Language is undeniably the most useful form of communication. It helps people put words to their actions. When you manipulate language, you could take words that can express something. The Party was a group of people who controlled the government. They decided what happened in the past and can change it at will. They also tortured people for no believing, thinking, and speaking the way they think is right. 1984 was about a middle aged man, Winston, who wanted to start a rebellion with his girlfriend, but was captured and tortured to become a different man who followed the rules of the time. With the ultimate power, Big Brother and the Party, controlled everything. The Party’s slogan was, “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past.” (34 Orwell). This quote tells us a …show more content…
The Party also wanted people to conform to the thought that Big Brother was top gun and what he says goes. If you do not think, believe, or speak the way Big Brother wants you to, then you will be tortured. “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.” (52 Orwell). The character Syme is telling this to the rebel Winston. He believes that if we eliminate most words, then thoughtcrime would disappear because there would be no way to express anything. Winston, on the other hand, wants to be able to express himself and figure out why the government is changing the past and altering the language. Overall, the idea behind manipulating language to have everyone conform to the same
Diction: While George Orwell used fairly simple and uncomplicated diction to tell the story many of his words still have a very powerful diction. In the first chapter the protagonist Winston is attack by the smell of “boiled cabbage and old rag mats”. This is the first indication to the nature of the living conditions of our protagonist. However, Orwell also uses his diction to create the atmosphere of Oceania with lines like “the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything”. These lines contain powerful words like cold, torn, and harsh and these worlds help paint the picture of what kind of story we are reading.
The Party and its leader Big Brother play the role of authority in 1984. The Party is always watching the citizens of the Republic of Oceania. This is exemplified in the fact that the government has telescreens through which they can watch you wherever you are set up almost everywhere. Even in the countryside where there are no telescreens, the Party can monitor its citizens through hidden microphones disguised as flowers. The Thought Police are capable of spying on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest or even kill you on a whim. Not only does the Thought Police find and hunt down felons, but it also scares others into being good citizens. The Party strives to eliminate more and more words from people’s vocabularies. Thus, the Party can destroy any possibilities of revolutions and conspiracies against itself. Its ultimate goal is to reduce the language to only one word, eliminating thought of any kind. The Party makes people believe that it is good and right in its actions through the Ministry of Truth and through the slogans printed on the Ministry of Truth:...
1984 was written in 1948 and published in 1949 by Eric Arthur Blair under the pen name ‘George Orwell’. It is set in the year 1984 in Airstrip One, which is a province in the country of Oceania. The world is in a constant state of war between Oceania, and the other two countries, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania is controlled by English Socialism, or INGSOC in Oceania’s language, Newspeak. The powerful Inner Party controls the country using omnipresent surveillance, and manipulation. Every part of life is regimented and controlled, but the only crime is ‘thoughtcrime’: independent thinking and individualism. Big Brother is the figurehead of the Inner Party, and throughout the book, it is heavily implied that he may not really exist. The people
Propaganda also plays a central role within the Party's infrastructure and it is used to gain support for Big Brother, stir patriotism and induce hate towards the chosen "enemy" country. Workers in the Ministry of Truth work to change the past, making Big Brother seem to have always been right. Also, the Party seeks to stifle any individual or "potentially revolutionary" thought by introducing a new language, Newspeak, the eradication of English and the deployment of "Thought Police" who terrorize Party members by accusing them of "Thought Crime" (ie. to think a crime is to commit a crime). The introduction of this new language means that eventually, no-one is able to commit thought-crime due to the lack of words to express it.
In George Orwell’s novel, 1984 the theme is a totalitarian government has the capability to physically and mentally break down individuals and then rebuild them the way they want by using torture and the destruction of emotions and personal thought.
Just changing a few small items in history can alter human belief. By constantly feeding the people fraudulent information and hiding the truth, the Party can get the people to believe almost anything; eventually leading to complete dominance over the mind. Orwell argues that society is completely oblivious to the constraints that are involved in everyday life. There is no individual in society and everyone remains the same. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?”
At the time 1984 was first published, World War II had only been over for four years. Dictators like Hitler and Stalin had ruined people's hope for reform. Technology, for the first time in history, now had the potential of annihilating civilization. Hitler had used fear and technology to increase his power and control the people. Big Brother did the exact same thing.
I strongly agree with Fromm’s viewpoints and interpretations of Orwell’s 1984 text. He warns that the future federal powers will dehumanize society and leave everyone alienated. Thus, I agree with Fromm to the extent that he acknowledges the fact that humanity can indeed cease to exist as a result of our own self-destruction as well as the effect of our actions. Many of his opinions and warnings expressed by Orwell to an extent appear in contemporary society.
This cruel punishment is what they did to anyone, no matter what, to change their beliefs. Big Brother would succeed in this. 1984 was a representation of what the future holds in store, and how society could change. By creating a leader who people feared and appreciated, society could easily be controlled and how one person could control everyone. Orwell predicted the future in a sense with things he noticed in real life experiences and how the world was changing in such an early time.
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. The party slogan of Ingsoc illustrates the sense of contradiction which characterizes the novel 1984. That the book was taken by many as a condemnation of socialism would have troubled Orwell greatly, had he lived to see the aftermath of his work. 1984 was a warning against totalitarianism and state sponsored brutality driven by excess technology. Socialist idealism in 1984 had turned to a total loss of individual freedom in exchange for false security and obedience to a totalitarian government, a dysutopia. 1984 was more than a simple warning to the socialists of Orwell's time. There are many complex philosophical issues buried deep within Orwell's satire and fiction. It was an essay on personal freedom, identity, language and thought, technology, religion, and the social class system. 1984 is more than a work of fiction. It is a prediction and a warning, clothed in the guise of science fiction, not so much about what could happen as it is about the implications of what has already happened. Rather than simply discoursing his views on the social and political issues of his day, Orwell chose to narrate them into a work of fiction which is timeless in interpretation. This is the reason that 1984 remains a relevant work of social and philosophical commentary more than fifty years after its completion.
They created a language called Newspeak, which limits what a person can say and how they can say it. In the appendix of Nineteen Eighty-four, the purpose of Newspeak is described as, “not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.” (page 301) The erasure of other modes of thought occurs when entire concepts are annihilated, such as free choice or free will. If an entire concept does not exist, then citizens cannot converse about it, nor can they even think about it. This limits the person to only one way of thought: the way Big Brother wants you to think. By making all other modes of thought impossible, Big Brother is eliminating the individuality that speech builds. Big Brother is also using Newspeak to dehumanize the population. The concept of speech is one indispensable instrument that separates the human population from animals. Having one aspect of it taken away from them moves them closer to the animal kingdom, thus eliminating a quality of human
one of the most important aspects of the Party's reality is Big Brother. Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, come directly from his leadership and inspiration. Nobody has ever seen Big Brother in person. He is a face on the wall, a voice on the screen.
Eventually, the lack of privacy and freedom leads to a suppression of people’s thinking. In 1984, people’s thinking was controlled by lies, invented stories and false information. The stories of the past are all altered and the information is constantly changing every day without any sign of change. The party uses propaganda as a deadly weapon to control its citizens’ minds.
In the essay “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell, the author states his opinion of the decline of the English language. Orwell discusses both its causes and what he foresees as its consequences. He states there is less innovation and coherency, which dilutes the power of the language. Orwell felt that people were using the English language inaccurately, relying on metaphors which are meaningless and used so the writer does not have to bother with creating their phrases. Orwell asserted “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
Could the destruction in the past be used as a tool to manipulate people into believing anything? In George Orwell’s novel “1984”, the society is forced to live with a totalitarian government, called the Party, forcing all of the citizens to speak only one language. They limit the use of vocabulary and shorten words to prevent the society from thinking their own thoughts. They use propaganda to change the citizens mindset so that the Party is always right. By regulating the citizens thought, words, and language and by using propaganda, the novel shows that the destruction of language can be used as a tool to manipulate language.