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Three ways of meeting oppression analysis
Three ways of meeting oppression analysis
Three ways of meeting oppression analysis
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Imagine a world where mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers no longer seem to be a part of society. Imagine a world where humans are lifeless shells of people. In 1984 by George Orwell, he portrays a society twisted and degraded by the idea of “utopia”. In such a twisted society, it is really no surprise that humanity becomes lost. To be human is to have emotion and one must be able to smile, laugh or shout without living in fear of what may happen to them. Where one gets these values are from their friend and their families, without those, a person would simply be an empty shell. These rights are taking away from the citizens of Oceania and replaced with strict rules and observation from the ominous force known as Big Brother. These citizens …show more content…
are brainwashed into loving Big Brother because he is always watching.
One wrong move and these citizens will be subjected to copious amounts of torture as a curing method. They live in constant fear as they are slowly being manipulated every day. In 1984, George Orwell explores psychological manipulation of society while living in Oceania under control of the Party.
Big Brother and the telescreens plays a central role in the lives of the citizens of Oceania in more than one way. The telescreens monitor behavior—everywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by means of the signs reading “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” that the authorities are scrutinizing them. The telescreens are the book’s most visible symbol of the subjects of the Party being monitored. “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long
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as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard”(Orwell 3 ). The telescreen is not allowed to be turned off which gives another purpose to it. People are less likely to commit a crime knowing that Big Brother is watching. The inner Party members have the special privilege of turning off their telescreens as does O’Brien during his meeting with Julia and Winston. “The new catechumens, so unused to luxury and privacy—the telescreen is amazingly turned off—are nervous, uneasy, but above all awestruck. O’Brien is so clearly a man of power”(Twayne 81); Big Brother is the face of the Party and his face appears on almost every wall.” On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which were so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move”(Orwell 1).The Party’s official records date Big Brother’s existence back to 1930, but Winston believes he remembers Big Brother emerging in the 1960s. This is just one of the many ways the Party has altered history to meet their standards. One of the issues raised in 1984 is the idea that history is changeable, that the truth is what the Party wants it to be, and that the truths found in history are bases for the principles of the future.This often relates to one of the many party slogans: “ ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,’ repeated Winston obediently.” (Orwell 248) Winston’s job is creating or making the past into something unrecognizable to any person with a good memory so that each lie suddenly becomes historic fact.
One moment, Oceania is and always has been at war with Eurasia, the next moment it is and has always been at war with Eastasia. “Within each state the necessary psychological atmosphere would be kept up by a complete severance from the outside world, and by a continuous phony war against rival states” (Gardner 110). The citizens feel like the enemies of the Party are out to get them despite these enemies never making a true appearance in the novel. “All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals.” (Orwell 24) The anger and ferocity that the citizens feel are directed towards the enemies of the party in the Two Minutes Hate, a segment of time in which all the hate and anger of the citizens are directed towards the enemies of the Party. Because Big Brother is proclaimed to be good, any enemy is automatically evil and bad. While it is a “two minutes
hate” the desired result is less hatred of Big Brother. “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic” (Orwell 14) A rebellion is the last thing the party wants or defiance of their power. They don’t want anything like intercourse, a defiance against the party, or thoughtcrime getting in the way. The subject of intercourse in 1984 is a simple statement. The Party despise sexual relationships because it realizes that the hysteria caused by sexual frustration can be harnessed into war fever and worship of other leaders. Because of this, when Winston and Julia make love they think of it as a political act as a blow struck against the Party.“The aim of the Party was not merely to prevent men and women from forming loyalties which it might not be able to control. Its real, undeclared purpose was to remove all pleasure from the sexual act. Not love so much as eroticism was the enemy, inside marriage as well as outside it” (Orwell 65). Julia’s voluptuous appearance arouses feelings of hatred and resentment that only subside when he learns that he can possess her physically. “At this early point in the novel, Winston imagines Julia as complicit with paternal control of female sexuality through chastity, as symbolized by the ‘scarlet sash….” (Carpentier). In place of love, the Party substitutes leader-worship and patriotic feeling: thus, when Winston betrays Julia under torture, he learns to respect O'Brien and worship Big Brother. Katherine and Winston often performed the act with Katherine saying it was a duty to the party. They could not produce a child, therefore, Katherine slowly faded out of Winston’s memory and life. The family is only made for bearing children and living as an ideal Party family. The Parsons were often seen as the ideal family with their children being Junior Spies. They expressed complete loyalty to the Party with every little ounce they had in their bodies. “Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party” ( Orwell 24) It is not surprising as Parsons commits thoughtcrime and he is caught by his daughter.! “ ‘It was my little daughter,’ said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride. ‘She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day” (Orwell 233) He ends up in the Ministry of Love waiting for his fate along with Winston who will eventually meet his match in Room 101. Winston gets himself into this situation by foolishly renting out a room in Mr. Charrington’s shop. The telescreen is revealed to be behind the picture of St.Clement’s Church although they were told that he did not have one. Julia and Winston are swiftly arrested and taken to the Ministry of Love. “ There was a stampede of boots up the stairs. The room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with ironshod boots on their feet and truncheons in their hands. Winston was not trembling any longer” (Orwell 222).
Deception and a blatant contradiction of facts in the spirit of impunity form the foundation of the construct of modern dictatorship and draconian governance. Leaders with this attitude treat the public office and nation as personal property and deploy the state resources at their disposal for selfish use. Their behavior takes the form of frivolous “surveillances, monitoring, and other control structures founded on lies and ambiguities” (Dean and Orwell 23). The same scenario is exactly what happens at Oceania. The nation is governed by the party headed by the big brother (“Gordon State College” n.p.).
In 1984, the manipulation of the body is an effective practice that oppresses a population. The Party maintains absolute control over Oceania’s citizens by manipulating their physical state to better repress them. This leads to them being more about their own pain and physical well being, thus distracting them from the suffering that is happening in the world around them, and distracting them from thought of rebellion. The Party uses physical manipulation via overworking them to exhaustion and torture methods.The Party keeps their citizens in a state of exhaustion as they are easier to control, as the narrator explains while Winston works in the Ministry of Truth:
While government as an institution can be used for benevolent purposes, George Orwell’s novel 1984 contends that when taken to an excess in the form of totalitarianism, government becomes dangerously self-serving.
James Stacey Taylor's article, "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance" begins reviewing the concept of "Big Brother" as it was originally presented in George Orwell's 1984. The Big Brother started off as a fictional character in 1984-- a dictator of Oceania within a totalitarian state. Set within a society in which everyone is under complete surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens, the people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” (Wikipedia) . Taylor goes on to explain some examples of recent surveillance technology and how it is applied in lives today. An interesting note and comparison between today’s technology and that of the telescreens in 1984, is that people could be sure that they could not be watched by Big Brother’s telescreens by going out of the cities into the country, where they only had to take care that their conversations were not monitored by hidden microphones (Taylor 227). He contrasts the two, highlighting the fact that “Such an escape is not impossible, for spy satellites can be used to monitor people wherever they go” (277). From there, Taylor perpetuates the framework for his position on the Big Brother notion. Taylor argues that, "rather than opposing such an expansion of surveillance technology, its use should be encouraged -- and not only in the public realm" (227). Taylor’s argument presented in a more formal construction is as follows:
It is not an easy feat to control an entire population such as Oceania. They must monitor their people through the use of telescreens, microphones, and cameras 24 hours, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year, to prevent the spread of “false” information, that is not part of the party’s strategy. Not only do they monitor their people, they control the media, control their emotions, control their feelings, and they instil fear into the people; who do not conform to the Party’s beliefs. The people of Oceania believe that they will be taken, tortured, and/or vaporized by
Every human being has natural rights that can never be taken away. In an attempt to create a world where every person if offered a fair opportunity to live life, the United Nations passed a bill called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1948. The document outlines the all the rights provided to everyone in the world, despite age, gender, religion etc. Civil liberties including, right to life, liberty and security of person; the right not to be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family or home; and right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, are incorporated in the Declaration. Despite the positive moral of the implemented civil rights, there have been numerous instances when essential civil liberties have been taken away from innocent people. By taking away natural rights from other people, the offenders attain the desired power and control. In the book, 1984, George Orwell presents the idea of how the world would become if all natural rights seized to exist. The omnipresent ruler of Oceania, named Big Brother, seizes all the natural rights of the citizens, to gain unconstrained power over everything and everyone. Big Brother’s dominants the lives of the citizens by strongly executing the idea of ‘mind over matter’ or doublethink to control the minds of the people, by the creation of groundbreaking technology to control the actions of the citizens and by controlling and modifying the English spoken and written language to express authority over freedom of thought and speech. The combination of the three methods helps Big Brother to create a never-ending rein on the minds and hearts of the citizens of Oceania.
In the novel 1984, Orwell produced a social critique on totalitarianism and a future dystopia that made the world pause and think about our past, present and future. When reading this novel we all must take the time to think of the possibility that Orwell's world could come to pass. Orwell presents the concepts of power, marginalization, and resistance through physical, psychological, sexual and political control of the people of Oceania. The reader experiences the emotional ride through the eyes of Winston Smith, who was born into the oppressive life under the rule of Ingsoc. Readers are encouraged through Winston to adopt a negative opinion on the idea of communist rule and the inherent dangers of totalitarianism. The psychological manipulation and physical control are explored through Winston's journey, and with Winston's resistance and ultimate downfall, the reader is able to fully appreciate O'Briens reasoning, "Power is not a means, it is an end."
Ultimately, common ideas found in the novel 1984, totalitarianism, surveillance, and lack of privacy are also ubiquitous in modern society and government. Big Brother and modern day government have been able to control its citizens through surveillance equipment, and fear all for a little more power. There is much to learn from such an undesirable form of society much like the one of Oceania in 1984. Examining Big Brother government closely, alarming connections can be made to real-world government actions in the United States and the cruel world within Orwell's book.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell, is a superb novel with outstanding themes. One of the most prominent themes found in this novel is psychological manipulation. Citizens in this society are subject to ever present signs declaring “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” (Orwell 1). Along with psychological manipulation, physical control takes place. The Party not only controls what people in Oceania think, but what they do as well. Technology is another important theme. Without the constant telescreens, microphones, and computers, the Party would be all but powerless. Big Brother is the main figure of the Party. The main symbol that drives these themes is the telescreens. It is representative of the party always watching and controlling everyone at all times.
In 1984, George Orwell presents an overly controlled society that is run by Big Brother. The protagonist, Winston, attempts to “stay human” in the face of a dehumanizing, totalitarian regime. Big Brother possesses so much control over these people that even the most natural thoughts such as love and sex are considered taboo and are punishable. Big Brother has taken this society and turned each individual against one another. Parents distrust their own offspring, husband and wife turn on one another, and some people turn on their own selves entirely. The people of Oceania become brainwashed by Big Brother. Punishment for any uprising rebellions is punishable harshly.
George Orwell’s intent in the novel 1984 is to warn society about the results of a controlling and manipulative government by employing mood, conflict, and imagery.
The perspective of one’s reality is limited to one’s mind; if one controls their mind, then one can control that person’s world. This is the ideology by which the Party survives. The citizens of Oceania live with the knowledge that every aspect of their lives is being observed and controlled constantly. This is seen visually with the use of the telescreens and the thought police. Winston explains life under the control of Big Brother as so, “You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in
In 1984, violence is a key tactic used by the totalitarian government to keep constant fear within their society. As long as there is violence, citizens will stay obedient to the higher power, and even become violent themselves. The government uses this to their advantage to obtain their one desire: power. The role of violence is used by the totalitarian government to gain complete control over their citizens by using violence psychologically, physically, and motivationally towards the people of Oceania.
Identity, in today’s society, is often taken for granted. We have the ability to be anything we wish to be and act in any way we wish to act, but in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, identity is not taken for granted because it does not exist at all. Winston Smith, the narrator, lives in a dystopian society based on the idea of totalitarian government rule. This government is known as Big Brother. In order for Big Brother to stay in power, a few things are necessary: identity cannot exist; everything and everyone must be uniform; the past must be controlled in order to regulate the present; and the people must constantly be practicing the ideas of Newspeak and Doublethink, a form of control the government holds over the people. By enforcing these simple laws and regulations, the government is able to keep a tight grip on its people, with few ever releasing themselves from its grasp. Winston Smith on the other hand, seeks to know the truth behind the government, he is constantly questioning everything and repressing all the ideas forced upon him. Winston “seeks truth and sanity, his only resources being the long denied and repressed processes of selfhood” (Feder 398). All identity is gone in this place called Oceania, and for the sake of Big Brother and its continuous control of the people, it will never exist again. In 1984, the absence of identity strips the people of all creativity and diversity, as well as takes away any chance the society has to advance as a people or in the area of technology.
“ War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,”. The following quote originates from the infamous novel, 1984 by George Orwell. The meaning behind this popular quote was the action of doublethink which is the act of believing two contradictory thoughts are true. Doublethink plays a large role in the novel. The novel, 1984 takes place in a super-state called Oceania and the main character is Winston Smith. Winston Smith and the rest of the society are controlled by the party and their leader, Big Brother. The government Winston lives with is highly strict and uses technology such as hidden microphones, hidden spies and telescreens (cameras) to monitor the actions of every civilian in the super-state which makes it difficult for Winston