Irony In George Orwell's 1984

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Countless people throughout history have sought to create the perfect utopia, but all have failed. The people seeking to create these perfect societies instead created dystopias instead. Henceforth many authors have written about these failed and uprising dystopias. Authors like George Orwell have written books like 1984, to warn us of the upcoming problems our society might face with the new technology. So authors have resorted to using subtle literary techniques to raise awareness to the reader, one of them being irony. With irony authors give a deeper understanding of what is going on in their stories and helps create connections with the readers life. Through irony authors have given readers warnings on the potential danger that is to come…show more content…
Only the emotions of hatred, fear, and isolationism are left to dominate society. Winston Smith, the novel's hero, out-of-shape, not-so-attractive, middle-aged, and the novel's heroine Julia, is just hypocritical rebel. The last man left in the world (according to O’Brien) is a middle-aged man who cannot even stand the sight of rats. Big Brother and his propaganda are controlling the rest of society. The last man, Winston, represents the free thinkers in society, those who go against the rules to follow their beliefs. Orwell uses the irony of Winston’s body and age to show how anyone can be the rebel. Most importantly irony is embedded in the party slogan: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength”. The slogans that the party promotes is a great example of verbal irony, these slogans help direct the anger in the proles and everyone else to the war in Oceania. As long as the party is able to distill fear in people, and keep them from thinking the people will remain ignorant. The party believes if people are given the power to think for them, the party’s power will diminish and Oceania will perish. Orwell writes in the story because our society is like that. Our government hides information to prevent us from panicking, but who is it really helping” All it is doing is keeping us ignorant and renders us useless. That is why 1984 is seen as one of the greatest…show more content…
Nevertheless the ministry is filled with ironic ideas, starting with the most important one, doublespeak. The idea of believing to contradictory ideas and believing both of them are true. With double speak the ministry is able to distort and obfuscate reality and this is how the people fall subjects to the ministries fallacies. Orwell even goes as far as to even be ironic in the ministries titles, with, fabricating lies; the Ministry of Plenty causing shortages, the Ministry of Love specializes in torture; the Ministry of Truth; and the Ministry of Peace waging war. Even Winston’s job is ironic; one would think that the memory hole would be place of past memories and thoughts of the past. Instead the memory hole is used to dispose of documents and other items in an incinerator, but why is all this irony important? Orwell’s use of irony helps to create connections in the reader’s head. The people reading the novel will notice some obvious uses of irony and help for his ideas of dystopia to be distilled on to the reader. If Orwell were to write a story where he blankly states by dystopia is negative, people would feel as if they are being obligated. Instead he uses irony to help convey his message about irony to the reader without them
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