Reality
Essay Preview: Reality
Report this essay
Reality can have a more fluid and complicated definition than we might realize. Instead of being a concrete ability to see black-and-white differences between ideas and basing beliefs on outside evidence, a persons conception of reality might accommodate contradicting beliefs, reject and ignore truth when convenient, or embrace concepts seemingly preposterous in a sane world. A postmodern work of fiction allows for the shifting and changing of reality, thus giving the audience an alternate reality to compare to the perceived reality outside the work. To this end, postmodernism employs the simulacrum to blot out reality and insert a fabricated concept in its place. In a passage involving Winston and OBrien from George Orwells 1984, we witness part of the process of such a replacement of a simulacra-filled world for conventional reality. Winstons forced acceptance of the simulacra in place of reality leaves him quite unable to question the power of the state. The replacement of reality by the Partys simulacra in 1984 illustrates the flexibility of reality in the use of creating simulacra to support the apparently illogical, contradictory world of Big Brother ideology.
Before examining the replacement of reality with the simulacrum, one might first examine the idea of reality itself. Reality, as explained by Orwells 1984 character OBrien, “exists within the human mind, and nowhere else” (Orwell 205). What the human mind sees, it absorbs as truth. The novels protagonist, Winston, believes “that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own rightthat the nature of reality is self-evident” (Orwell 205). He sees reality as bigger than life, untouchable by any one person or the power-hungry group mind of the Party. Winston contends that what is, is. None of the states lies and deceptions could change any part of reality, although the state could, and did, obscure the truth of reality for its purposes. OBrien tells Winston that he is mistaken in this idea of reality. In a reeducation session, OBrien challenges Winstons belief, telling him “reality is not external” (Orwell 205). He claims that it is only existent within the mind. In other words, “its all in your head.” OBrien essentially says that the outside world does not contain anything real until the mind perceives it, and the mind should not perceive it until given permission by the Party. What the mind believes to be true, to be real, affects the world outside of that mind. As an introduction to this idea, OBrien tries to convince Winston he sees five fingers, when his senses, conscious to a reality [idiom] independent of Big Brother, report only four. The audience finds that a person could actually see five fingers instead of four if the persons reality allows for the possibility and existence of such things. Winston himself, his sense of an external reality dulled by pain and drugs, sees the five fingers instead of four (Orwell 213). For a moment, he shares the reality of the Party. He felt a “luminous certainty” (Orwell 213) and briefly absorbed the Party ideology before “everything was normal again” (Orwell 213). After a few more “teaching” sessions, Winston let go of his earlier concept of independent, external reality and willingly embraced the structured reality incorporating the Partys simulacra. The Party replaced the reality of the physical world with the reality of dictated thought–the real replaced by the simulacrum.
The simulacra constructed by the Party serves to enforce, and reinforce the supremacy of the Party. A simulacrum, as explained by Jean Baudrillard, is a matter of “substituting the signs of the real for the real” (Baudrillard 2). For the Party, this means constructing for the citizens of Oceania every aspect of existence, from entertainment to occupation to the very language they speak, and replacing inconvenient concepts with safer, standardized simulacra. Big Brother himself is a simulacrum, the idea and image of a leader in place of a flesh and blood person, given to the people as a symbol of the Party. [Excellent] Winston asks if Big Brother exists (Orwell 214). OBrien answers “of course he exists” (Orwell 214). Though Big Brother cannot be touched or seen by the physical senses, he exists because he is created “within the human mind” (Orwell 205) of the Partys reality. That is, he exists because the Party says he exists. His corporeal existence is irrelevant because Big Brother is important in idea form. The Big Brother simulacrum fits in neatly to plug the space vacated for it by reality: an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes” (Baudrillard 2)
In place of a “real flesh and blood” leader, the Party kindly supplied a simulated one–Big Brother, complete with personality, image, voice, and background information. Big Brother, embodying all of the merits of the Party and receiving the love and admiration of the people, plays the part of a leader (albeit a simulated one) to pacify or arouse the emotions of the masses and dictate the Partys will to the people of Oceania.
The revolutionary Brotherhood is another simulacrum furnished by the Party to anchor its power. Although Winston believes in the underground Brotherhoods existence, his lover Julia disbelieves it as “rubbish which the Party had invented for its own purposes and which you had to pretend to believe in” (Orwell 126). Whom do we believe? OBrien is no more helpful to us, telling Winston he “will never know…whether the answer to that question [of the Brotherhoods existence] is Yes or No” (Orwell 214). As with Big Brother, the actual concrete existence of the Brotherhood is not relevant. The important point is the idea of the Brotherhood in 1984. Baudrillard writes: “simulation threatens the difference between the true