The Few Pleasures Remaining in 1984 Are Destroyed

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“The few pleasures remaining in 1984, then, are marked for destruction and it is this rejection of pleasure that distinguishes from almost all other anti-utopias” In light of this view compare the concept of pleasure how it is presented in 1984 and one other dystopian text. In George Orwells 1984 the totalitarian government controls all the people are suppressed and downtrodden their only hope finding pleasure in amongst the “vistas of rotten nineteenth century houses” the pleasures they are given are few and deficient. The main key pleasures in life either rationed or removed completely. The ability to love and have sexual intercourse, to have personal belongings even to have individual thought all revoked by big brother. One of the most obvious pleasures that has been revoked by Big Brother is the ability to have possessions to own items. Now this is not to say all have such as alcohol and Victory Cigarettes but even smoking and drinking them feels like a contribution to the party by only giving them the choice of smoking Big Brothers cigarettes. And similarly for alcohol however there are 3 alcoholic drinks in 1984 which correspond to the class distinction: the proles drink beer, the outer party gin and the inner party drink Wine. This reflects the amount of freedom and pleasure that the classes are allowed The Higher the class the better the drink, the more freedom such as being able to turn off the Telescreens, “seen from the top… looked almost black, but in the decanter it gleamed like a ruby” This could be seen to show big brothers true intentions, a grand beacon of hope and unity as the shell but hiding within dark and cruel methods and schemes This is backed up later when Winston describes the wine as tasting disappointing showing that based on the way the wine was presented he expected the taste to be better than it turned out to be. These are about the
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