No way, I legit did the same one last year. Here's my essay for it, maybe it can help you.
ANALYTICAL ESSAY – PART 1
George Orwell’s
‘1984’, and Steven Conrad’s
‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ both highlight the complex nature of being happy in an oppressive world by providing insight into common human experiences which have the power to shape our existence. Both texts seek to challenge stereotypical assumptions about the lower class and in doing so create cautionary tales that allow for the responder to view the world differently in a way in which allows them to re-consider stereotypical perceptions of both people and society. This opportunity for a different vision is offered through the ways in which composers seek to expose the reality – of the living conditions of lower-class citizens – that is often concealed from the eyes of the public.
Both
1984 and
The Pursuit of Happyness find a sense of connectedness through their ability to employ their respective protagonists as vehicles for an exploration of the effect of challenging the assumptions, values and attitudes of their individual, social and personal contexts in their personal pursuit of happiness. In
1984 a challenging of assumptions is offered through the experiences of Winston Smith whose relationship with Julia represents a covert rebellion of the ideologies of Big Brother. Orwell explores and challenges stereotypical assumptions of overly intrusive and heavy-handed governments. He does this by highlighting INGSOC’s great power over the general public and by providing insight into the helplessness and powerlessness of those people. The love between Winston and Julia was thought of as a political act, “a blow struck against the Party,” and “a real love affair was an unthinkable event.” Evidently, the inner party’s vulgar view on love and belongingness places their beliefs at the basic level of needs in accordance to Maslow’s hierarchy, a five-tier model of human needs often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. When Winston receives the note from Julia with the simple words “I Love You” he is “too stunned even to throw the incriminating thing into the memory hole”. The connotations of the high modality word “incriminating” set the tone for the oppressive, totalitarian world in which Winston lives in where the simple act of love can incriminate an individual. Winston’s reaction to Julia’s declaration of love also seeks to foreshadow the magnitude of Winston’s future actions when he decides to challenge the doctrines of Big Brother and establish a physical relationship with Julia. The horrific ramifications of Winston’s decision to engage in the innately human experience of love, are shown in the descriptions of torture in Room 101 where he is subjected to his greatest fear, rats. Before having the threat of rats tearing into his face, Winston was tortured, starved, and bashed. O’Brien says “You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world;” and that is, of course, our worst fears. These descriptions of torture and the worst of human behaviour allow readers to see Winston’s experience as a metaphor for a lack of compliance with authority, and as such this exposes to the reader the reality that is often concealed from the eyes of the public, that being the ways in which knowledge of the individual is used as a means of control.
It is through Winston’s experiences that we, as an audience, are able to recognise the sense of oppression and control political regimes can have over an individual. These same sentiments are also explored in
The Pursuit of Happyness where the protagonist Chris Gardner attempts to survive in a world of inconsistencies – such as him becoming able to pay his due bills only to fall off track again into debt – that prevent him from experiencing happiness until he secures a job at a brokerage firm. The film allows the reader to truly see the life of a man fighting poverty and homelessness – a life worse than most expectations – by explicitly basing it on the early life of American businessman, Christopher Paul Gardner, who overcame famine, poverty and homelessness to create a better life for himself and his son, further challenging the status quo of homeless people unable to get a job. The true story of Christopher Paul Gardner’s struggle to success presents an anomaly of human behaviour as he challenges the stereotypes and expectations of a homeless man living in poverty by striving for happiness as well as financial stability despite the adversities he encounters. A rich example of the effect of Chris’s oppressive world is shown in the scene in which Chris is crying on a bus (00:31:30) after learning his wife, Linda, was taking his son away from him. Conrad used a close-up shot to clearly show Chris’s depressing facial expressions during his emotional breakdown after properly comprehending that his son was gone. The hopelessness of a parent losing their child is something that most responders have never experienced; and so they are enabled to view the world differently, by gaining insight into an experience that is normally hidden. Conrad targets the emotions of the audience with this scene and uses melancholy background music to aid in stimulating feelings of sympathy in the audience – allowing for them to fathom the hardship Chris experiences in his pursuit for happiness. Consequently, this creates an opportunity for the viewer to accept a new perspective on the immense difficulty of living as part of the lower socioeconomic class, particularly as a homeless person.
Winston Smith is characterised to represent the famous war leader and successful Prime Minister of Britain, Sir Winston Churchill – who led Britain to victory in the Second World War. Orwell has chosen this name for his protagonist character as it evokes an idea of resistance and the fighting back of an oppressive regime (INGSOC) by giving Smith the same qualities as Churchill since Churchill had chosen to fight back against Hitler and the Nazi’s rather than negotiate. Orwell did this to set a cautionary tone early on in the novel so as to warn his audience of powerful authorities – such as current governments – and their ability in preventing individuals from feeling independent and having freedom of thought; ultimately connecting them to the notion of human experience. Orwell then made an explicit historical allusion to the former supreme ruler of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin – through the character Big Brother by giving him similar attributes, ideologies and physical features. He is described in Chapter 1, “…a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.” He did this to allow the reader to reflect on past events – such as Stalin’s “Great Purge” which was a campaign of political repression – and consequently, view the world differently as they become aware of the consistency in gradual dehumanisation over the years. Orwell is extremely pessimistic of the future dwelling on problems, holding grudges and refusing to let things go. As well as being pessimistic Orwell reflects his despondent beliefs by sharing Winston’s anecdote of the unsuccessful pursuit of happiness – to caution his audience. This is felt through his language particularly when Winston submits to INGSOC’s power, “He accepted everything… He hardly knew why he had ever rebelled:” where he fails to achieve happiness. Conrad, on the other hand, is optimistic and uses a true story to caution his audience of the oppressive world we live in and inspire them to oppose the status quo. Conrad allows the viewers to see the world differently by exposing them to the harrowing living circumstances Chris Gardener had to experience in his pursuit of happiness. An example of this is the scene in which Chris and Christopher are at a subway station pretending a portable bone density scanner is a time machine, allowing for at least young Christopher to partially get his mind off the fact that they were sleeping in a public restroom. This human experience moves the audience emotionally, and as a consequence challenges their predetermined assumptions of living – and more importantly, being happy – in an oppressive world.
As such the complex nature of being happy in an oppressive world is thoroughly explored in Orwell’s
‘1984’ and Conrad’s
‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ through the many adversities that the protagonists persist. Both composers create cautionary tales which alert their audiences of the oppressive worlds they may live in – by incorporating historical allusions, true stories and relatable concepts in the telling of each protagonist’s’ respective pursuit of happiness. The two composers ultimately challenge stereotypical assumptions by exposing concealed realities and consequently allow the audience to see the world differently by offering new perspectives.
