1984 – Critical Essay

“Choose a novel which explores the dark side of humanity.

Show how the novelist introduces and develops the theme, and go
on to discuss how effectively you think the theme is explored”
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, The Party is a perfect example of
corruption and how dark humanity can be if given the chance. Through the devices of the
thought police, betrayal and torture, Orwell depicts the Party, or more specifically the Inner
Party, as the epitome of evil in humanity. The protagonist, Winston, is a member of the
Outer Party but is one of the few citizens of Oceania that have not been brainwashed by
their propaganda and he alone stands against their rule (as in the novel we never meet
another character that is so definitely against them).

The Party rule over Oceania by commanding total respect and fear, this fear is of the
thought police. To think a single thought against the Party is deemed “thoughtcrime” and
that person should consider themselves at the mercy of the thought police: “Thoughtcrime
does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.” By making the population believe that if they
think a single wrong thought they will die bends them to their rule and allows the Party to
control everything they do. Commanding with fear is an incredibly dark concept, mirrored
only by the most fascist of leaders like Hitler and Stalin. For Orwell to have his world leaders
adopt the same techniques connects them with these real life dictators and therefore shows
them to be the ultimate manifestation of darkness and evil in humanity.

The primary device of the thought police to spy on the occupants of the country is the
telescreen. This multi-purpose instrument of the party is used both to install propaganda in
the heads of the proletariats and to spy visually and aurally on every single person. It is law
to have them in your house and they are the reason the tought police can detect
thoughtcrime: "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any
public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A
nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that
carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to
wear an improper expression on your face was itself a punishable offense. There was even a
word for it in Newspeak: facecrime...” In modern society it would be considered a violation
of human rights to put an entire population under surveillance yet in the world of 1984 it is
common practise to have to control your facial expressions night and day. The motifs of
facecrime and thoughtcrime ring through consistently in the novel, always reminding the
reader of how the corruption of the party causes abysmal living standards for everyone in
Orwell’s world.

However the evil of the party is not limited to the thought police and Mr Charrington is a
prime example. The old man appears at first to be a kind prole who sympathises with
Winston and helps him rebel against the party by letting him stay in a room behind his shop
with Julia and have their affair. But nothing in this novel isn’t too good to be true, and
Charrington betrays Winston to the thought police, more than that he was a member of the
thought police all along: “It occurred to Winston that for the first time his life he was
looking, with knowledge, at a member of the Thought Police”. Mr Charrington’s betrayal
shows that there is barely any humanity left in those who follow the party. This adds a new
meaning to the dark side of humanity in the novel as it shows that Satan will sometimes
wear a Sunday hat, meaning evil can come just as easily from those you thought you could
trust. This applies to all characters, including Winston.

When Winston is captured he is tortured until he submits to the party’s will, namely to love
Big Brother. To do this he too must shed himself of his humanity and embrace darkness by
betraying his love Julia: “Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do
to her!” By breaking Winston and making him become the one thing he truly hated, Orwell
shows the reader that everyone has darkness in them, even the best of us, and it just takes
a little nudge to bring that darkness out.

The final way in which the writer conveys the central theme of darkness in this book is
through O’Brien, another betrayal and something much darker. O’Brien is the principal
antagonist in the story and appears first as a friendly member of the Inner Party who
professes to be against Big Brother and the totalitarian rulew of the Party, but he like
Charrington was lying and becomes Winston’s torturer inside the Ministry of Love: "There
were times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to
him not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not force himself into
losing consciousness." The merciless beating of another human being is perhaps one of the
sickest, cruellest things a person can do. Here it is the guards but O’Brien also subjects
Winston to horrific forms of torture including forcing his face into a cage of rats. Perhaps
the most evil aspect of this is that they were going to kill him anyway, and all the torture
was committed simply because they could: “’It might be a long time,’ said O’Brien. ‘You are
a difficult case. But don’t give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we’ll
shoot you’”. The word choice of cured is effective as it shows that O’Brien sees Winston not
as someone who has a different opinion from him, for no one can have a different opinion
from the Party, Winston to O’Brien is insane and must be cured. But then he goes on to say
that they will shoot him “in the end”. This mere fact summarises the Party’s complete loss
of humanity, they have so much power that they cannot simply just kill the protestors, they
must torture and convert them first and then kill them.

The darkness in humanity is an everyday feature in our lives, there is always a story in the
news about murders and injustice, and it is this side of our society which George Orwell has
taken and blown up to open our eyes to our imperfections. Through fear, betrayal and
vicious torture he illustrates and explores how the world would look if our dark side was
allowed to take the reins. 1984 is not just a novel, it is Orwell’s warning to the future and
we should listen.