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Because Orwell uses so many different humbly like: the red-armed propel woman, the paperweight and SST. Clement Church, and Emanuel Goldstein, the readers have an easier time connecting his messages he is trying to send together. Symbolisms within common items or characters in the book allow Orwell to convey images of how threatening a Totalitarian government can be directly to the minds of the readers. These symbols also allow the readers to get closer to the third person narrator of the book, Winston. Through the use of these symbols that all commonly result in the loss of hope, Orwell is able to also use Wayne
C. Booth’s ideas to become “the implied author” giving him “less distance from the reader” by communicating his ideas through the voice of Winston (The Rhetoric of Fiction 155). By introducing the red-armed propel woman into the plot, Orwell is able to give Winston and the readers a sense of hope that freedom still exists. The awareness of a sense of hope that freedom still exists is important to Winston and the readers because without it, Winston has nothing left to fight for; the Party has ultimately won.
The red-armed propel woman symbolizes freedom through her song. The readers are first introduced to this woman as being “a monstrous woman, solid as a Norman pillar, with brawny red forearms and a sacking apron strapped about her middle” (Orwell 140). The woman was especially interesting to Winston because she “sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound” (Orwell 141). The woman sang a song that was written for the proves. Winston has always believed that “If there is hope it lies in the proves. ” (Orwell 71).
All hope in overthrowing the Party and creating a better future lies within the proves because they constitute over 80% of the population. The red-armed propel woman also serves as a symbol for hope because Winston and Julia see her ability to reproduce. Because she can reproduce, it is possible for her to essentially create a generation to overthrow the Party. At the very end of book two, like most symbols in this novel, our hope is destroyed. As soon as Winston and Julia are found out in the room above the shop, “The woman’s singing has stopped abruptly’ and Winston and Julia hear her cry out “in a yell of pain. (Orwell 228). From this it is as if the reader’s vision of everything being k in the end due to the proves has been shot down. The birds sang, the proves sang, the Party did not sing. ” (Orwell 227). All the hope is gone now, but no surprise there. Emmanuel Goldstein is “the Enemy of the people” (Orwell 12) Party due to the fact that he “had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counterrevolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared” (Orwell 12).
Within the novel, Goldstein symbolizes different things to different people in the book. For Winston, Goldstein represents a sense of hope that here is still a possibility that someone out there “in some hiding place in Oceania itself” (Orwell 12) who could lead the proves in overthrowing the Party. Goldstein organization of The Brotherhood is so secretive that “Goldstein himself, if he fell into the hands of the thought police, could not give them a complete list of members,” (Orwell 179).
The fact that Goldstein is in charge of this organization that could very possibly overthrow the Party inspires Winston and terrifies the Party. For the Party, Goldstein represents a symbol of destruction. He is someone who defied the party and they know it. Goldstein also servers as a scapegoat for the Party; whenever something goes wrong, the Party blames it on Goldstein. At the end of the novel the true existence of Emmanuel Goldstein is questioned when Winston questions if “there is such a person as Goldstein” and the O’Brien responds miss, there is such a person, and he is alive” (Orwell 175.
This leaves readers disappointed again due to the fact that O’Brien turns on Winston leaving everything he said a lie, so the readers are unsure weather or not he made Goldstein existence up. The symbol of Goldstein being hope for rebellion against the Party is now destroyed for tooth Winston and the readers because of the fact that Winston is being held in The Ministry of Love by the person he trusted in that rebellion. The paperweight and SST. Clement Church are objects in the novel that symbolize remnants of the past.
They show the readers how the Party has taken over so much of their minds that these objects no longer have any role in reality Just because the Party cannot control their history. They serve, as symbols of hope for Winston, because the coral inside one of the paperweights shows that there is some form of the past that the government Anton change due to the fact that it is embedded within thick glass. Winston refers to the paperweight as “a beautiful thing” and the shop owner, Mr..
Charting replies that “there’s not many that’d say so nowadays” (Orwell 98), referring to the fact that the majority of the population has been brain washed by the Party. At the end of part two of the novel, when the thought police come to take Winston and Julia away “Someone had picked up the glass paperweight form the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearthstone. ” (Orwell 229), the paperweight smashes into thousands of ices, concurrently smashing Winston hope of connecting with past.
Yet again a symbol that gave Winston hope was destroyed by the Party. The old picture of SST. Clement Church is also reflective of the past because it shows that there were historical buildings before the Party brainwashed everyone into thinking differently. When the picture falls “to the floor, uncovering the telescopes behind it. ” (Orwell 227) Winston and Julia know that they have been figured out. This is Just another example of how the Party crushes any symbol of hope; they trapped them by using something that Winston believed in.
Winston and Julia believed in the picture because it revealed the past, but it really only revealed Winston and Cilia’s future of torture at The Ministry of Love. Using symbols within the novel helps the reader connect with author’s message into the minds of the readers. Orwell successfully uses techniques described in Booth’s essay by connecting his ideas through Winston. Because the readers know that Orwell is very passionate about this type of stuff, the ideas in which he portrays through Winston are more believable, which further shows the amount of distance between the author and his narrator.
Orwell also incorporates Carver’s ideas of being a unique writer, not Just a writer with skill (because all writers have skill) by creating such a dyspepsia and making it perfectly believable. Works Cited Booth, Wayne C. “The Rhetoric of Fiction. ” The University of Chicago Press. Toronto, Canada: University of Chicago, 1961. 149-65. Print. Carver, Raymond. “On Writing. ” The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 6th deed. Boston: Ann Charters, 2003. 1606-610. Print. Orwell, George, Thomas Poncho, and Erich From. Nineteen Eighty-four: A Novel. New York: Plume, 2003. Print.