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Major Essay Assignment 1984
The book 1984 exposes the way at least a glimpse of freedom is more valuable than the
constant safety which limits a person’s liberties. The main character, Winston Smith, has been at
the crossroads of choosing between the comforting safe world where a person is repressed and
the possibility of being liberated, even if this freedom is fleeting and has drastic consequences.
However, these moments of liberation have been the most significant and empowering life
experiences for Winston, which proves that imposed safety leads only to stagnation and struggle
while freedom can make a person self-fulfilled, at least for some time. Hence, freedom is more
important than safety as a means to attain personal life satisfaction as well as intellectual
development.
The preferred value of freedom over safety is underscored by a theme of love in the
novel. In the story, the main character reveals how the Party has controlled the intimate
relationships between the citizens. If the two people revealed at least some physical or moral
longing for one another, their relationships were banned by the official committee (Orwell 83).
The only reason why such connection has been allowed at all is to give birth to the new Party
members through the allegedly appalling, disgusting process of sexual intercourse (Orwell 8384). Therefore, in the “safe” world created by the Party, expressions of affection and mutual
intimacy were limited or banned.
Orwell underscores the artificial and loveless nature of such relationships through the
thoughts of Winston about his marriage. Smith, the typical representative of the Party, has ceased
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to care for his wife Katherine so much that he ceased to imagine how many years ago they have
parted (Orwell 84). Their intercourse was not characterized by the equal mutually beneficial
human relations but rather through the cold-hearted submission of a woman by a man (Orwell
84-85). Such a description of sex symbolizes a larger perspective on human connections under
the “safe” Party regime. The individual can only succumb to the oppression and be submissive to
the system or step out of the comfort zone and experience true feelings.
Such description of marriage parallels the modern examples of the arranged marriage
where young women are sold by their families to the spouses in order to secure material wealth
for the family. Even though the relatives of the bride manage to have financial safety, the woman
herself losses her freedom and becomes caged in unequal relationships. Such “safety” pushes a
person to reject the pleasure of love, fair treatment as a human being with own desires and
boundaries.
For these reasons, the true growth and internal integrity are attained by Winston only
when he gains the freedom to love Julia rather than enjoys the safety of the arranged marriage.
After being able to converse openly with Julia and enjoy free love, Winston started to refer to
Katharine as a “painful” and “distasteful” memory (Orwell 166). Even his mind became freer
from the Party-imposed lies about the world since his sexual liberation undermined the political
orthodoxy of his beliefs (Orwell 167). At the beginning of the novel, he is presented as a person
capable of self-reflection; he even wanted to write a diary and read the books, and yet he
preferred to live a rather safe life in constant paranoia of being caught (Orwell 7-9). He preferred
working for the Party, repeating its slogans, and watching telescreen with the optimistic face
rather than openly engage in the revolution against Big Brother (Orwell 7-9). However, due to
his love, Winston managed to evolve from just another gear in the Party mechanism to the
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person who can be braver to feel, think, question, and have interest in matters far from his
understanding.
Winston’s measures taken against the Party have become much riskier, and his will had
become stronger when he rejected safety. For example, Winston has gained strength and courage
to stand against the Party through joining the Brotherhood and promising to do anything in order
to help it, even to be separated from Julia (Orwell 217). The dissatisfaction, dullness, and
neutrality with which Winston treats his arranged marriage contrast with the passion, bravery,
and aptitude he gains due to his free love.
Therefore, it is evident that freedom is more important than safety as it pushes a person to
develop, nurture merits inside one’s mind. Due to freedom, the person becomes capable of
rejecting the passive treatment of his or her life through real human connections and true love. In
this way, even such a seemingly normal citizen as Winston can develop in the person who
undermines the cruel plans of the Party from the inside with his free mind.
The marriage is just one example of how “safe” Party decisions limited all the
possibilities for Winston’s happiness by taking away the possibility to make a choice. In the
book, each of the smallest liberty of Winston was taken away from him in order to ensure the
full-scope oppression of his mind. The “safer” Party options not just deprived Winston’s right to
make personal conclusions but even tried to erase the humanness and personality within the main
character.
For instance, Winston was not even allowed to think about the basic connections
between the words and their meaning. The so-called doublethink pushed the main character to
reinforce self-contradictory statements such as “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is
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strength” (Orwell 34). The Party banned Winston from the choice of deciding what the basic
principles of social relationships as peace, freedom, and ignorance, mean personally to him in
contrast to the enforced doublethink. Instead, he was forced to accept dogmas without applying
critical thinking rather than choose a meaning of life, love, and liberty for himself and, thus, have
his own set of values.
There exists a saying that thinking makes us humans. Thus, if Winston was pushed to
stop questioning and thinking in a world where every decision was made for him by the
government, he was on the verge of losing his humanity. The one thing that prevented Winston
from becoming a shell of a person is his internal monologue that he has been supporting
restlessly in order to stay sane even though it was unsafe to commit such a thoughtcrime (Orwell
11). This theme of fighting for the right to make choices what to think symbolizes the struggle of
Winston to remain a personality, at least in his head. Such a hardship persists to this day as each
person is challenged with a task to personally analyze news stories and decisions of the
government, make decisions for whom to vote and which ideology to choose in order to remain a
citizen who holds the officials accountable for the future of the country rather than a passive
mass. Hence, freedom is more important than safety as it is what raises basic humanness in
people, makes us conscious, and is included in the events around us.
Therefore, 1984 proves that freedom is more important than safety. Due to the free love
and liberty of thinking, the main character Winston managed to modify from the passive Party
member to a person who can make daring decisions and stand for his beliefs. Freedom is much
more valuable than safety since it allows us to retain our personality and humanness rather than
become safe yet lifeless shells without emotions, feelings, mind, and choice.
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Work Cited
Orwell, George. 1984. Planet EBook.
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