Question for homework: 'A strong wilful character is a key component in any text'. Discuss in relation to the texts you have studied. (Literary Genre) Your homework (for Thursday) is to PLAN out what you hope to discuss in relation to 1984 and CM AND write the introduction an first paragraph of your answer. Before you set out to write your comparative you need to have a clear idea of what you want to discuss. Before you write anything you should make a table of what points you wish to discuss: (obviously in relation to the question you are asked - ie: the example below is about 'Theme/Issue') THEME - Control
How you go about actually writing/structuring your answerIntertwined Jumper VS Striped JumperOnce you have a general plan of the topics you want to discuss in relation to 1984 and CM you need to further organise these into paragraphs. For instance, if you are going to discuss the use of propaganda as a mean of control then discuss how propaganda is implemented in both (or in the three) texts at the same time.
The Striped Jumper method is fine when it comes to discussing poems by an individual poet but for the comparative you need to intertwine each text and link them up so it cannot be easily separated into an individual essay. Look at the STRIPED JUMPER above and pretend that the black part is 1984 and the white part is CM (each part represents a paragraph. You can see that both texts are 'discussed' but they can be easily separated into a black pile and a white pile. Now look at the INTERTWINED JUMPER if blue is 1984 and red is CM how easy do you think it would be to separate the wool and make two piles of the same coloured wool? They are blended in so seamlessly that it would be very difficult and tedious to take this jumper apart. This is how your comparative essay should be. You need to identify similar (or opposite) topics that crop up in both texts and discuss them within the same paragraph. An example of this would be: When we are introduced to Winston's workplace, the ironically named Ministry of Truth, its physical presence is a powerful symbol of the authority and control that the government has over its citizens. It is an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete rising 300 metres into the air, containing over 3000 rooms above ground. Similarly in CM the visual impact of government buildings adds to the air of authority that the government has over the people. As Theo makes his excursion into the wealthy section of London, the skyline is a overpowering mass of white concrete buildings - the sheer size of the buildings as Theo exits the his car is purposefully emphasised to suggest power and control. In both 1984 and CM these buildings play an important role in emphasising the fact that the government is not only a powerful force to be reckoned with, but also demonstrates the physical nature of the control and authority. Its shows that the government has a base an is firmly cemented into the furniture of society. In 1984 the Ministries seek to control everything from what the people read to what they eat. Individualism is strictly forbidden and deviation from what the authorities provide is illegal and could result in the person being 'vaporised'. This vigorous appetite for control is also evident in CM, illustrated in the fact that Theo has to lie to his relative in order to secure transit papers for Kee. To be continued....(hope this helps a little)
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This chapter is full of details about Winston's work life: from the speakwrite, a contraption into which Winston speaks the articles that will be later written (speaking and writing here considered opposites), to the memory holes in which "records" are thrown, not to be remembered and documented, but to be destroyed. The reader should note that Orwell consistently names items, processes, and events antithetically to their intents, results, and purposes and thereby makes Winston's world more terrible and frightening. The function of the Ministry of Truth, for example, is to create lies; the function of the Ministry of Peace is to wage war.
Here the reader gets the full detail of Winston's work and a better view into the political system of his society. He is engaged in forging the past into something palatable to the Party's ideology: Big Brother is never wrong, heroes are those who put their own lives aside for the Party's benefit, and goods are always manufactured at a quantity beyond what is expected. Of course, none of it is true, and so follows Winston's question, haunting him throughout the book: If a fact only exists in your memory, and yours alone, what proof is there that it really happened at all? Captain Ogilvy – What does the creation of this ‘comrade’ tell us about CONTROL in 1984? “It struck him as curious that you could create dead men but not living ones. Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar.” – George Orwell (1984) In chapter IV Orwell introduces us to Winston’s role in the Ministry of Truth. Winston must alter the record of a speech made in December 1983, which referred to Comrade Withers, one of Big Brother’s former officials who has since been vaporized. Since Comrade Withers was executed as an enemy of the Party, it is unacceptable to have a document on file praising him as a loyal Party member. Winston invents a person named Comrade Ogilvy and substitutes him for Comrade Withers in the records. Comrade Ogilvy, though a product of Winston’s imagination, is an ideal Party man, opposed to sex and suspicious of everyone. Comrade Withers has become an “unperson:” he has ceased to exist. Watching a man named Comrade Tillotson in the cubicle across the way, Winston reflects on the activity in the Ministry of Truth, where thousands of workers correct the flow of history to make it match party ideology, and churn out endless drivel—even pornography—to pacify the brutally destitute proletariat. Winston’s life at work in the sprawling Ministry of Truth illustrates the world of the Party in operation—calculated propaganda, altered records, revised history—and demonstrates the effects of such deleterious mechanisms on Winston’s mind. The idea of doublethink—explained in Chapter III as the ability to believe and disbelieve simultaneously in the same idea, or to believe in two contradictory ideas simultaneously—provides the psychological key to the Party’s control of the past. Doublethink allows the citizens under Party control to accept slogans like “War is peace” and “Freedom is slavery,” and enables the workers at the Ministry of Truth to believe in the false versions of the records that they themselves have altered. With the belief of the workers, the records become functionally true. Winston struggles under the weight of this oppressive machinery, and yearns to be able to trust his own memory. Accompanying the psychological aspect of the Party’s oppression is the physical aspect. Winston realizes that his own nervous system has become his archenemy. The condition of being constantly monitored and having to repress every feeling and instinct forces Winston to maintain self-control at all costs; even a facial twitch suggesting struggle could lead to arrest |
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