George Orwell, the author of Nineteen Eighty Four, uses various motifs to help him convey his message. Orwell gives one particular simple household article symbolic significance, in order to develop a theme which is important to him. The specific object which Orwell uses as a motif, is a beautiful glass paperweight. For the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, this paperweight represents both beauty without purpose, as well as ongoing hope for the reclamation of his happier, liberated past, and a future without submission to totalitarianism.Through the use of the paperweight as a motif, Orwell is able to convey his grave concerns about life under authoritarian rule.
Despite it violating the rules of the Party, Winston purchases a paperweight …show more content…
There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the color and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.” (Orwell, 98). Owning this paperweight is particularly appealing to a disillusioned Winston, as it runs contrary to the principles of his government. First, Winston enjoys the paperweight as it represents beauty largely without function.Winston states, “The thing was doubly attractive because of its apparent uselessness” (98). In life before the Party took over, people were able to enjoy things for the pure pleasure of them. However, after the Party took charge, the Party leader, Big Brother, disallowed pleasure that was not linked to function. This is likely because it encourages what the Party believes is an indulgent lifestyle, individualism and natural selfishness. Furthermore, to the Party, “anything old, and for that matter, anything beautiful, was always vaguely suspect” (98). In its goal of complete erasure of the past, the Party destroyed most antiques, and nearly all objects of beauty. …show more content…
The more Winston learns of the past, the more fascinated he becomes by it. An example of his quest for historical knowledge is evident when Winston questions a prole, “Was life better before the revolution than it is now?” (95). Over time, Winston comes to believe that life before the Party was much better than life under the present totalitarian rule. Given this perspective, Winston seeks to reclaim any and all aspects of his prior life. The Party, however, wishes to remove all memory of life before its rule, by means of the destruction or revision of literature, execution of those who remember the past, the enforcement of Party-approved thoughts by the Thought Police, and the policy of doublethink. In removing memories of the past, the Party aims to control this society’s image of the present. Thus, the paperweight being an antique, is a symbol of the past. It allows Winston to daydream about that past, theoretically undetected by the Thought Police. As he gazes into the paperweight, Winston thinks, “Once inside [that glassy world] time could be arrested” (155). Thus, the paperweight symbolizes for Winston, mysterious and beautiful past that would be frozen for him, in