Does the ending of 1984 represent an optimistic or pessimistic view of society's future?
One could argue that the ending of 1984 shows a deep-seated pessimism on Orwell's part concerning human nature. There is no happy ending here; Winston Smith's spirit has been utterly broken by his terrible experiences inside Room 101. The suggestion is that in the face of totalitarian oppression, most people will just go with the flow, and that those who don't, like Winston, will be crushed by the system one way or another.
The abiding message one gets from reading the end of 1984 , then—indeed from reading the book as a whole—is that we need to be on guard against the prospect of a totalitarian regime becoming established. Because if we don't, Orwell strongly implies, then it'll be too late. Human nature being what it is, most people won't resist; they'll simply put their heads down and do what they can to survive. That being the case,...
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it is better that people do everything they can as citizens to ensure that such a soul-destroying political system never comes into being.
Even so, one gets the distinct impression that Orwell is rather pessimistic that we can do even this. Humans are presented in 1984 as being almost at the mercy of events, puppets of cosmic historical forces that they simply don't understand. The lack of agency that this grim, deterministic worldview implies doesn't bode well for the ability of people to work towards ensuring that a totalitarian political system and all its horrors doesn't take root.
The novel's ending represents a pessimistic point of view of the future of our society but not a hopeless one.
1984 is not a feel-good novel with a happy ending. Winston and Julia don't escape the Ministry of Love through daring exploits to blow up O'Brien's apartment complex before escaping to a wild hinterland to start a new society based on humane principles. Both become broken, pathetic people who betray each other in the face of torture. The state emerges as seemingly all powerful, and at the end of the novel is as entrenched and secure as it was at the beginning--this time with all hope of a rebellion eradicated. The state has won. The boot in the face continues its apparently relentless march towards the future
Nevertheless, Orwell carefully plants a note of hope at the very end of the novel. Winston is sitting in the Chestnut cafe, drinking Victory gin and wondering about the progress of the war when he suddenly, unbidden, has a forbidden memory. He recalls a happy, loving moment when his mother bought a cheap cardboard version of the game Snakes and Ladders, and the family plays it with joy in their little room. It is a memory of joy that has nothing to do with the state, and it is a memory of love between a parent and children. We realize at this moment, that although Winston is soon to die and though his mind has been broken, there is still a part of him that the state was not able to eradicate. Winston has kept a shred of humanity. This shows that the state is not all powerful. It offers a glimmer of hope that while O'Brien ridicules Winston's idea that the proles will rise up, it may very well be that, in fact, people's ability to hang on to simple values, unbeknownst to the state, that will keep humanity alive.
I have a hard time seeing this as anything but very pessimistic. I think that Orwell sees the whole society giving in to totalitarian government and ceasing to resist that type of government.
In this book, Winston and Julia were the only people that we saw truly resisting the Party. If Orwell is going to be optimistic, it seems to me that some good would have had to come to them or from them. But it does not. Both of them give in to the Party and Winston even comes to "love" Big Brother. So both of the rebels have given in and the Party is unopposed. Not very optimistic to me.