And yet, when Winston returns from the woods, his awakening does not effectively translate into action. The novel that opened with a man’s bold words of dissent, “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER,” —closes with the same man’s declaration of love: “he loved Big Brother.” How does this radical transformation occur in Winston Smith—and moreover, what can it tell us about the power of language in totalitarian states?
To answer these questions, let us turn, once again, to Hannah Arendt. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt asserts that loneliness is the “common ground for terror.” And loneliness, itself, is the desired product of the war against words—breeding men who, trapped in their own minds, are unable to express themselves to those who surround …show more content…
And to have action, we must first have speech: free and uninhibited. One of the greatest challenges of Nineteen Eighty-Four—and the central reason why Winston is defeated by the novel’s end—is that rebellion exists only in anonymity. Even if the Party did have enemies, says Winston, these opponents “had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos or threes.” Winston, in his solitary rebellion, is …show more content…
They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning.” Yet, at the novel’s end, Winston’s romantic vision of rebellion remains unfulfilled. The proles do not rise up in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Winston, who does not have the privilege of a life unnoticed, cannot. In the end, Big Brother, as always, has won—and language, and all that it symbolizes, has failed. As Arendt recognizes, power “springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.” Thus, by removing Winston Smith from society and erasing his dissent from history, the Party has perpetuated dispersion and is left more powerful than
To answer these questions, let us turn, once again, to Hannah Arendt. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt asserts that loneliness is the “common ground for terror.” And loneliness, itself, is the desired product of the war against words—breeding men who, trapped in their own minds, are unable to express themselves to those who surround …show more content…
And to have action, we must first have speech: free and uninhibited. One of the greatest challenges of Nineteen Eighty-Four—and the central reason why Winston is defeated by the novel’s end—is that rebellion exists only in anonymity. Even if the Party did have enemies, says Winston, these opponents “had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos or threes.” Winston, in his solitary rebellion, is …show more content…
They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning.” Yet, at the novel’s end, Winston’s romantic vision of rebellion remains unfulfilled. The proles do not rise up in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Winston, who does not have the privilege of a life unnoticed, cannot. In the end, Big Brother, as always, has won—and language, and all that it symbolizes, has failed. As Arendt recognizes, power “springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse.” Thus, by removing Winston Smith from society and erasing his dissent from history, the Party has perpetuated dispersion and is left more powerful than