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Select one of the following five topics:
1. Erich Fromm, in the "Afterword" in the Signet Classic edition of 1984, states:
"George Orwell's 1984 is the expression of a mood, and it is a warning. The mood it expresses is that of
near despair about the future of man, and the warning is that unless the course of history changes, men
all over the world will lose their most human qualities, will become soulless automatons and will not even
be aware of it." (p. 313)
What specifically is the warning about? Cite examples from the book that highlight Fromm's concerns.
2. In 1984 the Party is able to generate enthusiasm for war, no matter the enemy or the local conditions. What
methods does it use to build support for war and how do the citizens respond? What does this suggest
about human behavior?
3. How is Julia characterized? In what ways is she different from Winston? What are her major interests and
concerns? Why is she willing to rebel against the Party?
4. One of the most frightening aspects of 1984 is "Newspeak," the systematic deterioration of language as a
medium of truth, e.g. "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery." Why do the people in the novel accept these
so-called truths? How are they used as tools to manipulate opinion and reinforce the total dominance of the
state? Can you find examples in our own day of the corruption of language as a dependable reflection of
reality?
5. Would Winston have been better off not challenging the party and keeping his rebellious thoughts to himself
in order to preserve his personal safety and dignity? In the face of totalitarian rule, is it better to dissent in
silence and close one's eyes to atrocities and excesses in order to survive? Is there any way he might have
succeeded in challenging the party? Explain your point of view using Winston and Julia's experiences.
6. Some of the surveillance technologies that appear in 1984 are now realities that we take for granted, such
as closed circuit television cameras and GPS devices. Discuss the use of technology to control public and
private behavior in 1984 and in the present. What limits do you think should be placed on the use of
technology to avoid the kind of totalitarian excesses represented in 1984?
Official Rules for 17th Annual Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest
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Winning Essays from Previous Years
Sean Neill, NYC
In his The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins employs a precociously modern approach to narration, an
approach that appreciates and recognizes the fragmented nature of consciousness and of
knowledge, an approach that benefits the novel as a whole in the amusing interplay it creates
between subjectivity and objectivity. This method—telling the story of the Diamond through the
points of view of eight different narrators, rather than through the voice of one omniscient, thirdperson narrator—helps
to establish the fragility of what is known and what can be known, and calls into question the veracity and validity of
experience. For Collins, the fallibility of the narrators is a technique in itself—it highlights the prejudices and biases
we all bring to the table. In addition, more than a vehicle for plot, the divided narrative is a vehicle for characterization.
It is through the way they tell their stories and develop over the course of the telling of their stories that we learn
about Gabriel Betteredge, Miss Clack, Franklin Blake, et al. When Gabriel Betteredge observes, "I am asked to tell
the story of the Diamond, and, instead of that, I have been telling the story of my own self," (Collins, 38) he is
speaking truer words than he knows.
The great irony of The Moonstone, the irony from which much of the book's comic and literary impact comes, is the
contrast between what the various narrators see as their own objectivity and reportage of the truth, and what is, in
actuality, grossly unreliable subjectivity. When Miss Clack says at the beginning of her narrative, "My sacred regard
for truth is (thank God) far above my respect for persons…He [Mr. Blake] has purchased my time; but not even his
wealth can purchase my conscience too," (212) the reader laughs, knowing that Miss Clack is anything but impartial,
blinded as she is by her own abrasive righteousness. Her narrative is colored, at every turn, by her view of herself as
a religious martyr and her delusion that she is driven solely by spiritual concerns. She fails to understand the
absurdity of her statement, "My nature is weak. It cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful
pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque," (212).
Franklin Blake, too, places a high value on the pursuit of truth. After all, this is precisely what drives him to undertake
the project of documenting the story of the Moonstone. He is an author (or, rather, an editor) himself. Through his
coordination and compilation of the various narratives, he becomes an auxiliary to Collins. We are reminded of his
presence by the interjectory note he makes in Miss Clack's narrative, in which he says, "Nothing will be added,
altered, or removed," (212). In other words, though he is an editor, he is a hands-off editor; his influence and control
will not be felt. And yet, the reader can't help but think that even Mr. Blake, neutral as he claims to be, exerts an
obtrusive presence. In choosing who gets to speak and, more importantly, who doesn't (the most obvious omission
being Rachel Verinder), Blake plays a very powerful role in the construction of the narrative, one that no doubt affects
the way it is perceived by the reader.
All the same, Blake's project is carried out under a strict empiricism. As he explains to Mr. Betteredge, "the idea is
that we should all write the story of the Moonstone in turn—as far as our own personal experience extends, and no
further," (34). The hope, in limiting the scope of each narrative to what is directly experienced by the narrator, is to
avoid speculation and unreliability. This hope is so strong that Mr. Blake, in correspondence with Miss Clack, must
remind her, "She is requested to limit herself to her own individual experience of persons and events, as recorded in
her diary. Later discoveries she will be good enough to leave to the pens of those persons who can write in the
capacity of actual witness," (256). Blake hopes to achieve something approaching an objective perspective through
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the layering and piecing together of various subjective perspectives. He believes that the former is made up of the
latter (thus his repeated talk of the "Subjective" and "Objective" views when trying to solve the mystery of the
Moonstone). This method resembles the piecing together of a shattered mirror; through the gathering of disparate
reflections, a holistic, accurate picture will be formed.
The result, of course, is not quite so veracious as hoped. Though the narrators, for the most part, stay within the
bounds of their experience, it becomes clear that experience, and the documenting of experience, is not perfectly
reliable. This disconnect between truth and experience is demonstrated when Rachel Verinder says vehemently to
Mr. Blake, "I saw you take the Diamond with my own eyes!" (356). While Mr. Blake did, indeed, take the Diamond, he
is not the thief, or, at least, not the criminal. The presence of a psychoactive drug, opium (which Collins, himself, took
for medical reasons), serves to point out the imperfection of sensory experience and the idea that there are different
ways of perceiving the world and that one cannot necessarily be confirmed over another.
Furthermore, the idiosyncrasies, opinions, and deeply-ingrained prejudices of the characters make for a humorous
spectacle in which the solving of the mystery of the diamond takes twists and turns that a third-person, omniscient
narrator would not have taken. Gabriel Betteredge is warm and comfortable, though opinionated and, at times,
ignorant. The suspect nature of Betteredge's narrative is addressed when Mr. Blake says, "The picture presented of
me, by my old friend Betteredge…is (as I think) a little overdrawn. He has, in his own quaint way…persuaded himself
that he actually saw those French, German, and Italian sides to my character…which never had any real existence,
except in our good Betteredge's own brain," (305-6). Miss Clack is moralistic and didactic. Mr. Bruff is businesslike
and unimaginative. Ezra Jennings, in whom the reader has the most faith, is lonely, ostracized, and enigmatic; though
an outcast, he is not without prejudice. This is perhaps where the one disadvantage of Collins's narrative technique
lies. Forced to characterize his narrators through their voices, Collins creates characters that are caricatures and
exaggerations. Miss Clack is so much the righteous, dogmatic old maid. Ezra Jennings is so much the brilliant,
tortured mystery man. They often lack nuance and subtlety.
That being said, Wilkie Collins's fragmented chronicle of the Moonstone is overall a masterful study in narrative
technique and in point of view, calling to mind the efforts of William Faulkner and other literary modernists of half a
century later. By telling the story through the eyes of eight different narrators, Collins reveals the subjectivity and
relativity of knowledge. In that way, it is ahead of its time.
Work Cited
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. New York: New American Library, 2009. Print.
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Angelica Hicks, NJ
One of the enduring themes of Western civilization is the struggle between man and nature. Even today, the
knowledge of the harm humans have done to the Earth and its species does not stop the human race from engaging
in environmentally destructive behaviors. The notion that nature is ultimately more powerful than man is a prominent
message in many works of literature, including The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. In the novel, Wells describes
the invasion and eventual demise of a race of Martians; the destructive actions of the Martians, however, are
comparable to those of humans in 2010. The Martians' utter disregard for the Earth and its inhabitants mimics 21st
century humans' environmentally and ethically unsound habits. By establishing the ultimate victory of nature over the
Martians, Wells warns the current generation of its eventual susceptibility to nature's will.
Initially, Wells sets up a comparison between the invasion of the Martians and various exploits of the human race.
When the narrator says, "Before we judge of them [the Martians] too harshly we must remember what ruthless and
utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals," he immediately creates a connection between
the cruelty of the Martians and human cruelty (3). Moreover, he specifically references the human tendency to
annihilate creatures it considers to be "inferior animals" (3). This claim, that humans feel entitled to destroy creatures
of the Earth as it suits them, has significance today. Thousands of animals are on the endangered species list, mostly
as a result of human behavior. Poaching and the illegal pet trade remain a threat to endangered wildlife. Additionally,
millions of animals are slaughtered daily in factory farms across the world for the benefit of humans. The narrator
describes Martians' feeling that Earth creatures are "as alien and lowly…as monkeys and lemurs…to us" (3). Thus,
by comparing humans with the Martians, he acknowledges the presumption of the human race.
Likewise, Wells' description of the aliens' disregard for the environment on Earth parallels modern human impact on
the environment. The Martians use heat rays to incinerate obstacles (14) just as humans burn whole sections of the
rainforest to make room for farming. The Martians release a black poisonous gas that brings "death to all that
breathe" (54) into the atmosphere just as human overuse of vehicles and factories creates toxic smog in Tokyo.
Finally, Martians carry with them an invasive type of alien weed, called "red weed," that chokes the British
countryside (105); likewise, foreign weeds negatively affect ecosystems all over the world as a result of human
irresponsibility in transporting the plants. In the case of the environment, then, people today are as careless as the
Martians in Wells' novel, continuing the battle for control over nature.
However, the end of War of the Worlds reveals Wells' true message: that no matter how intelligent or clever a species
is, nature will always have dominion over it. The narrator finds the Martians on a hilltop dead from bacterial infection.
Though the aliens have advanced technology and weapons, they are unable to overcome simple bacteria, "the
humblest things that God…put upon this earth" (105). Moreover, the narrator asserts that the Martians were
"irrevocably doomed," and that their death was "inevitable" (106). Here, Wells reveals that humans, too, are ultimately
under the auspices of nature; no matter what technology humans develop, they will eventually, and inevitably, die.
That revelation is the culminating piece of Wells' work that is relevant to readers today; regardless of the methods of
transportation, economic plans, or farming systems man devises, he must eventually answer to nature's call to death.
H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is set one hundred years in the past, yet it applies to a current audience. The
novel continues to draw readers because its antagonists, creatures from another planet, share characteristics with
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the very humans reading the novel. Wells uses alien invasion to condemn the still-prominent issues of human cruelty
to other creatures and disrespect for the environment. In doing so, Wells creates the age-old, but still applicable,
theme of man versus nature- and nature wins.