This essay offers a comparative analysis of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 and Arthur Miller's stage drama Death of a Salesman, examining how each work constructs a tension between appearance and reality to critique its respective social ideology. The paper argues that Orwell uses Winston Smith's inner consciousness to expose the totalitarian lies of Big Brother's socialist state, while Miller employs dramatic flashback and fantasy to reveal how Willy Loman's self-deception mirrors the hollow promises of the American Dream. Together, the two works illustrate how ideological pressure — whether imposed from without or embraced from within — ultimately destroys the individual.
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Both George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 and Arthur Miller's realist stage drama Death of a Salesman create a contrast between appearances and reality in order to criticize the political and social structures that exist in their respective societies and the negative effects those structures have on their protagonists. In Orwell's novel, the world within Winston Smith's head is far more real than the propaganda manufactured by Big Brother's totalitarian regime. In contrast, the dramatic techniques used by Miller illustrate how Willy Loman lives in a fantasy world of his own making that stands in sharp contrast to the reality experienced by his loved ones.
Orwell's novel is a critique of idealized socialism — a world where everyone is supposedly equal but where people have no freedom, even the freedom to think. Miller scathingly critiques the American Dream, the notion that it is easy to "make it big" in America, through a poignant tale of a salesman who is cast off by the company he devoted his life to, which now treats him as if he is no longer valuable.
The discrepancy between appearances and reality is most starkly manifest in 1984 through Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Truth not only strives to control how politics are discussed and disseminated in the present; it also strives to reshape how the past is portrayed. Winston must alter newspapers that contradict Big Brother's current version of events and then destroy them. Although he knows in his own mind that the lies perpetuated by Big Brother are false, he seems to have no choice other than to eradicate history.
Orwell's narrative raises a haunting question: if history is destroyed, what is "reality" — and what becomes of truth if even memory can be officially eradicated and declared false?
There is a continual discrepancy between the lies Winston must project to the world and the truth he feels within. Early in the novel, when forced to participate in physical conditioning exercises monitored by a television that seems capable of watching him, Winston's mind is elsewhere even as he carefully maintains his outward mask. "Wearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during the Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward into the dim period of his early childhood" (Orwell 1.3). Despite the fact that the nation is officially at war, Winston still retains a clear memory of when things were different. "Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid which appeared to take everyone by surprise" (Orwell 1.3). Memories are what make us distinct — our love for our parents, for example, suggests Orwell. Memories also give us allegiances to something other than the state, which is precisely why Big Brother strives to erase them.
By the end of the novel, Winston's sense of self has been utterly obliterated, and there is a grim harmony between the emptiness he feels on the outside and on the inside. "A violent emotion, not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again.... Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table: 2+2=5. 'They can't get inside you,' she [Julia, his former lover] had said. But they could get inside you" (Orwell 3.6). The state demands such total loyalty of its citizens that factual truths are rendered into falsehoods. The only way to marshal such complete obedience is to drain the spirits and minds of the citizens until all men and women are hollow shells.
"Willy's self-deception mirrors the hollow American Dream"
"Biff accepts failure while Willy clings to fantasy"
The clear-sighted Winston ends the novel with his internal moral compass and sense of individuality destroyed. The dreaming, lying Willy finally admits to himself that he lives in a world in which all he has left is a life insurance policy — not a real relationship with his son or a profession of which he can be proud. Both men, in different ways, illustrate the problems of their respective societies and cultures: worlds in which people are either unable or afraid to see themselves and their circumstances clearly. As works of dramatic and narrative literature, both 1984 and Death of a Salesman remain enduring indictments of ideologies — one imposed by brute force, the other willingly embraced — that ultimately consume the individuals who live under them.
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