1984 By George Orwell

1084 Words3 Pages

Things to know: 1984 was a book written about life under a totalitarian regime from an average citizen’s point of view. This book envisions the theme of an all knowing government with strong control over its citizens. This book tells the story of Winston Smith, a worker of the Ministry of Truth, who is in charge of editing the truth to fit the government’s policies and claims. It shows the future of a government bleeding with brute force and propaganda. This story begins and ends in the continent of Oceania one of the three supercontinents of the world. Oceania has three classes the Inner Party, the Outer Party and the lowest of all, the Proles (proletarian). Oceania’s government is the Party or Ingsoc (English Socialism Movement), which has four ministries; the Ministry of Truth (minitrue), the Ministry of peace (minipax), the Ministry of plenty (miniplent) and the Ministry of Love (miniluv). Minipax is in charge of the affairs of war, Miniplent is in charge of food, Minitrue is in charge of controlling and regulating media information and Miniluv is in charge of torturing and interrogating prisoners or violators of thought crime and the violators will be rendered unpersons. Thought crime is any real or imaginary negative claim (made against the Party) that can be said out loud or in your mind and the Thought Police is the biggest fear of all. As Smith wrote in his journal “Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death.” The Thought Police monitors people’s thoughts, movements or dreams by two-way monitors called telescreens, hidden microphones and secret spies. Children are the most feared spies; from birth they swallowed the Party’s doctrine and were taught to spy and inform any and all thought criminals, espec... ... middle of paper ... ...examples can be seen in such works as: The Giver by Lois Lowry, 2002 film Equilibrium and the 1999 film The Matrix. Does the author write about population, migration, culture, language, religion, ethnicity, development, economy, agriculture, industry, services, resources etc? Orwell mainly talks about culture. The culture of the people in Oceania and culture of the Proles (which Smith thinks they are the future). The Proles retain the spirit of music, the sense of family and their ideals of community that the Party has thrown away and disgraced. The official language of Oceania is Newspeak which shortens the vocabulary instead of expanding it.

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