Monday, April 9, 2012

1984 #3

Motif- Throughout 1984 there is a motif of endlessness prevalent throughout each section and is shown in many different ways. In the beginning it is shown through the opening and closing of doors, drawers, etc. Also when Orwell uses "to and fro" indicated the motif of endlessness. "There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate time."(231). In the last third of the book Orwell uses the motif of endlessness through not knowing what time it is. Through not being able to keep track of the time of day it creates a sense of endlessness. Through this motif I think Orwell is saying that once one succumbs to a totalitarian type of control and get rid of the past, there is no way of knowing because we have giving into the their version of the truth and everything is suddenly unknown and it becomes endless.

Setting- I think that the confinement of many of the places that Winston goes to reveals a theme throughout the book. Wherever Winston goes it is always in a room or in a confined setting. " A bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran around the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat. " (225). When Winston is brought to the Ministry of Love he still encounters the confinement of the room that he is forced to live in. The confinement symbolizes the extent to which the Party has over you and wants to keep you ignorant by only giving you a limited amount of space.

Language- There is a change in syntax once they convince Winston that the truth lies within the Party. " Winston shrank back upon his bed. Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon." (206). He gives up hope since they have forced him to accept their truth and not his. The syntax has changed from a lot of detailed and hopeful text to a more simple and lifeless text which gives the effect of giving up hope.

Cultural Influences- "And it was probable that people changed somewhat after twenty years in a forced-labor camp." (228). During this era the concentration camps and the purges were forced labor camps that many people had to endure and like in this book they would have "somewhat [have] changed after twenty years in a forced-labor camp.

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