Who Is Dehumanized In 1984

In society, there always seems to be a need for humanity; for the ability for one human being to have compassion for another. Time and time again, forces have been trying to take that away from the people in order to establish a sense of order and control. Humans were created with the capacity to care because it helps establish what is right and what is wrong. There have been times when this “human trait” has been manipulated in order to serve an agenda and when that happens, terror, and the breakdown of the human spirit soon follows. In “1984”, by George Orwell, the lead character, Winston Smith, fights to keep his human nature and is taken through the process of being “dehumanized” in order to serve his government. In Orwell’s cryptic tale …show more content…
This connection with another human gave Winston the ability to realize what was more important in his fight against the Party; to remain human. The Party was using lack of emotions to control everyone around them, “The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power of the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference.” (Orwell 164-165) By stripping everything from the people, control was easy. The Party was able to dehumanize everyone without them even realizing it. While reminiscing about his mother Winston came to his conclusion that being ‘human’ was what would beat the Party, “What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. The proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another.” (Orwell 165) When Winston understood this, he made the decision that it was more important to stay human than to stay alive. He told Julia, “If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can’t have …show more content…
Winston continues to cling on to the hope that he is better than the Party because he is ‘human,’ “No, I believe it. I know that you will fail. There is something in the universe – I don’t know, some spirit, some principle – that you will never overcome.” (Orwell 269-270) Winston is slowly rotting from the inside out because of the conditions he is living in. He has lost his hair, lost weight, and even has lost teeth because of his poor health. When he is finally standing in front of a mirror and sees his decaying body, O’Brien rings in his ear with this statement, “That is the last man. If you are human, that is humanity.” (Orwell 272) O’Brien is making it a point to make sure Winston knows that ‘humanity’ is a waste of time, and literally a rotting concept. Although Winston has been a victim of this ‘re-programming’ for an unknown amount of time, he is still loyal to his love for Julia and his last step is to transfer that love to Big