Like many classic dystopian stories, 1984, by George Orwell, is a complex story full of deep social and political issues. One such issue is the government’s restriction of free speech and free thinking. This is best shown through the use of setting and theme. The setting of the book perfectly illustrates that lack of freedom the citizens of Oceania experience.They live in a dark and desolate country. Everyone other than the people in the Inner Party live in squander. They houses are dirty and broken. There are only very small rations of #BB food available. Their clothes are falling apart. This imagery alone brings to mind real places with extreme poverty, that are often not politically free.The citizens are constantly being monitored by …show more content…
In the novel, the Party has begun working on a new language, Newspeak. It’s essentially is English with many of the words cut out or shortened. The idea is to create a language where thoughtcrime is basically impossible. It sought to remove, if not the word itself, then any connotation the Party did not agree with. This shows how far the Party was willing to go to control its citizens and how power hungry they are and how dedicated they are to their cause, which is to “eradicate individual thought.” They are willing “to do anything in order to achieve their goal and think nothing of torture” (Williams). If the people don’t have even the ability to express their wants and thoughts, they have no freedom at all. They Party also goes to great lengths to change history in their favor. They make sure whoever is the enemy in war now is always shown to be the enemy, even in past records. Some Inner Party member who are executed are just written out of history entirely. By not giving them to freedom to look into what really happened, there is no way to learn about or from the past. Even if they know the Party is lying, like Winston did, they can’t say anything, without fear of punishment. No one even has control of their own mind. To survive in Oceania, one must be willing to commit to doublethink, or the idea of holding two conflicting ideas in your head and believing both of them, or the one that’s obviously not true.To survive, they must be so committed to this that if the enemy in a speech changes in the middle of the speech, they know not to question it (Orwell). Newspeak was actually in part created to make it easier for the lower Party members to commit doublethink and “Newspeak is the easiest way that the Inner Party can communicate their insane views upon the lower classes as they literally would not be able to question
I strongly agree with Fromm’s viewpoints and interpretations of Orwell’s 1984 text. He warns that the future federal powers will dehumanize society and leave everyone alienated. Thus, I agree with Fromm to the extent that he acknowledges the fact that humanity can indeed cease to exist as a result of our own self-destruction as well as the effect of our actions. Many of his opinions and warnings expressed by Orwell to an extent appear in contemporary society.
The party destroys all that is human of each individual, and brainwashes them to be nothing but an empty shell, like in comparison to a science-fiction robot, taking commands from the bidding of their master. However sometimes some people will crack, and will begin to be human again, however it is proven that the party would eventually catch up to them, permanently taking away their humanity. Throughout this process, the people become the party, and very much like a hivemind, the party controls the people, and the people are the party. The party controls every thought and bit of imagination of each and every individual through their They hated anyone who was not a white Christian, and would go as far as to kill anyone who was not.
Through out the course of history there have been several events that have been a pivotal point which has molded the behaviors and thoughts of this century. A lot of notable activist and authors wrote stories and speeches about how they believed that this day and time would be like. A lot of these views were very accurate surprisingly. In the novel 1984 author George Orwell gives his vision on how he believed that the countries would be like if they kept going the way they were.This report will give you a brief rundown of the characters, theories and principles of this novel along with some of my personal insight of the novel.
They have no idea people are getting tortured to death, or that the Party is turning families against each other, or that the upper classes are watched at all times. If they did know all this, then maybe they would revolt. But because the Party is strong and knows exactly how to control the proles, this lower class will always be clueless and will never think of overthrowing the Party. The Party gives them what they want to satisfy their needs and desires. The proles are happy with their ignorance. All this shows that due to the proles’ ignorance, the Party gets to keep its strength and continue its
His Death Written Life The novel, 1984, by George Orwell, depicts a dystopian society where no freedom exists; not even the freedom of thought. The scene takes place in Oceania, a society in which the ruling power called “the Party” strictly controls everything people do: from the way they speak, to how they move, to their very own thoughts. Winston Smith, the main character of 1984, struggles through the day to day life of having to blend into the brainwashed citizens of Oceania, where monitors called telescreens record and analyze every little movement. Anyone not showing signs of loyalty and homogeneity becomes vaporized, or in other words, ceases to exist and becomes deleted from history.
The Party employs slogans to convince the ignorant that what they want is what they already have. “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, “ (Orwell 4). There is no desire for freedom, because they are told it is slavery. If freed, they would be unhappy and would not live the way in which they do. In doing so, society is to believe that war establishes peace and serenity. Just changing a few small items in history can alter human belief. By constantly feeding the people fraudulent information and hiding the truth, the Party can get the people to believe almost anything; eventually leading to complete dominance over the mind.
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. The party slogan of Ingsoc illustrates the sense of contradiction which characterizes the novel 1984. That the book was taken by many as a condemnation of socialism would have troubled Orwell greatly, had he lived to see the aftermath of his work. 1984 was a warning against totalitarianism and state sponsored brutality driven by excess technology. Socialist idealism in 1984 had turned to a total loss of individual freedom in exchange for false security and obedience to a totalitarian government, a dysutopia. 1984 was more than a simple warning to the socialists of Orwell's time. There are many complex philosophical issues buried deep within Orwell's satire and fiction. It was an essay on personal freedom, identity, language and thought, technology, religion, and the social class system. 1984 is more than a work of fiction. It is a prediction and a warning, clothed in the guise of science fiction, not so much about what could happen as it is about the implications of what has already happened. Rather than simply discoursing his views on the social and political issues of his day, Orwell chose to narrate them into a work of fiction which is timeless in interpretation. This is the reason that 1984 remains a relevant work of social and philosophical commentary more than fifty years after its completion.
This is accomplished in three ways. The first is revisionism, or the act of changing facts such as history so that the Party is always made to look good and mobilize popular opinion against its enemies. The second way the party creates an artificial reality is through artificial scarcity. There is no need for the constant warfare, but if the need no longer existed for the construction of the tools of war, that productivity would instead be put towards the manufacture of goods which could actually raise the standard of living. Finally the Inner Party controls the masses by creating an all powerful omnipotent being whom they control and can say or order whatever it is they need.
If you think badly about the party you get arrested and brainwashed until you love Big Brother and his methods. Also they get lied to about how their life used to be like they never knew a life before the party was in control. All of history was deleted. “Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version” (Orwell, 46). This quote relates to how they don’t even know if the history they were told about is the truth because everything has been changed, altered, and deleted.
The Party changes records of the past constantly to match its needs. If someone commits a crime, they are vaporized, and then erased from any and all historical records. There are no more martyrs, because no one remembers them after they are killed. The government also changes history to make people believe that the Party has been in power since the beginning of man. Using the tactic of doublethink, the population is able to believe this, even if they possess memories from before the Party rose to power. This is an example of mental control.
At first, we do not think, nor contemplate the effects that come as a result of our actions. In 1984, we get a sense of a greater authority in Big Brother. Although we never know if Big Brother actually exists, the power and authority that this idol holds over the people is unimaginable. The people of Oceania are divided into two classes, the members of the Party and the proletariat. The Party members are like machines that do the jobs of the government.
The Party has a complete grip over all of its members’ lives. The members pretty much do not have any control over what they do, what they say, or who they can love. In fact, they are not even allowed to love. This extreme grip allows the Party to control each and every one of its members’
“Ignorance is strength” is true considering the fact that the party is outnumbered by the rest of the population, especially the proles. The proles have the least amount of knowledge as to what is actually going on in their world, which is why the Party easily gets away with all of their manipulative tactics. Since the proles are disregarded from society, but more notably, are unbothered by the Party, they have no desire to rebel against the strict hierarchical structure imposed by Big Brother. The Party makes their own reality by holding the power to alter the past in whatever way they please and the people do not have the mindset to object. “But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party." This explains why manipulation is crucial for the Party to stay in absolute power. They want the masses to believe what they are told in spite of what they might think otherwise. Doublethink is the most effective way the party manipulates their people to avoid free thinking. Doublehink is a practice that keeps individuals free of their own thoughts. This is how the Party gets away with all the lying they do in the Ministry of Truth. Through the propagandas and the Ministry of Truth, the Party also define what is true and what is false. O’Brien once said to Winston, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present
In doing this, the Political Party is in complete control over the citizens’ minds, blasting what they want each individual to think (Orwell, 6). They psychologically stimulate each individuals mind, limiting their ability to think and have a mind of their own. In a similar way, Stalin’s created “The Poster” and The Pravda (the Russian newspaper controlled by the government during Joseph Stalin’s regime) to twist and manipulate the minds of people into believing that what they were saying was absolutely right and true. Using this power, Stalin and his regime would get people to do anything for them. (Basgen, 2010).
The setting is important to the overall novel studied because it helps highlight major themes in the novel, it further characterizes the motivations of the characters, and helps explain the overall message of the novel. In 1984 by George Orwell, the overall setting of the novel is in London, which is called Airship 1 in Oceania.