Cattle

This is a piece I wrote for my 12th-grade English class, I had to choose a theme from the book of my choice, which is 1984, and write a theme statement about it, warning you while your ahead. This contains spoilers from the book 1984 and the video game Bioshock. you have been warned.

A major theme in 1984 is giving into the system of things. George Orwell does such a fantastic job creating this believable world that I could see happening. Winston, the protagonist, believes something is wrong with the system and isn’t for the hating and total control of things. He believes that people should be free and not so ruthlessly and tortured into believing in their system, “Big Brother”. Winston gets caught in lies and betrayals throughout his adventure, it isn’t happy and unfortunately, it never will be.

Winston tracks, hunts, and fights for what he believes in but every time he gets closer he gets pushed two steps back. Getting sucked into the madness which is Big Brother. They control everything to the newspaper, television, books, radio and much more. With that type of repetitive hate speak there will never be a second without thinking “what if they’re right” even if you don’t want to believe it, they will make you. They own everything, which means that can’t do anything. In the newspapers, old books, or even movies they would change the past to coincide with the present, to make us feel like they were right about everything that they have ever done. “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past” (page 35), this is a strong quote from the book and it has every right to be. Winston struggles to be different in a world that’s one way. He is the lady with the hammer in the old macintosh commercial. The rebel. But as with most Orwell books, he always leaves his reader in sadden grayness. Winston just can’t keep fighting the current if he ends up in the middle of the ocean every time.
“Would you kindly” is a quote from a very similar genre but from the video game Bioshock. It reveals a lot about men and how far they will go when one person just says one simple command. What big brother says you do right? That is the order of things and when Winston mess with that order “they” don’t like it very much. I felt like it was a great support for the project to add it and for people who played the game they will know exactly what it means.

“If you want a picture of the future imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever” (page 215) is one,I feel, tells itself. If the future is as dark as someone stamping me in the face with a boot forever then that future must be filled with a lot of control and less human. In a world with no free though it’s hard to be human. Winston struggles attracting away from this but there is just no escape and he gave in. There is no point of return. Once you first see yourself as just cattle, it would be too late to do anything about.