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.