Artificial Traditions

In both 1984 as well as other dystopian novels, I’ve noticed that—in the context of a person vs. society narrative—the protagonists always seem to have a disdain for the society’s artificial traditions, bland community events, etc. Even in Brave New World, we saw characters go through this (e.g., Lenina, Bernard, etc.), but they eventually faded into obscurity as John became the “main” character. 

But for 1984 in particular, this rejection of the community seems to be especially important. In other novels like Brave New World, the worst punishment is being sent off to an island, and even then, it wasn’t like your thoughts would be monitored. However, for people that aren’t proles, “thoughtcrime” is more of a danger in the world of 1984 than it is in other dystopian novels (e.g., Divergent, The Hunger Games, etc.), and these kinds of community events are necessary in order to snuff out any possible deviation. 

In this manner, Winston is clearly the focal point—the protagonist throughout the novel, and Orwell does a great job pitting him against artificial traditions like the Two Minutes Hate. Going off of this, my interactive discussion questions are as follows: How do such traditions compare to those in Brave New World? How does Winston compare to protagonists in other dystopian novels? What similarities and differences do you see shown in the traditions, events, etc. of 1984 as opposed to other dystopian novels? What is the significance of this? 

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Comments

  1. L. MoffittFebruary 8, 2021 at 9:34 AM

    Two Minutes Hate and the weird Ford Day rituals seem like two sides of the same coin. While one is about rage and the other about sex, in both people are being made to channel their strong emotions in a state-sanctioned way as a group -- which ultimately conditions and controls them.

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  2. Sam K.February 8, 2021 at 9:45 AM

    I compare the tradition of the Two Minutes Hate to the soma-worship in BNW. Soma entirely replaced religion to the point where people were celebrating and adoring it as they would today with any other religion. In 1984, I feel that there is a much more serious involvement in being an active member of the society. In BNW, characters could openly display their disgust or refusal for a particular event, only having minor repercussions, whereas in 1984, any refusal of an event, in privacy or in public, is met with death.

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  3. Prithika RaviFebruary 8, 2021 at 10:36 AM

    I definitely think Winston is very to a lot of protagonists in that he often internally struggles with his beliefs-- it's hard not to when the Party's beliefs or the Ford's beliefs are being shoved down your throat. All the events are extremely manipulative but they're packaged very artificially in that they say it's for the good for the people, to maintain stability in the society. I would say that one thing I found really interesting about the Two Minutes Hate is that it focused on one person: Goldstein. I'm sure many people throughout history tried doing what he did, but it's so much easier to assign one person the blame and disdain for something, to make one person the scapegoat or the face of an idea. This has been a manipulative practice that we see in real life too-- we see it in the age of the Red scare, WWII, the Civil Rights movement. It's a lot easier to hate an idea or support it if there's a face assigned to it.

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