George Orwell Use Of Control In 1984

What if we lived in a world where the thoughts within our very own minds were not safe from the outside world; where your feelings were so dangerous you were better off not having any at all? This world exists in George Orwell’s 1984, a novel about a man named Winston Smith who lives in the completely controlled superstate of Oceania, also known as the Party. Winston goes along with the crowd loving and depending on it; not doing so would be fatal. But he finds ways throughout the novel to secretly rebel and enjoy the little that he can. Winston thinks he is careful and safe, but eventually gets caught and discovers he was being watched the entire time. The Superstate has no flaws; there is no escape, not even for someone like Winston who

thought out every little detail. The government of Oceania has many different techniques in which to obtain complete control over these people, all in which are necessary for an everlasting power.
One of the main ways Oceania has such large power over the people is their use of propaganda.

A huge part of their government is a daily period called the 2 minutes hate, where everyone watches a film that strikes rage against the Party’s enemies. The people scream and yell in anger, hatred, and fear. This develops hate towards the government’s enemies, fear of what might happen if they were to rebel, and love towards big brother. In the novel, Winston describes what he sees during the hate: “In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen” (Orwell 14). The Two Minute Hate is the primary public gathering the superstate uses; however, there are other events that motivate the people as well. The people of Oceania go to public hangings and gather to watch videos of enemies being hurt and destroyed. This has the same effects as the 2 minute hate does and is beneficial for the Party in terms of the new generation being loyal, because the children are especially excited by these cruel events. Even if the public isn’t at the hate or a hanging, they are constantly seeing the Big Brother slogan in every corner of Oceania. Big brother is the symbolic figure in which the Party uses to represent their power and beliefs. As Winston looks outside, Orwell illustrates what he

sees:
..there seemed to be no color in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-mustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. (2)
Whether it’s on a cigarette pack or a huge banner that hangs on the side of every building, there is never a time when you are not reminded that Big Brother is watching you.
Another major way the Party has complete control of the population of Oceania is making them ignorant.

In fact, part of the Party’s slogan, ignorance is strength, is how they can manipulate the public. The ignorance of the people is how the party has strength, and the strength of the party causes the people to have ignorance. They dehumanize them by stripping away the minds of the people, sometimes by changing language altogether. In Oceania, they have their own language called newspeak, which makes words more simple and condensed. This minimizes ideas and creativity, on behalf of their being no words to do so. When Winston is speaking to a friend who works in newspeak, he tells Winston the purpose of it. He explains, “‘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’” (Orwell 52). Not only does the Party create things to limit the power of people, they take away things as well. To destroy knowledge and development of the mind, they must destroy evidence of the past. This is done in the Ministry of Truth where Winston works. His job is to literally rewrite the past by completely destroying and rewriting articles, or even adding an entire story that never existed. The Party can create the past in ways that benefit them, giving the people a feeling of vulnerability towards big brother. While Winston is talking about the Party dealing

with the past, he repeats the Party’s slogan, “‘‘Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past…’’” (Orwell 248). By destroying content from the past, people can't learn from mistakes which stalls the development of creativity and progression in the human mind.
Constant surveillance is the dominant method that the Oceanic government uses to have such tremendous authority over the public. The Party has devices called telescreens, a technology that is put in every place possible. They record and listen to you at all times; every action and word is monitored. There is not a spot in all of Oceania that is not overseen; even if there may not be a telescreen somewhere, there is a hidden microphone to be found. Besides actual devices that oversee you, there are actually human beings watching you as well. This could be the inner Party observing you through the telescreens or even your own children spying on you. Of course, there is the police who publicly looks out for crime, but an even more important force is the Thought Police who are a key factor in surveillance of the people. They are the secret police of the superstate who punish any actions or thoughts that are unapproved by the party. This makes the people continually alert of what they do and say because anyone could be part of it. In the book that Winston reads about the so called brotherhood against the party, Winston reads, “The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated” (Orwell 209). Other than telescreens and people, the biggest threat of all is yourself. There is more concern in what you are thinking and expressing because of the nonstop caution of someone seeing you. In the novel, Winston describes the dangers of yourself, “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away” (Orwell 62). The people have no choice but to act a certain way and constantly be cautious of their actions; there is never a chance to be disloyal or unfavorable towards the Party.
The government of Oceania in 1984 has multiple ways they obtain full and endless power. By propaganda, they can constantly remind the people who are in charge. By creating ignorance, the minds of the public have no intention to rebel. By being constantly watched, there is no room for mistakes. The government does things like destroying articles and watching over the people to create a world in which there is no way out. Instead of having real humans that are a risk to their power, they have created a population of empty souls who do not have the same will people used to before the Party’s time. Unlike other superstates, Orwell has created one in which the Party focuses less on their own power, but the people they have power of. Through slogans and gatherings, ignorance and destruction of truth, and constant surveillance there is no escaping the everlasting superstate of Oceania.