viernes, 11 de diciembre de 2015

This is my identity… It is, right?


In the last three decades, technology advances have certainly reshaped our society. One of the main authors who addressed the problems that people in the future would may face was Orwell. His dystopian society from 1984 warned some when the book was published, and others rejected his ideas since they thought he was too extremist. But, look at us now. Are we living in Orwell’s fictional society?
When talking about Orwell, another author that pops up is Hawthorne and his short piece of art “Wakefield”. Why? Well, these two authors questioned the human nature by pinpointing different aspects of humanity, and were able to warn us about one of the most frightening perils of dystopian societies: the loss of identity and manipulation of the system over citizens.
 If we analyzed their works, the protagonists of them may have more in common we us than what we think. Did you know that? The concept of identity in today’s society has become a fuzzy concept, and appareantly, we are dummed to live just as Winston and Wakefield did. 
1. 1984

Resultado de imagen para orwell
George Orwell
First, let us provide some context for 1984. Due to his work as a reporter, Orwell was one of those writers who had witnessed the worst atrocities the humankind can commit. Having gone to live among the extremely poor in England, moved to live with the destitute coal miners in northern England, and then travelled to Spain to experience by firsthand the nightmarish actions performed by fascist political regimes in the Spanish Civil War, he had plenty of information to write about and share with the world. However, it was the rise of Hitler and Stalin as power authorities in totalitarian political systems that ended up striking him the most and, consequently, inspired his well-known novel 1984, which nowadays seems to be one of the most explicit warnings someone could have ever given us about the perils of our technological advanced society.
By and large, 1984 depicts a Dystopian Totalitarian Society in which the world, in perpetual war, is divided in 3 big “countries”: Eurasia, Oceania and Eastasia. The story centers on the life of Winston, a citizen dwelling under a dictatorship in one of the provinces of Oceania. In his daily life, he is being constantly monitored by the Big Brother, the leader of the Inner Party, through a telescreen to identify traitors who do not follow the rules imposed by them or commit thoughtcrimes such as independent thinking, and, finally, make them disappear (in a few words they are killed).

Apart from complete surveillance, the Party makes use of several methods to maintain social control over the population. Some of them are language and education manipulation, terror, continuous sense of crisis regarding war, dehumanization of the opponent, and control of identity. The last one is the most terrifying since it is control of the citizen’s identities what keeps the Totalitarian System alive, and the idea of a Big Brother and the propaganda WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, accepted by many.


In Oceania every citizen has an assigned job, an assigned place to live, should dress in a certain way, and refer to others using the generic addressing word “comrade” because in this society they are all brothers. For instance, when Mrs. Parsons goes to his house, Winston expresses that “’Mrs’ was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party—you were supposed to call everyone ‘comrade’— but with some women one used it instinctively” (Orwell, 2004, p. 26). By doing this, the rulers are making them fit into society with an invisible label on their chests that describe who they are, what they are allowed to do and, thus, how they must behave. For instance, Winston is a worker at the Fiction Department in the Ministry of Truth, which “concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts” (Orwell, 2003, p.7), and that is, supposedly, all.

Wittily, Winston’s job is to alter/distort past information provided to the citizens in newspapers, movies or propaganda so as to assure they match the Party’s current necessities in order to keep people’s faith and respect for the doctrines. In that way, memories are removed from their minds and reshaped by the existence of another different story. Evidently, as Winston knows that the Party uses this mechanism as a subordinating tool for them to preserve their power, this would suggest that he, unlike others, is aware enough to distinguish between his own identity and the one he was given.
According to Delia (2014), that Winston was familiar with the so-called brainwashing systems Memory Hotel and Newspeak, is not sufficient for him to wake up in this society. But, he needs to raise self-awareness too, which is the third aspect that contributes to the development of the characters’ identity. In her words, this “is not related to memory, but the will of the individual and the dare to indulge himself to think beyond the given barriers. With awareness comes a sense of identity.” (Delia, 2014, p.10).
However, how would he dare do that if he is being observed 24 hours a day, and the minimal attempt for rebellion would cost him his life? Several times in the story he highlights this point: “Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed—no escape. Nothing was your own (…)” (Orwell, 2003, p.37). Maybe, unconsciously, he tried to raise self-awareness when he risked buying both the diary and the glass globe, which are two elements that could revive memories, therefore, considered as sins and plagues that needed to be eliminated. Consequently, its possession in Oceania was forbidden and punished with death. We cannot say that he did not try, but in fact, he was not able to get out of the box he was placed in by the system; he did not even know why he had bought the diary and it was more difficult to decide what to write in it as his personal thoughts were already vanished.  
Then, in the end, constant change of collective memories led him to a sever identity crisis, and was now longer aware since his memories had faded. As stated by Ficeac (as cited in Delia (2014, p. 10), “the very idea of reality had been annihilated and replaced with the appearance of reality.” This is the reason why throughout the whole novel he has troubles remembering important facts about his childhood or the War, as exemplified in the following passage:
“(…) he was struggling, to think his way backward into the dim period of his early, childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult. Beyond the late fifties everything faded. When there were no external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost its sharpness. You remembered huge events which had quite probably not happened, you remembered the detail of incidents without being able to recapture their atmosphere, and there were long blank periods to which you could assign nothing.” (Orwell, 2003, p.40).


The Two Minutes Hate, is also an instance in which, through manipulation of data, images and the use of pathos, the system is able to alienate citizens and maintain their interests centralized. When this ceremony starts, Winston, in spite of not wanting to, cannot help but join in the vibrant audience shouting against Goldestein and worshiping the Big Brother through a self-hypnosis hymn:

“In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of ‘B-B!...B-B!’ always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him.” (Orwell, 2003, p. 20)

To put if briefly, Winston in certain point to the accompaniment of Julia, experiences love interest, rebels against the system and is able to show in his notes in the diary, self-reflexivity. Nevertheless, at last, we are demonstrated the magnitude of the effects that manipulation from bigwigs can have on people’s individualism, when Winston once discovered of betrayal towards the Party, he suffers the consequences of his actions by being re-reshaped by the system so he can accept his alienations and is capable of denying one of the universal truths and his love for Julia.

 I recommend you watch the video below about the reasons why 1984 is still important. 


2. Wakefield

On the other hand, even though published many year before 1984, in “Wakefield”, Hawthorne develops the same idea of alienation and diminish of the self.
As it is usual in his works, Hawthorne tells us explicitly in the beginning of the story what this it is going to be about (even the title gives us a hint). Well, the story orbits around a man called Wakefield, who one day kissed his wife goodbye to go on ,at most, a week-long journey, but did not come home until 20 years had passed. Hawthorne ventures to explore the motives that may have driven Wakefield a man “with a cold but not depraved nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous thoughts, nor perplexed with originality” (Hawthorne, 2012, p. 1) to abandon his duties as husband to move to an apartment near his old house and stay there undercover, however, still present observing his family’s life from the outside. It is curious that he had the guts to walk out of his house because Wakefield himself was not certain what he was going to the while standing there at the doorbell ready to leave. Once he decided to took some time to be on his own, his original plan was to spend a couple of days in the rented room, however after the months began to pass by, every time he considered the idea of going back home he postponed his return.
At the end, Wakefield goes back home as he realized his expectations were not fulfilled; he had expected his beloved one to suffer from his lost and their lives to change because of that. In fact, that was one of the reasons why he went away but stood close enough to observe (a voyeuristic action) his family, he wanted to see what life would look like without him there. But, his expectations were not fulfilled as they eventually continued living normally, and, what is more, as years passed, not even his wife was able to recognize him on the street:
“The sober widow, resuming her former pace, proceeds to church, but pauses in the portal, and throws a perplexed glance along the street. She passes in, however, opening her prayer-book as she goes. And the man! with so wild a face that busy and selfish London stands to gaze after him, he hurries to his lodgings, bolts the door, and throws himself upon the bed.” (Hawthorne, 2012, p. 5)
This scene was the event that motivated Wakefield to abandon his loneliness and return to his house because he notices that “individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.” (Hawthorne, 2012, p. 6). For him, more days absent would have meant his vaporization as a person. Although he was already vaporized/disappeared for his family, he still thought that he owned a room in the world, but he discovered that if we are not immersed in the system, we do not have an identity as this self we are is determined by the system, and consequently, if there is no identity, there is no person.



Strikingly, we may draw the conclusion that the main argument for leaving his house was that he needed to find himself; he needed to get the custom of the caring husband that society had make him try on; he needed to be away from the system to find his identity, but it appeared that he stepped out, he lost it instead. In the following passage, for example, having spent several years living alone, he realizes the consequences of being self-deprived of the system’s rules.

“He was in the bustle of the city, as of old; but the crowd swept by and saw him not; he was, we may figuratively say, always beside his wife and at his hearth, yet must never feel the warmth of the one nor the affection of the other. It was Wakefield's unprecedented fate to retain his original share of human sympathies, and to be still involved in human interests, while he had lost his reciprocal influence on them.”

It is undoubtedly true that Hawthorne expressed himself as an alienated artist through his writing of Wakefield. Wineapple (2003) adds that “even as he castigates Wakefield, Hawthorne colludes with him, relishing an ordinary man’s extraordinary caprice” (p. 86). She states that by giving Wakefield the possibility to escape from his ordinary life, Hawthorne extends his longing for a life and world that would not oppress the selves of all of us, but liberates us.

3. Loss of Identity

Now, does it sound familiar to you the fact that we are who we are based on the label that the system has given us? Certainly, Orwell predicted our current problems in society, but Hawthorne as well did. However, something that not all may notice is that, yes, we cannot escape from the system because living in it determines us as persons, so, if our identity is what the system wants it to be, then, we have lost our self too, which implies we cannot discover our real self. This is exactly what happens in the two stories, by being fitted in society, they end up turning down the opportunity to achieve originality and individuality by being rewarded with social comfort.

For this reason, have you thought for a minute “Who am really I?” Have you had the feeling you want to escape from your reality? Have you felt tired of letting others judge who you are by the pictures you post on Facebook? By the number of likes you get?
Personally, I think that, nowadays, with all these social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others, we worry more about what the rest can say about us, how we are going to be labeled according to social standards of beauty, wealth, health, intelligence, etc. As a result, we put on masks to show someone who we are not. The system requires us to, or otherwise, we will be socially excluded.

Delia (2014), notes that in 1984, “the state has successfully created a state where citizens are more object than human.” and she extends this thought to the 21st century, by stating that we have become object that “have no choice but to adhere to exterior will, similar to how an object can only be moved by an exterior force”.
Many scholars, agree that Orwell’s 1984 is a cautionary warning that can save us from losing ourselves as a society. What do you think? Do you feel yourself right now? Do you think there is still hope for us?





References
Delia, M. (2014). The Political Role of Memory and Identity in Dystopian Societies. European Journal of Research and Reflection in Arts and Humanities, 2(2), pp. 7-17.
Hawthorne, N. (----) Wakefield, Retrieved from: http://www.accuracyproject.org/t-Hawthorne-Wakefield.html
Orwell, G. (2003). Nineteen Eighty Four. St. Ives: Penguin Books
Wineapple, B. (2003) Hawthorne: A Life. NY: Knopf. 


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