Prompt #2

Prompt:

2005. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pontellier is said to possess "That outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions." In a novel or play that you have studied, identify a character who outwardly conforms while questioning inwardly. Then write an essay in which you analyze how this tension between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the meaning of the work. Avoid mere plot summary.

Response:

In 1984, a novel by George Orwell, the protagonist, Winston Smith, regularly feigns conformity with Ingsoc and the rules that govern the dystopian society of Oceania while secretly pursuing their destruction. To Thinkpol and the Inner Party, he seems to be a regular Outer Party member, yet covertly seeks the Brotherhood and attempts to subvert the totalitarian regime with Julia. By focusing on this self-contradictory behavior and the fatal consequences Winston faces as a result, Orwell warns the reader of the danger Big Brother – and, by extension, any socialist government – poses to those who disagree with it.

Winston Smith regularly acts as any loyal party member would – he exercises each morning as per the telescreen’s instructions, attends Hates, and diligently works through his assignments in Minitrue. Yet when the Party is not looking – or so it seems – Winston writes thoughtcrime in his hidden notebook, discreetly contacts O’Brien to try to find the Brotherhood, and has sex with Julia against the orders of the government. Even before Thinkpol arrests Winston, this double life adversely affects Winston’s mind, just as living in the dystopia of Oceania affects everyone else’s. When Winston first secretly meets with Julia, one of the strangest statements he makes is that he loves Julia all the more for having had sex with so many men. To both Winston and Julia, sex is no longer an act of love or even of reproduction. It is purely a political statement, an act of treason to undermine Big Brother and his rules. Winston’s mind is so focused on battling Big Brother and Ingsoc that no other aspect of anything he does matters. Likewise, Winston spends a lot of his free time writing in his notebook or trying to locate the Brotherhood, both acts of subversion. Just as Ingsoc has reduced the masses into mindless, pleasureless drones that follow it to the letter, Winston has been reduced to unhealthy obsession over fighting Big Brother, rather than taking pleasure in the pleasurable activities the government of Oceania forbids.

A much greater consequence Winston’s thoughtcrime has is his arrest and subsequent torture by Thinkpol. As O’Brien alters Winston’s very thoughts, personality, and behavior through electroshock, Orwell portrays socialism as an institution that will forcibly change people to meet its standards or kill them in the process, perhaps doing both for good measure. Through the now-famous statement “2+2=5”, Orwell stresses how socialism can place individuals under such duress as to cause them to give up their internal instinctual and logical beliefs and conform against their will to the propaganda of a totalitarian government. Just as Winston loses the strength to inwardly question Big Brother and accepts mindless conformity, so socialism would turn the physically and mentally diverse masses into uniform drones.

The dystopian civilization portrayed in 1984 is centered on the principle of Ingsoc, but any government has dissenters. By exploring the consequences brought about by the contrast between Winston’s outward conformity and his internal rebellion against Big Brother, Orwell condemns socialism in England as a threat to individuals.