1984, Honors Writing

Many stories include a conflict between one’s social environment, and one’s personal belief. There is no story that deals with this issue more so than “1984”. The radical hero Walter believed in a free world, where he could express himself and the government didn’t watch his every move. The government on the other hand felt quite differently.

In “1984” there were two main “groups”, the government and everyone else. If you followed the laws without question and you felt there was nothing wrong with the way things were, you were the government. If you believed in free thought or disagreed with anything the government said, then you were everyone else. Walter wasn’t government. He was a free thinker who was trapped between the overbearing world of “Two Minutes of Hate” and book burning, and the world he dreamed of. A calm world where you could wake up when you wanted, marry who you wanted and didn’t have to worry about hiding from the TV monitor in your living room.

Walter joined a group dedicated to taking down “Big Brother” because he wanted a free world. He secretly began dating Julia, another radical like himself. He was married, though he hadn’t seen his wife in years, so dating Julia was forbidden. Together they plotted ways of destroying the government they were raised to believe in and they protested it anyway they could, without getting themselves killed.

Walter was raised in a society that hated things just because they were told to and had a complete lack of privacy. He remembered that things had once been different, that there was a time before Big Brother. These memories caused him to feel torn, torn between the world he wanted and the world he lived in. In comparison to the world he remembered, the world he lived in was like hell. He would do anything; even risk his own life, to change things back to the way they had been.

Walter’s life and opinions were influenced by these two worlds in a way that few can imagine. He wanted freedom, peace and justice, but what he had was the government telling him that two plus two was five and he had to believe that or they would kill him. He chose to fight the government and the government fought back. They stole him from his home and beat him until he believed everything they said.

Walter’s life and thoughts were not his own. The government owned everything of his, his home, his possessions even his life. This oppressive environment caused him to act in a way that many would fear to. He plotted, planned, and acted on taking the government down. In the end, the government won, but the institution still shaped who he was and the decisions he made. Whether he chanted “Down with Big Brother” in his sleep or thought “I love Big Brother” the government influenced his every breath, his every move, and his every action. In the end, he was Big Brother.