Winston's introductory display of unorthodoxy in "1984" is writing in a diary. This is incredibly dangerous, if the Thought Police found out he would be sent to the Ministry of Love immediately to be tortured and killed. At one point he writes about a trip to the movies "...then the helicopter dropped a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went up like matchwood. then there was a wonderful shot of a childs arm going up up up... but a woman in the prole part of the house suddenly suddenly started kicking up a fuss... nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never ---" (9)
Quote: I chose this quote because it is horrible. It's all the more horrible because of the way that Winston talks about it. He says that a disembodied child's arm is "wonderful." This quote is an introduction to the kind of social warping that has occurred even in our protagonist.
Analysis: This is a jarring quote, due to characterization and dialogue. The grammar is intentionally missing as is capitalization, reflecting the hurried, stream-of-thought way that Winston was writing. Also the indirect characterization is well done. A character is a different perspective so when you write for him as an author, you can use the way the character views things to show the character's personality and beliefs. In this case Orwell shows that Winston has been totally desensitized to the horrific violence, and goes as far as to reproach someone who objected to its being played in a public theater. This is eerily similar to the way we glorify violence today. Games like Ninja Gaiden and Gears of War are praised for their copious gore and violence. People love action movies, the premises of which are almost always person vs. more people, all of whom have big guns. This is not the way that society behaved when Orwell was writing, either. If you showed a kid from the '50s an action movie like ours they would be mortified. The steady progression towards the reality that Orwell predicted is unsettling, and I think that a lot could be gained from some introspection on this problem.
Quote: I chose this quote because it is horrible. It's all the more horrible because of the way that Winston talks about it. He says that a disembodied child's arm is "wonderful." This quote is an introduction to the kind of social warping that has occurred even in our protagonist.
Analysis: This is a jarring quote, due to characterization and dialogue. The grammar is intentionally missing as is capitalization, reflecting the hurried, stream-of-thought way that Winston was writing. Also the indirect characterization is well done. A character is a different perspective so when you write for him as an author, you can use the way the character views things to show the character's personality and beliefs. In this case Orwell shows that Winston has been totally desensitized to the horrific violence, and goes as far as to reproach someone who objected to its being played in a public theater. This is eerily similar to the way we glorify violence today. Games like Ninja Gaiden and Gears of War are praised for their copious gore and violence. People love action movies, the premises of which are almost always person vs. more people, all of whom have big guns. This is not the way that society behaved when Orwell was writing, either. If you showed a kid from the '50s an action movie like ours they would be mortified. The steady progression towards the reality that Orwell predicted is unsettling, and I think that a lot could be gained from some introspection on this problem.
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