1984-Vulnerability-Assignment PDF

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Year 12 HSC Common Module essay, Rank 11 NSW Selective High School...

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Damien Wong

1984 Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, distinctly enhances our understanding of human vulnerability through exploring the fragility of human rationality which can be eradicated by a tyrannical government that induces feelings of overwhelming fear and powerlessness. Orwell also affirms this vulnerability through his grim representation of the total obliteration of those who attempt to maintain personal autonomy. Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 short story Harrison Bergeron mirrors the Orwellian representation of political oppression through presenting a futuristic world which rigidly enforces conformity, denying individuals the intellectual capacity to exercise control over their lives. Both texts provide new insights into human vulnerability by portraying the extreme effects of adverse human experiences when the rational ability to determine personal lives is destroyed by totalitarian regimes. In his bitterly satirical novel, Nineteen-Eighty Four, Orwell's bleak representation of a futuristic world in which humanity has surrendered its rational and autonomous capacity, affirms that the collective vulnerability of humanity is reflected in its powerlessness to resist tyrannical oppression. Written after the Second World War as a reaction to the repressive ideologies of Nazism and Stalinism, the narrative presents the vulnerability of humans when dictators gain absolute power. His use of a futuristic dystopian setting defined by "vistas of rotting 19th century houses", juxtaposed with the "huge, terrible, glittering" structures of Ministries, act as visual symbols which foreground the frightening power dynamics between disempowered people and their subservience to the power tyrannical authority. Similarly, the paradoxical slogans "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" which subvert accepted aphorisms, enable Orwell to challenge our assumptions of rationality through accentuating the Party's ability to distort logical thought. This debasement of an inherent aspect of the human intellectual capacity creates the understanding that experiences of powerlessness embody the

Damien Wong fragility of humanity. Orwell reinforces the lack of personal control through the repetition of the ominous warning "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING", which together with Winston's personal reflection, "The smallest thing could give you away" provides provocative insights into the power of tyrannical regimes to force humanity into unquestioning compliance through intimidation. In addition to intimidation, Orwell's representation of the psychological manipulation which leads to unrestrained hysteria is viscerally presented in the Two Minutes Hate. Winston's stream of consciousness reflection "turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic" affirms the obliteration of rational thought. Thus, Orwell enhances our awareness that humanity is frail and its vulnerability to intimidation and psychological manipulation enables extreme totalitarian regimes to enslave it to their will. Furthermore, by presenting an individual who determinedly yet futilely seeks to maintain a vision of a world in which personal lives are possible, Orwell provides insights into the anomalies and inconsistencies which embody human flaws. By extrapolating on the ruthless extermination of state enemies by both Hitler and Stalin, Orwell raises questions regarding the emotional and rational capacity of individuals to maintain their moral convictions. His characterisation of Winston as the anti-hero whose physical frailty is counterpointed with his strong moral conviction, as embodied in his paradoxical statement, "some kinds of failure are better than other kinds", provides insight into the Orwellian vision of individuals who represent the anomalies which courageously undermine tyrannical regimes. Hence, Winston's determination to experience love through his relationship with Julia is not only an expression of his human yearning for sustaining emotions, but an embodiment of his personal responsibility to metaphorically "strike a blow against the Party" and its absolute power. This provokes a reassuring recognition that humanity possesses the moral courage to act on personal beliefs. However, Orwell undermines this positive representation of behaviour that is anomalous to the collective subservience of the population, by presenting the ultimate triumph of authority in obliterating Winston's unorthodoxy. Through the dialogic structure of the final chapters he presents O'Brien as the black face of tyranny and

Damien Wong his dominant voice as he brutally asserts, "We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him", making us cognisant of the grim reality of human vulnerability. The graphic metaphor, "there was a large patch of emptiness … (that) each suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up" evokes a recognition of the fragility of the human spirit and its malleability when confronted with both physical and emotional brutalisation. Hence, Winston's hysterical repetitions "Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia" not only affirms the inconsistencies that define human behaviours, but also humanity's vulnerability to extreme and ruthless power. Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 short story, Harrison Bergeron affirms the Orwellian representation of human powerlessness when totalitarian regimes enforce complete and unthinking submission. Written at the time of the Cold War and alluding to the Marxist-Lenin ideology of Communist Russia which eradicated personal autonomy, the narrative offers insights into human vulnerability when state-enforced conformity strips individuals of the power to determine their lives. Like Orwell, Vonnegut uses a dystopian future setting of 2081 and the bland opening statement, "everybody was finally equal" to foreshadow the repercussions of an authoritarian eradication of human differences through technology. The anaphora "nobody was smarter … nobody was better looking … nobody was stronger or quicker" deliberately subverts the utopian ideal of equality to provoke an appraisal of the vulnerability of individuals when governments advocate conformity. His characterisation of George Bergeron as representative of an intelligent individual whose experiences of normality have been eradicated by a "mental handicap radio in his ear" which "was tuned to a government transmitter" reiterates Orwell's representation of the constant surveillance and psychological manipulation which reduced humanity to unthinking submission. Like the orthodoxy that defines such compliance in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Vonnegut represents the destruction of rational thought through George's assertion, "other people'd get away with it and pretty soon we'd be right back to the Dark Ages" - his ironic acceptance that noncompliance would result in the destruction of civilisation, making us aware of the frailty of man's ability

Damien Wong to rationally appraise his loss of autonomy. Finally, as the anomaly to such submission, Vonnegut portrays Harrison Bergeron whose resistance to this forced mediocrity is a defiant stripping off the handicaps that he has been forced to wear. The darkly comic image of "Clanking, clownish and huge Harrison" and the simile, "Harrison tore the straps of the handicap like wet tissue" provide us insights into the determination of individuals to define the quality of their lives. However this experience of liberation is represented as transitory and futile. The juxtaposition of the metaphor "neutralising gravity with love and pure will", with the brutal statement "were dead before they hit the floor" reiterates our understanding of Orwell's grim representation of the fragility of humanity when both rationality and autonomy can be easily eradicated. Therefore, the representations of a grim future by both Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Vonnegut in Harrison Bergeron are significant in enhancing our understanding that as humans we are extremely vulnerable to absolute power exercised by tyrannical regimes. They offer us a vision of the ease with which our autonomy and rationality can be obliterated by dictators who employ fear, psychological manipulation and force to subjugate our will and to shape our experiences of powerlessness....