1984 Hypocrisy Analysis

Deceit extends beyond the telling of a lie or mistruth or exaggerating details. Rather, it is a method of control and manipulation that encompasses fear, illusion, and more importantly, a denial of self-worth and a sense of power. Without these hallmarks of strength and independence, people are forced into becoming untrue to themselves. 1984 by George Orwell describes the tyrannical government of Oceania, a crumbled dystopia set as a future representation of London. An understanding of paradox and the basic functions of politics help George Orwell craft 1984 into a novel with an aura of deceit that permeates through every aspect of life, allowing the government to crush both mind and spirit alike to ensure complete dominance over a decaying nation.

The many paradoxes in 1984 set an erratic tone that can be described as anything but honest and straightforward, acting as an implicit method of deceit in the novel. Orwell’s attitude towards hypocrisy helped influence the way he would end up telling the story of 1984. New Statesman’s book review deducts from the style in which 1984 was written that “For Mr Orwell, the most honest writer alive, hypocrisy is too dreadful for laughter: it feeds his despair.” (New Statesman, 1996) People tend to jeer at opinions that they don’t necessarily agree with. However, to Orwell, hypocrisy is a topic too serious to make humor out of. The lack of anything of substantial humor in the novel supports Orwell’s austerity about the prevalence of hypocrisy within politics and society. Beyond Orwell’s style the paradoxical actions of the functions of the ministries is evident. In canon, the government system intentionally does the polar opposites of the tasks that they were purported to perform in order to...

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...rweight has become, some fragments simply cannot be completely destroyed, even by all of the secret police and other agents of oppression.

Deceit in 1984 extends beyond uttering a statement that is untrue. Rather, it is a blend of uncertainty and manipulation at the hand of the state that annihilates all possibility of resistance. This wholesale quelling of the potential of dissent often involves the destruction of one’s personality and cognitive ability at the hands of the Ministry of Love and the destruction of the mutual trust needed in a society to pursue any objective at the hands of the Secret Police. Without any underlying unity and a real, unadulterated perspective on how the world around them happens, the people are lulled into a sense of complacency and thus have little desire to seek or imagine another way of life outside of the tyranny of Big Brother.