogan (or maybe i just didn't pay enough attention).
Another weird part of this slogan is that, in a way, the citizens in the current oceania are free. they are no written laws binding them down, what is in place are merely social/political guidelines which the government enforces to ensure that their political supremacy is not overthrown. So if the people of oceania are indeed "FREE", doesn't this slogan, that "freedom is slavery", denounce the rule of the current government?For indeed despite their "freedom", they are slaves to the government, unable to think, or rather, aren't allowed to think for themselves, nor are they allowed to live a life that they wish. Yet again the question is, why would they have a slogan that challenges their action?
well that's all i have for now...this sure is one weird slogan.