1984 Betrayal Analysis

Barbara Kingsolver, a novelist, once said, "Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side" (www.wiseoldsayings.com). This quote holds true in George Orwell's 1984, as betrayal becomes the party's solution to achieve absolute control over its people; the people become the betrayed and are persecuted and while the party becomes the betrayer and is protected. The betrayals are not coincidental nor spontaneous, they are strategically schemed and calculated by the party throughout the course of the novel, which results in evaporated resistance and total submission of the individual to the party. One can see this through Winston Smith; the protagonist who, at the beginning, resists against …show more content…
This is first seen when Mrs. Parsons asks Winston for help in unblocking their sink, to which he begrudgingly agrees to. As he enters the Parsons' flat, Winston encounters their two children, who begin to tantalize him. They call him a "traitor", a "thought-criminal" and an "Eurasian spy" and threaten that they will "shoot [him], vaporize [him] and send [him] to the salt mines!" while pretending to shoot him with a toy pistol (21). The taunts that the children make to Winston imply that they have already been exploited by the party's propaganda as they are conditioned to recognize and loathe those who are considered the enemies of the state and desensitized to the party's' ways of violence. The party goes even further to indoctrinate the children, such as writing weekly articles in The Times, "describing how some eavesdropping little sneak- "child hero" was the phrase generally used- had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police" (23). The party strategically uses media as a form of propaganda to lure the children. For example, the word "hero" is generally used to describe an individual who is admired and idolized for his or her noble actions and qualities; however, the same term is employed by Big Brother to praise the children who betray their own parents. Furthermore, the party goes above and beyond by publishing …show more content…
At the beginning of the novel, Winston is introduced as a supposedly loyal member to the party as he works for the Ministry of Truth, altering the past to eliminate any discrepancies made by the party; however, the reader discovers that he secretly loathes his job and the party itself. He hides from the telescreen in his flat and keeps a journal where he writes down his true thoughts on Big Brother. He goes as far as to even commit thoughtcrime by writing "Down with Big Brother" numerous times in it (18). This shows Winston's discontentment with the party and foreshadows his rebellion against the party. Later, he also jots down that, "Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows" (67). Here, Winston is referring to the party's manipulation of the truth; it changes the truths into lies and the lies into truths and expects its citizens to believe whatever they consider the truth to be true. He believes that freedom will follow only after the truth is revealed. He also makes another assumption that, "[the party] [could] [not] get inside you"(135). He is proven long later as Big Brother does conform him to the philosophies of the party. This can be seen when he sits at the Chestnut Tree Café and, "unconsciously trace[s] with his finger in the dust on the table: two plus two equals five" (230). Through this action, the reader sees that