Further Studies in Prose Final Assignment

Woman’s Subjectivity to Man’s Existence in George Orwell’s 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

Abstract

This essay will examine a novel, a fiction novel about politics life’s future from the writer George Orwell. The novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, obviously tells us about politics feature in Orwell’s mind by creating the fiction of it. However, in this essay, subjectivity and existence criticism theory will be used to analyze and examine the work which, I believe, has subjectivity issues especially related to the existentialism. In the novel the readers, whether conscious or not, have been forced to agree that men will always need women in their lives. This novel also shows that woman can change the man’s thought with her faith or with her power. The power that I mean is subjectivity. Subjectivity obviously influences people’s existences. For some people, subjectivity is easy to get and always inside them. However, for other people this subjectivity is difficult to get and even lost from their thought. Therefore, some people need other’s help to get their existences.

Key words: subjectivity, existence, existentialism

Introduction and Analysis

This novel tells that 1984 (setting of the story) was a terrible year for the residents of one city in the UK. This happened because of the unusual system of government that controlled on every citizen very strictly. On the other hand, the government seemed to limit the power of thought of all citizens by controlling them strictly and giving very hard punishment on anyone who rebelled. The main character in this novel is Winston. Winston is a thirty-six-year old man which was working for the government. At the beginning of the story, it was told that Winston was an ordinary man who could not rebel in the system administration. However, he was not known as a person who loved the government. He always looked moody and always thought about what was happening in his life and his country. This could be seen when Winston told about what he experienced that if he had written a true diary, it would have harmed him. In other words, Winston had no existence. In the middle of the story, the character of Winston turned into a bold man and began to change his life. I assume that Winston started to feel his existence that he was born and grown up. In addition, in the end of the story the character of Winston greatly changed because he did not feel his existence anymore. He could no longer think what he always thought about in the beginning of the story. In my opinion, the change of Winston’s character was connected to the role of female characters in the novel. One of the female characters in this novel is Julia. Julia is very influential figure in the birth of existence of Winston’s character. Therefore, I wrote this essay to examine how the existence of a person, especially a man can be constructed by a female subjectivity.

1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) is not only the work of novel genre made by George Orwell in his life. He wrote the novel in 1947-1948 and the novel was published in 1949. According to the data gathered by the free encyclopedia site:

As literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, Telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered everyday use since its publication in 1949. (Wikipedia)

As the site mentioned above, 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) is a dystopian science-fiction work which has the real fiction, doesn’t occur in the real life, and only happens in the writer’s mind or thought. Therefore many uncommon words are found in this novel. It can be said that it’s only the writer’s imagination and dream about damage future related to his real life in his era.

1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) is called as a dystopian work because it describes the undesirable future. However if that is true, regarding to my research it will much help me because: I can analyze whether subjectivity can still exist or not in the frightening imagined life and how the people in undesirable life can keep their subjectivity which is usually taken by their arbiter. In addition I can examine how other subjectivity can influence other existence based on this novel.

Knowing that the novel is a pure-fiction novel, I realize that the writer wanted to explore what would happen next if his thought were true. Furthermore, I realize that the characters in the novel are only fake characters and absolutely it did not happen. However what Orwell wrote in this novel shows us his high imagination. I do believe that what he wrote also is at least one of his experiences. Therefore, the issue of existentialism within subjectivity occurred in that time.

To discuss what I mentioned above, I have to look for the theory regarding my statement and I focus on existentialism, subjectivity, and power. The first thing I would like to introduce is existentialism theory especially from Jean Sartre in Philosophical Library. 444-451.

What they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the starting point.

From that sentence I think that the author wants to say that existence in human life is more than everything. Therefore, the theory says that existence goes before essense or the essense can not stand without existence. In addition, the  the existence or the real existence can be created by subjectivity. Subjectivity is the most important thing in the human’s life because without subjectivity, human does not have power to do. Thus happens because when someone has a power to do something (subjectivity) in his/her life, she/ he also can be recognized as the subject that many people know. However, many people do not realize that they have power. Therefore, their bodies are exists but they are actually not exist. This happens to the main character in the novel, Winston, who does not have existence in the beginning of the novel. Although he exists, he does not know what to do because he only lives following government’s command. This appears from the text:

He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.

For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

Those sentences describe us about Winston. Winston seems desperate and lost his existence. Although he has body, he does not have any sense to show that he is alive. Moving to next theory, I would like to introduce subjectivity theory especially from Donald E. Hall. This theory will make us understand what subjectivity is and also make clear what I will write in this paper.

Donald E. Hall described what subjectivity is by citing a work from Regenia Gagnier:

The term “subjectivity,” as Regenia Gagnier has argued in her incisive investigation of Victorian self-representation, can mean in critical parlance today many things simultaneously:

First, the subject is a subject to itself, an “I,” however difficult or even impossible it may be for others to understand this “I” from its own viewpoint, within its own experience. Simultaneously, the subject is a subject to, and of, others; in fact, it is often an “Other” to others, which also affects its sense of its own subjectivity. . . . Third, the subject is also a subject of knowledge, most familiarly perhaps of the discourse of social institutions that circumscribe its terms of being. Fourth, the subject is a body that is separate (except in the case of pregnant women) from other human bodies; and the body, and therefore the subject, is closely dependent upon its physical environment. (Gagnier 1991: 8)

(Hall, 2004)

The understanding that I can take from Gagnier’s explanation about subjectivity above is that: the first, a subject is not only for the subject him/herself but also for others and it means that when a person has a subjectivity, the subjectivity can be for other selves; the second, the subject can be an “Other”, I interpret this as a person who becomes strange, unknown, something that is other and this subject is also something which others can learn from, perhaps by analyzing or studying it; and the last, a subject is a body who has its own mind and a subject does not need any mediator to the body if it wants to be complete.

However, from this understanding, what becomes my concern from the previous theory is that a person subjectivity can be subjectivity others or one subjectivity can be a two-existence. That statement increasingly convinces me that someone can influence the existence of others or one's belief in him/her self can influence the belief other people against themselves. If I noticed the daily life, most people will argue that a person who can influence the lives is male. This occurs because of the assumption or understanding which believe that men are stronger and smarter than women. However, in this novel, that is not very visible nor even reversed it. The belief or understanding of female characters (subjectivity) in her self will affect the existence of male figure. This thought is proved by the text:

‘You’re hurt?’ he said.

‘It’s nothing. My arm. It’ll be alright in a second.’

She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had certainly turned very pale.

‘You haven’t broken anything.’

‘No, I’m alright. It hurt for a moment, that’s all.’

She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained some of her colour and appeared very much better. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

This conversation happens when Julia pretends crashing Winston because she only wants to give letter to Winston. This situation shows us how woman can be brave and have subjectivity. The subjectivity that I mean is the faith of her/his owns condition or the awareness of what going to do next in her/his life. In this novel, Julia believes in her thought and it is what I mean by subjectivity.

The influence from Julia is Winston’s change, which appears in the text:

Finally he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he could get her at a table by her self, somewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a sufficient buzz of conversation all round – if these condition endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few words. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

After receiveng Julia’s letter, writen ‘I Love You’, Winston starts to wake up. He even thinks about what he has to do next. In addition, he always makes a plan to get a way to meet Julia. He finally knows the certainty which has never comes into him. In addition, Julia faith runs to change Winston thought. This is the text related to it:

‘It’s this bloody thing that does it,’ she said, ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it onto a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. It was dark and shiny, and was wrapped in silver paper. Chocolate normally was dull-brown crumbly stuff that tasted, as nearly as one could describe it, like the smoke of a rubbish fire. But at some time or another he had tasted chocolate like the piece she had given him. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

Those sentences describe Julia’s habbitual action. On the other page of the novel, I also found:

Julia, in any case, seldom had an evening completely free. She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said; it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

This faith and certainty make Winston believes in his own thought and return or maybe bear the existence in his life. Therefore, Winston was sure to marry Julia. Whereas, at that moment, no one can choose what they want and what they believe. However, Winston is not afraid to rebel the government’s police. This occurs in the text:

He wished that he were a married walking through the streets with her just as they were doing now, but openly and without fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends for the household. (Goerge Orwell1984 : 1949)

The text in the novel above shows us how Winston acts differently from the first page because Winston can be a dreamer and free. He absolutely gets his existence without using his subjectivity but with using woman’s subjectivity. However, in the end of the novel, Winston loses his existence because his existence and Julia’s existence. Although Winston loses his existence, he at least has ever felt his once.

After analyzing the novel and the theory above, I finally agree with Toril Moi, who stands for the idea or theory about that. Therefore, the next theory is only about the dominance and power of woman and man.

For Millet, the essence of politics is power, and the task of feminist crtitics and theorists is to expose the way in which male dominance over females (which constitutes her simple and versatile definition of ‘patriarchy’) (Toril Moi: 1989)

When I read that sentence, I think many concepts that relate to our life because our life can be separated from the dominance and the person having power. In my opinion, the dominance happens because of the silence, which happens to Winston. In addition, the power comes to Julia, who is powerfull enough because he gets subjectivity in her heart and mind. Sometimes, we think that men always dominate women without thinking that women usually keep silent and let men do whatever they want. However women absolutely can dominate the men with their actions.

Conclusion

Upon finishing and examining this essay, I have proved myself that woman’s subjectivity can influence man’s existence by acting and throwing the silence. In addition, woman can change man’s life with her faith and certainty.

References

Hall, D. E. (2004). Subjectivity. New York: Routledge.

http://en.wikipedia

Moi, Toril. Feminist, Female, Feminine. Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism (1989): 117-132. Blackerell.

Orwell, George. (1990). 1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four). England: Penguin Books.

Sartre, Jean P. Existentialism. Philosophical Library. 444-451

Shakespeare's

There are many Shakespeare's writings, melting the readers including me myself. :)

Enjoy this sonnet, buddies...

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

World Wind

Millions of years ago, a baby of wind, whose birth had been eagerly awaited by his parents and the entire population of the wind village, was born. It was said that the wind baby could change the life of the wind village to be better. It was known from the characteristics of the mother when she was pregnant with the wind baby. Wind mother never complained, felt angry, or damaged anything when she was pregnant. whereas, it’s common or even becomes habit if a pregnant mother with the wind baby would damage the wind village.

So, when knowing that the mother was different, the father then questioned the wind king. However, the wind king unexpectedly cried and congratulated the father of the wind. The father was in confusion because he did not understand what the king meant. He then ventured to get an explanation. Unfortunately, the king was too touched to respond to the questions. The king went to his room.

The father went home with a big question. The question that should be answered and become clear even made him more confused. He then told his wife and the villagers what he had heard from the king of the wind. Hearing this, the villagers immediately cheered and rejoiced. Many of them even congratulate the young couple, the mother and the father of wind, directly. They also said that they rejoice in the birth of the baby. Besides, they would also keep the mother's pregnancy and waited for the wind baby’s birth.

Finally, on that day, the awaited baby was born. The residents of the wind village welcome the baby with full of emotion and joy. They believe that the baby would bring luck to them. So, on that day, the wind village was very crowded and full of light and joy. The villagers held a big party. The wind king was invited to welcome the baby. However, the king did not come. There were other reasons making him not able to get out of the palace. A palace guard said that the wind king were sick and crying.

Years passed, the baby grew up with love of his mother. However, the expectation of the villagers was like a pseudo thing or even disappeared by time. The wind baby grew into a weak child, wihtout any strength. In fact, the wind baby could not do anything. He was silent and could not play like the others . Paralyzed. He could smile only. His smile was only able to move one or two reeds, nothing more than that.

Every night, the wind mother cried. She felt very sorry for his son. Moreover, she felt helpless when the villager did not want to know her family anymore. Happiness and beauty of living in the world in his eyes vanished.

-to be continued

A response for listening to the poem ‘The World Is a Beautiful Place’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Rainfall

I don't, actually, know to write because I can't, actually, write. However, just now I've decided to begin, again, making a note. Well, making a note for all things that had begun in my life was a wrong thing if you know. But. But you don't even know a rising sun nor even look at the rainfall. Now, I am seeing the rainfall. It's too much to just imagine in your little brain. Rainfall. when I see them, I see your eyes there, that's why I just wanna see rainfall now.

The Waste Land

THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
by
T. S. Eliot

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up tbe hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur! — mon semblable, — mon frère!’

Soul

Zia was listening to his favourite song when his soul went out of his body again. He was hovering, seeing a lot of things he had never seen before. His soul was frantically looking for another soul around, looking in bushes, behind the moon, in the dark of night, at the end of the road, under the bridge, at the bus stop, in the rose garden, in empty buildings and in every place he had ever visited.

At that time, he also went to the hospital. He wished there was someone who could accompany him and chatted with him. Yet as usual, there was no soul that separated from the body. The soul of a man returned directly to his body with the end of a song he was listening to,.

She
She, oh she

He woke up. His soul had returned to his body again. He looked down, irritated against him who never knew what really happened. He looked down, wanted to shout that soul and body belong to him completely. "No one has the right for me, my body and soul" he said quietly, as quiet as turning clockwise when a doctor injected vaccination into the body. It was so quiet, as quiet as girls’ voice when they spoke to their boyfriend.

Zia always wanted to play back song that he had heard before. Maybe he had been playing the song in ten, hundred, even thousand of times before he went. He began to select and open the music folder in black colored laptop in his room. It’s not a peculiar thing that he began to push his buttons Click to playlist listed there. Then, after few minutes a song came.

She...

May be the face I can't forget

The trace of pleasure or regret

May be my treasure or the price I have to pay

She...

May be the song that summer sings

May be the chill that autumn brings

May be a hundred different things

Within the measure of a day

She...

May be the beauty or the beast

May be the famine or the feast

May turn each day into a heaven or a hell

She may be the mirror of my dreams

The smile reflected in a stream

She may not be what she may seem

Inside her shell

...

1984

This is only my point of view ^^

After reading the novel 1984 by George Orwell, there are a lot of questions in my minds. How not, I have to read the work of someone with such a wild thought. At the beginning of the story I feel fear. This kind of fear comes from the depiction of the narrator about the background and the plot of the novel. How can I not feel fear? In this kind of freewill era, free-speech and free thought, I have to think of the times where people can not argue or even think freely of their own volition. There are always people who control everything. Besides, they (Thought Police) keep watching on people by putting on telescreen in every corner of the room. Thus, when people think about something which is deviated from the ideology they profess, it emits telescreen. The ideology that they believe in, mentioned in the novel, is INGSOC (English Socialist). Chairman of this group is called Big Brother. It is because the telescreen always displays a post “Big Brother Is Watching You”. They display this writing in order that people are always scared and realize that there are always people who keep an eye on what they think. Nevertheless, the main character in this novel has another view. He wants to express what he thinks. Therefore, he writes a diary. In fact, at that time, writing activities is also prohibited. So, is it not worth if I feel scared when I read the beginning of the novel?

When I ask whether I like the novel 1984 or not, especially book 1 chapter 1-4, my answer is then both. On the one hand, I like the way the author of this novel imagines 1984 in which he himself had never experienced it so that there are a lot of the things that he exaggerated. However, those kinds of things make us interested. Besides, he also has a very wide and high imagination of the era. So that, the narrator that he created is so vivid and knows all things. The factor of narrator is what actually makes me confused because I think that the narrator knows everything that makes him want to tell us all parts of main character’s life. In addition, narrator also tells a few things or words that we don’t not know before.


This novel raises a political issue, especially about socialism. It is illustrated with the shared interests, not the individual interests. Individual interest is prohibited in this novel. This evidence comes from the telescreen mounted on each wall to determine the individual thoughts. This is done to prevent someone from being smarter than others, or being more powerful than others. The principle that they profess is that all people are the same; status, rights, and obligations. And if you compare it with this era, it is not likely to happen eventhough it might occur in 1984. Moreover, this novel also raises the dualism, the thought that puts the two sides, there is always a good thing in terms of bad things and it returns as well.