Mr. Wesley

AP English Lang and Comp 7

2 December 2015

George Orwell’s Reinforcing Rhetoric

            Rhetoric is a valuable mechanism used both consciously and intuitively in writing. Successful authors use rhetorical methods to “show not tell” a story. Without these tools, their writing would be dull, and their audience would have difficulty understanding the themes and morals of the story. George Orwell used these skills to frighten many people with the message of his novel 1984: do not let your government take control of you. In 1984, Orwell used parallelism, imagery, and repetition to enhance the reader’s perception of Winston’s helplessness, fear, and confusion.

            Parallelism was used between pages 221 and 224 to emphasize Winston’s emotions when he realized he had no control over his fate. In this passage, he and Julia were caught by the Thought Police for attempting to rebel against the Party. Winston had recently ceased reading Goldstein’s book to Julia when “there was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and outside. The yard seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across the stones” (222).  Orwell made these sentences short to convey the feeling of panic in Winston’s mind; not only were the Thought Police going to kill him, but they were going to murder the girl he loved. This fear was further expressed by abrupt shifts in focus between paragraphs. Like Winston’s thoughts, the paragraphs do not flow together; they jump from one subject to another because there is so much occurring at once. In one paragraph, Winston observes Julia’s “face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with the eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek” but in the next paragraph he “noticed that he badly wanted to urinate” and “that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty-one” (224). Winston switches from thinking about Julia, himself, the Thought Police, the glass paperweight, the woman outside, the time, and his bladder. Winston is distressed and confused, which is expressed by the parallelism of the passage.

            Fear, a side effect of confusion, is demonstrated by imagery throughout the passage. When the Thought Police surround Julia and Winston in the room, Orwell focuses on one “man with a smooth prizefighter’s jowl in which the mouth was only a slit” to help the reader make the inference that these people are dangerous, strong, and experienced (223). This not only explains Winston’s fear, but it makes the audience fearful as well. Orwell helps readers imagine the violence in the scene by providing similes that are relatable. For example, when a guard attacks Julia, his fist hits her “solar plexus, doubling her like a pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for her breath” (223). The audience can imagine Julia being punched in the stomach, folding over in pain, collapsing to the ground, and gasping for air. Imagery is more entertaining to a reader than a statement like the fact that “no one had hit [Winston] yet” because readers can picture the scenario clearly and accurately in their minds (223). They can almost feel the sense of helplessness Winston experiences as Julia is getting beaten up right in front of him. It is understandable that “even in his terror it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly pain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her breath” (223). Winston wants to help Julia, yet he is too afraid of getting hurt to help her. He is willing to let her die because he doesn’t want to be tortured, even though he knows intuitively they will torture and shoot him anyway.

            Repetition of the word “dead” in this section of 1984 further emphasizes Winston’s mixed emotions. He vowed when he joined “The Brotherhood” to sacrifice anything for the rebellion, even his life. Ever since this promise, he knew inevitably that his death would be the result of rebellious actions. While Winston was being attacked by the Thought Police, he was using doublethink: a method of thinking which involves understanding two opposing viewpoints at the same time. He was surprised that they were there, but at the same time, he had been anticipating it. On page 221, Winston finishes reading “The Book,”  and proclaims that “We are the dead.” Julia and the telescreen both repeat this phrase, which is significant because it is startling yet not surprising. From the beginning they knew they were dead, yet they were shocked when the telescreen told them they were dead. Even Winston thought “It was starting, it was starting at last!” while he trembled in fear (221). This is doublethink because Winston seems as if he was excited to die, yet he was afraid.  Doublethink further adds to the confusion of the passage

 George Orwell used the rhetorical methods of  repetition, imagery, and parallelism in 1984 to express the panic and confusion in the scene. Short sentences, vivid details, and repeated phrases help readers accurately comprehend not only the scenario, but the moral of the entire novel. Orwell’s message is clear; he wants his audience to be afraid of Winston’s helplessness so that humans can prevent governments from taking power away from people in the future. If citizens of a country are aware of injustice and willing to fight it, the government cannot take control of them like the “The Party” took control in Oceania.

Mr. Wesley

AP English Period 7

17 November 2015

Orwell’s Predictions Are Upon Us Today

            George Orwell wrote the famous novel 1984 based upon his beliefs on what could happen in our worlds future. Unfortunately, many of his predictions were proven true as they are still present in our society today. The most prevalent issue that Orwell addressed in 1984 was the government’s use of surveillance programs to spy on its citizens. Another important issue that Orwell touched upon was how Oceania was continuously at war for no apparent reason. Although our society is oblivious to these issues, they are still relevant and should be exposed.

            Safety of a country’s citizens is always a top priority, but Oceania went far beyond measures to ensure a false sense of security to its citizens. They used barbaric methods on their people to ensure that they wouldn’t betray the party but would betray their fellow comrades and presumed loved ones. We could say that the surveillance program currently used in the United States is a poor mans version of the one that Orwell depicted in Oceania. After all, “the governments collection of sensitive information is itself an invasion of privacy” (American Civil Liberties Union), so how long will it take before the government starts using more extreme approaches like Oceania used to ensure “safety” of us? Hopefully never, but all the signs indicate that we could end up living in an Orwellian like society in the future.

The United States implemented its newest surveillance program called PRISM in 2007. The program flew under the radar throughout the mainstream media, but that changed quickly. The program was created to “collect private electronic data belonging to users of major internet services” (Everything you need to know about PRISM). Presentation slides were leaked by a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and it showed that the NSA had direct access to many major internet servers. This was a very big deal since the NSA is violating “the constitutional rights of US citizens” (Everything you need to know about PRISM). This act by the US government is almost equivalent to the thought police in Oceania “snooping into peoples windows” (Orwell 2). Even though what the thought police were doing to the Oceanians was much more intense than what the US government is doing to its citizens, it is still the same concept. They are spying on their citizens and denying them privacy. The US and Oceania also used similar means to gather information from “enemies” of the state.

            The United States has a maximum security prison in Guantanamo Bay. It’s notorious for its high profile prisoners and the methods they use on the prisoners to gain information. Guantanamo Bay is extremely similar to room 101, which the party would use to torture people who committed thoughtcrime or who they thought were an enemy of the state. Many of the people who the party would torture were so horrified that they would “pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes” (Orwell 240)  just to avoid the brutal beatings that they were given consistently. The methods that the Party and the United States use are very similar. Winston would go to room 101 and be severely beaten then “left to recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and beaten again” (Orwell 241). However, in Guantanamo Bay, the people being tortured are alleged terrorists and criminals, not innocent civilians of the United States. Regardless, the methods used on these people are inhumane, and not all of them are proven guilty. One suspected terrorist named Murat Kurnaz was taken to Guantanamo Bay after he traveled to Pakistan from Germany after 9/11. He was taken prisoner by the United States even though “there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism” (CBS). Kurnaz was “held underwater, shocked, and suspended from the ceiling” (CBS). It’s absurd that our government would do this to someone who was evidently innocent. Furthermore, it shockingly resembles how the Party would treat the citizens of Oceania. It’s chilling to think about, but how long could it be before the government uses these brutal means on citizens who are suspected of committing a petty crime? It’s an insoluble question, but one thing is for sure: our government is a minor form of the one that Orwell created in 1984. Besides torturing people aimlessly and spying on our citizens, our government does other things that Orwell indirectly warned us would happen.

            Just like Oceania, the United States has also been at war constantly even though we really “have no material cause for fighting” (Orwell 186). Along with the people of Oceania, war is just a part of being an American since we have “been at war 93% of the time – 222 out of 239 years – since 1776” (InfoWars). Since there is no reason for war now, it seems that we are fighting to keep our “economy existing by and for continuous warfare” (Orwell 197). Since we are at war regularly, it takes a toll on many families who lose loved ones in pointless combat. We could have taken a hint from 1984 and realized that our battles being fought currently are “between combatants who are unable to destroy one another” (Orwell 186). Instead, we are spending 610 billion dollars on our military, which is more “than the next 7 countries combined” (NBC). Although the “attacks of September 11, 2001, helped accelerate the drive to war in 2003” (Oxford Journals), we were not completely there to defeat the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks.  We were highly involved with oil in the Middle East, even though “the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death” (Orwell 187). We have a variety of other ways to supply energy to people, so fighting in the Middle East to “safeguard the Persian gulf and the regions oil producers” (Oxford Journals) is unnecessary, especially with all the troops being killed.

            Orwell astonishingly predicted many of the issues that our world face today. Even though our problems are not nearly the same magnitude as Oceania’s, they could definitely escalate to that in the future, especially given the similarity between the two nations. The issues that Orwell brought up in 1984 are definitely still relevant today and it will remain that way and possibly get even worse, unless we do something about it.