George Knightley

Relationships In George Orwell’s novel 1984, the author portrays the relationships between people as one’s that are essentially close, sexual, and forbidden by the Party. Two main relationships that make an impact in this book would be Winston’s connection with both Julia and O’Brien. This book illustrates that power and authority can be used to destroy individuality and break the bonds of love as shown through the relationship between Winston and his wife Katherine, and between Winston and…

What would you do if you lived in an altruistic society where individualism is forbidden and you work and live for the common good? Would you conform or would you rebel like the main character, Equality 7-2521, in Ayn Rand's novella "Anthem"? In the novella Equality 7-2521's is constantly breaking the laws until his final act of rebellion against the World Council and the collective society. The archetype of a rebel is someone who resists authority and refuses allegiance to the head of…

I am Emnjundi Jacqueline Longton (call me Jackie), and this is my story. I live in the utopia of Colorum, or perhaps it is the dystopia of Colorum. Utopia is certainly what our world appears to be. We all have our jobs, our lifestyles. When we change, we can change our surroundings if we wish. Everyone is happy, except for those who are misfits. Those who don’t get along with our law. No one knows what happens to them, just that they get removed. To where? No one knows. To people in Hyacinthum,…

Comparison: “2 + 2 = 5” by Radiohead For many centuries, art has been a medium through which writers and musicians have chosen to express their political views and opinions on the world around them. One of the world’s most celebrated political writers, George Orwell, strongly influenced culture, including music, with his dystopian novel 1984. The 80s English alternative rock band, Radiohead, was inspired by the book’s commentary on what the world will look like in the future and wrote a song…

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the many books that is injected with multiple instances of social commentary in which Ray Bradbury critiques the citizens and their home society. Most of which refer to the censorship the government imposes on the society and their people. The citizens have been brainwashed to destroy all of their community’s past. This is evident when we see that firemen are completely different than what we know today and what they were in the past. Firemen are now trained to light…

A dystopian is the opposite of a utopia. A utopia is a perfect society where everyone has everything they need, everyone gets along, everyone is happy, and basically life is perfect. A dystopia is the exact opposite of that. People don’t have things they need, people are poor, not happy, not everyone is happy, people are dehumanized, and overall it’s a terrible society to live in. The dystopian world in Ready Player One is comparable to the Holocaust, because they both were dystopias, people…

Empowerment and disempowerment using the gaze is manifested as one of the fundamental themes in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) as well as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Written soon after the Second World War, Nineteen Eighty-Four was a novel which portrayed the experiences of Winston Smith, the protagonist and other significant characters who are bound to live within a totalitarian regime in which the powerful forces are punishment and fear. The Handmaid’s…

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. The Five Stages of Grief. They can be applied to various aspects of life. However, I believe that survivors guilt is one of the best ways that the stages can be applied. Denial leaves us questioning every little thing. It leaves us thinking that there isn’t a way the world can just go on. It makes it so hard to even make it through a day, nevertheless it is debatably the most important stage; it is where you first start and where you start to…

In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon alludes to sources of power for both colonizers and colonized. Colonizers gain their power from both physical and psychological violence, whereas the colonized must gain power over the colonizers through physically violent rebellion. Hannah Arendt, in Crises of the Republic, takes a very different view of power. While she agrees that occasionally violence is used to exert power and control, true power comes from the concerted efforts of the group, not…

Exhibiting Ayn Rand’s voice the influential piece The Fountainhead, expresses the views Rand wanted shared. Ayn Rand, born in Russia in 1905, lived a normal childhood until Bolshevik soldiers took over her father’s store during the Russian Civil War forcing her family into poverty. The sudden change in lifestyle led to Rand developing strong feelings about the government’s involvement in people’s livelihoods. Rand continued to create new political, social and religious beliefs that led to her…