** Late because was on the trip
Commented on Alyssa Peyatt's, Camille Raymond's, Lexi Kaneshiro's and Chelsea Yagi's blog.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Prompt #3: Two Contrasting Worlds
**Late because was on trip
A New Fantastic Point of View
In George Orwell's novel 1984, there are two worlds that the main character, Winston, experiences. One is the world he grew up with, the one he sees every day; his world within the ministry. The other is one he barely remembers, the world outside the ministry; one he rediscovers when he escapes to the "prole" or normal side of the world in the novel. These two worlds represent the two different sides of the conflict in 1984, and also represents Winston's entrapment and his freedom. The world controlled by Big Brother is his prison, and the prole world his only escape.
The novel begins with Winston growing up in a world controlled by Big Brother. His everyday life is mediocre. He is constantly spied on and has no privacy. He faces the same things every single day; the same life, the same people. In this life, Winston is virtually unable to experience any happiness or feeling; he plods through every day, simply existing. He does not care what happens, but has the feeling that this life is simply not enough, that something is not right about the life he is living within the ministry controlled by Big Brother. He is trapped in this life, with no way out; anybody or anything that even seems to defy the order that Big Brother has set up is immediately eliminated.
Winston then enters a new world outside of the ministry. He meets a woman, and falls in love. He finds a shop full of antiquities, run by an old man and takes refuge in it. He learns about new things, like music, love, beauty. Winston is able to see the world in a different light and appreciate things like nature. He is finally feeling alive, like he is finally living a life instead of simply living through one. He remembers his past, and the life he had before. Even though his life within the ministry guarantees security, the life he finds outside the ministry grants him freedom and emotions that he has never felt before. He finally remembers his past memories, and the importance of remembering the past for what it is; the lessons that you can learn from it, the mistakes that you know not to repeat; it is this that the ministry is destorying.
However, even as Winston embraces this new world, he is unable to truly escape from the world with Big Brother and the ministry. He is constantly sneaking around, trying to avoid them and the consequences of being caught. However, he is soon caught and the ministry soon obliterates the life that he cultivated within the proles, destroying one of Winston's "lives" and signifying the triumph of Big Brother over the prole life. Even in the prole life, the ministry invaded, since the old man who had rented out the antique shop turned out to be a spy. The novel ends with Winston trapped again in the ministry, but it is now darker; instead of simply having no hope, Winston is faced with the true darkness of the ministry, and the lengths that this world will go in order to maintain order. The new world of Oceania dominates over the story, and it's influence is slowly spreading and taking over.
The use of different settings was truly important in this book; the life inside the ministry and outside of it both represented very important things. It was these two places that set up the conlflict between Winston and the ministry, and it is by looking at the two lives that Winston lived that we can see how the conflicts between "freedom" and "prison" in 1984 is played out.
A New Fantastic Point of View
In George Orwell's novel 1984, there are two worlds that the main character, Winston, experiences. One is the world he grew up with, the one he sees every day; his world within the ministry. The other is one he barely remembers, the world outside the ministry; one he rediscovers when he escapes to the "prole" or normal side of the world in the novel. These two worlds represent the two different sides of the conflict in 1984, and also represents Winston's entrapment and his freedom. The world controlled by Big Brother is his prison, and the prole world his only escape.
The novel begins with Winston growing up in a world controlled by Big Brother. His everyday life is mediocre. He is constantly spied on and has no privacy. He faces the same things every single day; the same life, the same people. In this life, Winston is virtually unable to experience any happiness or feeling; he plods through every day, simply existing. He does not care what happens, but has the feeling that this life is simply not enough, that something is not right about the life he is living within the ministry controlled by Big Brother. He is trapped in this life, with no way out; anybody or anything that even seems to defy the order that Big Brother has set up is immediately eliminated.
Winston then enters a new world outside of the ministry. He meets a woman, and falls in love. He finds a shop full of antiquities, run by an old man and takes refuge in it. He learns about new things, like music, love, beauty. Winston is able to see the world in a different light and appreciate things like nature. He is finally feeling alive, like he is finally living a life instead of simply living through one. He remembers his past, and the life he had before. Even though his life within the ministry guarantees security, the life he finds outside the ministry grants him freedom and emotions that he has never felt before. He finally remembers his past memories, and the importance of remembering the past for what it is; the lessons that you can learn from it, the mistakes that you know not to repeat; it is this that the ministry is destorying.
However, even as Winston embraces this new world, he is unable to truly escape from the world with Big Brother and the ministry. He is constantly sneaking around, trying to avoid them and the consequences of being caught. However, he is soon caught and the ministry soon obliterates the life that he cultivated within the proles, destroying one of Winston's "lives" and signifying the triumph of Big Brother over the prole life. Even in the prole life, the ministry invaded, since the old man who had rented out the antique shop turned out to be a spy. The novel ends with Winston trapped again in the ministry, but it is now darker; instead of simply having no hope, Winston is faced with the true darkness of the ministry, and the lengths that this world will go in order to maintain order. The new world of Oceania dominates over the story, and it's influence is slowly spreading and taking over.
The use of different settings was truly important in this book; the life inside the ministry and outside of it both represented very important things. It was these two places that set up the conlflict between Winston and the ministry, and it is by looking at the two lives that Winston lived that we can see how the conflicts between "freedom" and "prison" in 1984 is played out.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Prompt # 2 Comments
Commented on Samantha DeLeon's, Lexi Kaneshiro's, Scott Kaneshiro's and Jordan Takayama's blog.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Prompt #2 A World of Conflict
In a world controlled by an all-seeing government, Winston, the protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984, finds himself in conflict with the society when he begins to question the government and begins to seek the truth in a world desperate to hide it. There is one major difference between Winston and the rest of society in 1984, which is Winston’s need for the truth and freedom from the oppressive government, “Big Brother”. It is this difference that brings Winston into conflict with the society around him. Socially, he is unable to interact successfully with others because he doesn’t understand how the others are able to take the lies that the government feeds them, while the others do not understand Winston’s need for the truth. Morally, Winston finds himself unable to accept the rules for “proper behavior” that Big Brother has set down, and sees many of the actions that Big Brother has done as wrong. It is these differences that, in this novel, ultimately forces a change; either from the oppressive government, or from our protagonist Winston.
Winston begins as another normal member of society. He lives the same as others do, accepts Big Brothers rule, same as the others do. In this life, he is truly unable to have any friends or truly get close to anyone; as the novel shows, everyone is too paranoid or suspicious to make close friends. However, he begins to question his role in the world as one who “edits” history, and he also begins to question the very society he lives in, and whether it is truly such an ideal world to live in. He meets Julia, who he falls in love with, perhaps because, she, like him, is against Big Brother and the oppressive world they live in.
As Winston drifts further away from Big Brother and the “Party” that they stand for, he begins to notice another society, outside the influence of Big Brother; that of the common people, those who do not work for the government. He meets Julia, a girl who hates Big Brother, and while she doesn’t understand Winston and his beliefs totally, she probably comes the closest to understanding how he thinks and why he simply cannot accept the Big Brother controlled society. The people he works with, the people who work for Big Brother do not understand what is going on with Winston and why he craves the truth; all they know is that the desire for the truth is dangerous, and therefore do what they can to distance themselves from the individuals who show a need for it.
As the novel progresses, the audience is able to see the society and how flawed it really is. The society is ruthless; it’s only aim is to promote Big Brother and create a working society where no one is allowed to have free thought or new ideas. The people of the “old world”, even those who are not “dangerous” like Winston, but merely those who cannot seem to embrace Big Brother with no doubt are found and eradicated. The children of this society grow up dedicated to Big Brother, and the older generation and the knowledge that comes with their past is being weeded out. This society is going through a ruthless change, and no one is really safe from the conflict that this change brings.
In the ending of the conflict between Winston and the society he lives in, the society eventually triumphs. The beliefs that brought Winston to a conflict with the society is eventually eradicated, and he is brainwashed into becoming another drone, who accepts the truth of Big Brother with no questions. The society of 1984, the one dominated by the Big Brother party, is shown to have ultimate power over all individuals, and shows that it accepts conflict from no one.
Winston begins as another normal member of society. He lives the same as others do, accepts Big Brothers rule, same as the others do. In this life, he is truly unable to have any friends or truly get close to anyone; as the novel shows, everyone is too paranoid or suspicious to make close friends. However, he begins to question his role in the world as one who “edits” history, and he also begins to question the very society he lives in, and whether it is truly such an ideal world to live in. He meets Julia, who he falls in love with, perhaps because, she, like him, is against Big Brother and the oppressive world they live in.
As Winston drifts further away from Big Brother and the “Party” that they stand for, he begins to notice another society, outside the influence of Big Brother; that of the common people, those who do not work for the government. He meets Julia, a girl who hates Big Brother, and while she doesn’t understand Winston and his beliefs totally, she probably comes the closest to understanding how he thinks and why he simply cannot accept the Big Brother controlled society. The people he works with, the people who work for Big Brother do not understand what is going on with Winston and why he craves the truth; all they know is that the desire for the truth is dangerous, and therefore do what they can to distance themselves from the individuals who show a need for it.
As the novel progresses, the audience is able to see the society and how flawed it really is. The society is ruthless; it’s only aim is to promote Big Brother and create a working society where no one is allowed to have free thought or new ideas. The people of the “old world”, even those who are not “dangerous” like Winston, but merely those who cannot seem to embrace Big Brother with no doubt are found and eradicated. The children of this society grow up dedicated to Big Brother, and the older generation and the knowledge that comes with their past is being weeded out. This society is going through a ruthless change, and no one is really safe from the conflict that this change brings.
In the ending of the conflict between Winston and the society he lives in, the society eventually triumphs. The beliefs that brought Winston to a conflict with the society is eventually eradicated, and he is brainwashed into becoming another drone, who accepts the truth of Big Brother with no questions. The society of 1984, the one dominated by the Big Brother party, is shown to have ultimate power over all individuals, and shows that it accepts conflict from no one.
Monday, January 11, 2010
open prompt 1 comments
Commented on Lexi Kaneshiro's, Lindsay Carvalho's, Jacob Garner's and Jordan Takayama's Blog. :D
Symbolism: Open Prompt 1
In the novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, the author uses numerous symbols in order to drive home major themes in the play. One such example is the soldier in white that Yossarian, the main character, meets while in the hospital. The soldier in white is completely covered in bandages, and therefore no one can tell who he is or what he is like. He doesn’t talk, move or do much of anything. He eventually dies in the hospital, but it is unsure when or how it happened because the man was always silent, always still and there were no indications of life even before he died. It was always assumed that he was alive because he was still being taken care of in the hospital.
This soldier in white symbolizes the state of the soldiers in the military and how their commanding officers view them. Yossarian is a pilot for the army, and one of the main issues that he struggles with is the bureaucracy of the army. The soldiers are just pawns in a chess game to the officials. For instance, the commanding officer of Yossarian’s squad uses his squad to get promoted, or get acknowledgement for his achievements in the army. In order to get recognized, he sends his men on mission after mission, even though they have mental health problems from too much war. The commanding officers view Yossarian and the other soldiers as “men in white”, who have no faces, no personality, no unique traits – they aren’t really seen as human beings.
The soldier in white also represents how Yossarian expects to die. Yossarian’s main goal in this novel is to just stay alive. If he were to die, he would die just as the soldier in white did; he would just be another faceless pawn in the novel. He would die with no one knowing his name and all alone. Yossarian sees this as how the military treats its people, and how all military personnel die. Even back home, their deaths would just be marked as another death of a soldier and not that of a human being.
The soldier in white is taken away when he dies, and later on, another soldier in white replaces him. Everyone assumes that this is the same soldier, because they both appear in white bandages, when it is probably not, and this is a further example of the military’s inability to differentiate between different soldiers. Everyone is just classified under “soldier” and they don’t stand as their own person. Even if the soldier in white were to present themselves as a separate person, the characters in this novel would most likely not care; they would see the man as a soldier, who is in white, and would then think of him as the soldier in white, even though they know he is not the soldier in white they once knew. They don’t care enough about either the old or new soldier in white to give him a separate entity.
Joseph Heller, using symbols such as these, manages to write a very vivid and interesting novel. It speaks deeply about the state of war and how it affects mankind. By looking at single symbols, such as the man in white, we can assess for ourselves the state of the war setting that the novel takes place in.
This soldier in white symbolizes the state of the soldiers in the military and how their commanding officers view them. Yossarian is a pilot for the army, and one of the main issues that he struggles with is the bureaucracy of the army. The soldiers are just pawns in a chess game to the officials. For instance, the commanding officer of Yossarian’s squad uses his squad to get promoted, or get acknowledgement for his achievements in the army. In order to get recognized, he sends his men on mission after mission, even though they have mental health problems from too much war. The commanding officers view Yossarian and the other soldiers as “men in white”, who have no faces, no personality, no unique traits – they aren’t really seen as human beings.
The soldier in white also represents how Yossarian expects to die. Yossarian’s main goal in this novel is to just stay alive. If he were to die, he would die just as the soldier in white did; he would just be another faceless pawn in the novel. He would die with no one knowing his name and all alone. Yossarian sees this as how the military treats its people, and how all military personnel die. Even back home, their deaths would just be marked as another death of a soldier and not that of a human being.
The soldier in white is taken away when he dies, and later on, another soldier in white replaces him. Everyone assumes that this is the same soldier, because they both appear in white bandages, when it is probably not, and this is a further example of the military’s inability to differentiate between different soldiers. Everyone is just classified under “soldier” and they don’t stand as their own person. Even if the soldier in white were to present themselves as a separate person, the characters in this novel would most likely not care; they would see the man as a soldier, who is in white, and would then think of him as the soldier in white, even though they know he is not the soldier in white they once knew. They don’t care enough about either the old or new soldier in white to give him a separate entity.
Joseph Heller, using symbols such as these, manages to write a very vivid and interesting novel. It speaks deeply about the state of war and how it affects mankind. By looking at single symbols, such as the man in white, we can assess for ourselves the state of the war setting that the novel takes place in.
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