Readers are often angered by the ending of 1984 because of Winston’s betrayal of his previous life for the acceptance of the party. This is a semi-appropriate ending because of the impossibility of going against the party because of their total control of all people’s lives through the use of fear, which had not been accomplished by any authoritarian regime before the rise of the party. The novel’s ending was semi-appropriate because it stresses a society where all people are equal, but on the contrary makes it so that people must give up all of their freedoms and have all of their aspects of life controlled to conform to the standards of the society. The party controls people’s lives off of three founding philosophies “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. (Orwell 26) War is peace refers to the fact that if the party always frames another enemy to direct all hate towards.
When the world thinks of interrogating they just go straight to torture, but when they craw away from that, there would be no enemies due because of their grudges toward countries. When using torture on suspects not only will it not work most of the time but it will mostly resolve in someone’s death. “President Obama has done the most important thing: reversing Bush's policy and declaring, as he did last week, that torture was unequivocally wrong” (Weisberg 1). Therefore using torture is just ruining the morale of countries especially the United States because we have rules. How come they can break the rules and other citizens can’t?
The protagonist, Winston Smith, is a lower-party member who has grown to resent the society he is living in and starts to lose his rationality and sanity due to the restrictions of society. "And in the general hardening of outlook that set in ... practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive. "(p.130) Winston clearly hated the Party and all he wants is liberty of his actions and ideas. He will fight his hardest to revolt and stop the Inner Party’s “dictatorship.” To keep all of this in order, and to avoid revolts, the Inner Party has to think of creative and smart ways to control the public. This is done by introducing orthodox methods in the minds of the Party members such as with childhood.
In today’s society conformity and deliberation have taken over the lives of many as the concept of individuality goes astray. Throughout Soren Kierkegaard’s text, The Present Age: On the Death of Rebellion, he explains his thoughts on his beliefs that this age has lost a sense of inwardness and has become more and more ambiguous with the self. In addition to this, he also stresses the dangers that are associated with these loses. Furthermore, he argues that “the most dangerous, if also the most respectable of all diseases” is “to admire in public what is considered unimportant in private – since everything is made into a joke” (Kierkegaard 9). In this essay I am in agreement with Kierkegaard that in the present age, we as a society lose character in the process of reflecting upon what we are ought to, and expected to do.
This quote implies that Harrison had a plan to make the strong slower, when in reality he was only making them stronger by challenging there strength. This describes how dangerous Harrison is as he tries making everyone equal. He suggests that he is the “Emperor” and everyone must obey him. What makes it so ironic is that he argues that he wants to make everyone equal but in contrast he just wants to become the better person because he has intelligence, is athletic, and good looking, yet he doesn’t apply any of his laws to himself, which also makes him a hypocrite. To summarize basically, Harrison’s initial plan is to get everyone that may be better at him at something and bring them down so he can become the best.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”, the theme of equality is very relevant. Vonnegut shows how different and more complicated a world would be if everyone were “equal”. Throughout the short story if anyone is shown to be above normal or above average in any way, shape, or form, they are to wear handicaps causing their intelligence or talents to fade away. While having the handicaps no one has their own individuality or uniqueness. Vonnegut proves that literal equality could not exist in society without creating serious problems and chaos.
Amanda English 1113 Literary Analysis Breaking Free In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison, the main character, tries to break free of an unjust and malicious government control. The government claims equality, when in fact, the general public has just become complacent with ignorance. They are brain washed to believe they cannot do any better than they already have. Even with immense handicaps, and knowing the ultimate consequences, Harrison still pushes through with his plan to break away from the government control he knew to be wrong. The government controls the population with an ear bud radio system that controls their thoughts around the clock with intermittent annoyance of sounds.
As Francois De La Barre says, “A woman’s brain is exactly the same as ours. Sense perceptions are received and assembled there in the same way and in no way differently stored for the imagination and memory” (De La Barre 11). Thus, if the brains work in exactly the same ways, claiming mental superiority of one over the other is arbitrary. “There is one way and one way only to introduce into the mind the truth which is its nourishment” (De La Barre 12), and therefore if the minds of both sexes received equal education and nourishment, they would visibly function equally and would thus disprove all theories of male
Here lies Tolerance (July 4, 1776-September 11, 2001)… Ever since the attacks on our nation, America has been on a downward spiral of predictable fear and hate. The problem with America today is the fact that, although we were a nation built upon religious tolerance, its people do not express this acceptance simply through ignorance; and people fear what they don’t understand. If we are to stop this decent into madness, we must stop and learn about each other. America is not unlike an average teenager in present society. Although parents would like to shelter their children from the evils of the world (which is unlikely to happen), terrible experiences often manage to find their way through the cracks and into the hearts and minds of our
As with Sammy showing his uniqueness, stubbornness and rebellion it is evident that Kurt Vonnegut shows that Harrison has the same traits. Sammy in the story “A&P” repeatedly imagines demeaning his boss Lengel, and then lightly acts with his actual words by accusing him of being too harsh on the girls that were in the store. Sammy and Harrison portray distinctive traits that eventually lead both characters rebelling against their superiors. In the story “Harrison Bergeron” you find Harrison striving more for equality than you find Sammy doing in the story “A&P”. Kurt Vonnegut presented a scary view of a future society, where everyone is equal.