Essay Database

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale are both novels in which the state, namely Oceania and Gilead, attempts to exert totalitarian control over the lives of its peoples. Through Orwell and Atwood's subsequent portrayal on the ensuing dystopias we are clearly able to see the respective states desire to control love and emotion, which are considered undesirable distractions, as a means of achieving the totalitarian control that they so desire. …

…the world was far uglier and harsher before the Party came to power. Winston vaguely understands this principle. He struggles to recover his own memories and formulate a larger picture of what has happened to the world. Winston buys a paperweight in an antique store in the prole district that comes to symbolize his attempt to reconnect with the past. Symbolically, when the Thought Police arrest Winston at last, the paperweight shatters on the floor.