Control In 1984

Imagine being watched your whole life, every move and sound you make is seen and heard. The book 1984 by George Orwell is about a dystopian world where everybody is controlled by ‘Big Brother’. There is a very interesting quote “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Big Brother has power, he controls the past present and future and can mentally and physically manipulate his people to believe everything he says ( or forces them to). If you control the present you can control the past and future. The quote doesn’t just relate to the book, it relates to times in real life too.
One way that the people are controlled is through mental manipulation, in Oceania are things like the telescreens which

control the people. Every member of the party has a telescreen in their homes. They are always watching and listening to you. The thought police monitors these screens and make sure nobody is breaking any laws. People are much less likely to break laws if they are always being watched. They telescreens are also a piece of propaganda they promote Big Brother making him and Oceania seem great.
“Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. “ The quote is talking about the telescreen in Winston's apartment and the telescreen that is always watching him. With everybody always being watched they will never try to disobey Big Brothers laws. The telescreens maybe put fear into some people, the fear of always being watched and not knowing if you will get in trouble or not. Thus Big Brother has full control of the people and the present.
Another way that the people are controlled is through newspeak, where members in the party work to get rid of words that people can use to express emotion and their own personality and thoughts.
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten." This quote by Syme talks about how the English language is always being changed in Oceania, to the liking of Big Brother. Big Brother wants everybody to only love him and to focus on him and hating the enemy countries instead of experiencing anything for themselves. Big Brother censoring people's thoughts and speech. In 1984 there are no antonyms instead of using a word like warm, they would use the word uncold. The party does this to make sure the people don't think unorthodoxly. Newspeak isn’t just present in 1984, it exists in real life too. For example words and phrases like enhanced interrogation which really means torture, or collateral damage which really means killing civilians. This helps Big Brother control the people and the present.
The last way that shows how Big Brother controls the past present and future is through hate week and the rewriting of history Hate week is an event in Oceania in which the goal is to have the people increase their hatred toward the enemy.
“On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns – after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces – at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia.

Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.” During hate week everybody is obsessed with hating the enemy. Oceania changes the enemy a lot though, and they always claim that they have always been at war with the state just like the in quote they were at war with Eurasia but then changed to Eastasia out of the blue. Big Brother now says that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia since the start of the wars even though they haven’t people believe him. What helps the people believe all this is actually Winston, he works for the Ministry of truth. The Ministry of truth rewrites history. One example of this is, if Big Brother predicted something and it turned out to be wrong the Ministry of truth would correct what he said to make it accurate. The Ministry will always make Big Brother look good by making sure he is always right, if the people know he is always right they will believe anything he say. If the people believe anything he says he can have the Ministry of truth change and rewrite history to his

liking.
A real life situation that relates to this quote are totalitarian governments like Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler had full control of his people, like Big Brother he used propaganda and mental manipulation to do this. Hitler would play his people by learning to send simple messages that the people would understand and accept. He used biased propaganda against the Jews. For example on one Nazi propaganda poster there was a Jew behind an American, British, and a Soviet flag. The words on the poster said “Behind the enemy powers: the Jew.” Hitler created an atmosphere of violence based on the Jews he would get his people to fear and hate the Jews by saying they are the strength of the enemy, he would make them seem like terrible people just by using simple posters. This helped Hitler control his people and country just like how Big Brother controlled Oceania.
If you think about it, it could be easy to control a civilization like in 1984. Using fear and manipulation you can control the people and the present. Just like in Oceania Big Brother can rewrite history, predict the future and control everybody because he is never wrong. People today are responsible for what happens in the future. We need to pay attention to what's going on in the political world and look at each problem faced with different perspectives, whether it be involving war, climate change, and education.