People are desensitized to suffering in George Orwell's 1984, so much so that society is cruel when it occurs. This normalized cruelty drives much of the plot- people are permanently vaporized and brutal acts of war are announced every day without anyone caring- while also indicating that the Party will always triumph in the end because society is shaped to be apathetic about the inhumanity of the world.
The cruel indifference of the society is revealed fairly early on. After writing in his diary, Winston says that his existence will be “denied and then forgotten” or vaporized. Hypothetically, if the society was not cruel, the vaporized people would not be so easily forgotten. Their friends and family would mourn them and be outraged. However, this is not the case, which is shown again when Winston’s colleague is vaporized one day. In fact, Winston even describes the experience with a rather detached tone: “Syme had vanished. …show more content…
For instance, while listening to the news, Winston describes a war broadcast as “a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army.” He does this often with the news. Basically, Winston does not react to the horrors of the war, instead he treats it like a completely normal thing and he focuses on the reduction in chocolate, which is actually a normal thing. The only sign of caring he even shows is by describing it as ‘gory’. If the protagonist of the story cannot bring himself to be anything other than callously indifferent, society can only be expected to be cruel. The supporting characters are no exceptions. Winston tells Julia about the three guys who were vaporized- a defining moment in his life- and all she could respond with was a question: “People are being killed off all the time, aren’t they?” In present day societies, death is so significant that there are countless ceremonies focused on it. But in their dystopian society, people dying is as normal as going to
The cruel indifference of the society is revealed fairly early on. After writing in his diary, Winston says that his existence will be “denied and then forgotten” or vaporized. Hypothetically, if the society was not cruel, the vaporized people would not be so easily forgotten. Their friends and family would mourn them and be outraged. However, this is not the case, which is shown again when Winston’s colleague is vaporized one day. In fact, Winston even describes the experience with a rather detached tone: “Syme had vanished. …show more content…
For instance, while listening to the news, Winston describes a war broadcast as “a gory description of the annihilation of a Eurasian army.” He does this often with the news. Basically, Winston does not react to the horrors of the war, instead he treats it like a completely normal thing and he focuses on the reduction in chocolate, which is actually a normal thing. The only sign of caring he even shows is by describing it as ‘gory’. If the protagonist of the story cannot bring himself to be anything other than callously indifferent, society can only be expected to be cruel. The supporting characters are no exceptions. Winston tells Julia about the three guys who were vaporized- a defining moment in his life- and all she could respond with was a question: “People are being killed off all the time, aren’t they?” In present day societies, death is so significant that there are countless ceremonies focused on it. But in their dystopian society, people dying is as normal as going to