How Did George Orwell Gain Power In 1984

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Orwell took inspiration from the world around him when writing 1984. In 1937, Orwell arrived in Barcelona to fight General Franco’s fascist ways and joined a socialist group, P.O.U.N., but Russia wanted to use their own socialist views to fight against Franco. Russia then went on to denounce P.O.U.N. as a fascist supporting group (“Famous Authors: George Orwell: 1903-1950”). Orwell witnessed first hand how the government is able to distort the truth in order to gain power. Winston also witnessed the party claiming that they had created helicopters and then when Julia got to school the party claimed to create airplanes (Orwell 153).This is crucial because whoever controls the past also controls the future since they have the power to change both. From his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell gained a sense of the ineffectiveness …show more content…

The three superstates are in a constant war, but one can not or even try to defeat the others. While Winston was reading Goldstein’s book, he discovered the true meaning of war is “waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent the conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact” (Orwell 199). Power over the citizens is maintained through these wars because the party ensures that each member feels as though they are helping the soldiers on the warfront, when in reality, they are producing items for themselves. When World War II broke out, Orwell was unable to enlist and stayed in London to work for the British Broadcasting Corporation, also known as “BBC”(“Famous Authors: George Orwell: 1903-1950”). While working for the networking company, he began to see that facts were once again distorted to fit the government’s point of view like how London had suddenly switched from hating Russia to becoming allies and London’s “Big Brother” and no one seemed to

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