I liked
1984 for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of thought
crime? It’s not a concept we’re familiar with because we do not have the
limitations concerning every aspect of our lives. But will Winston bite the
hand that feeds him? Problem with that is they aren’t doing that good of a job
feeding him. To fix this problem there are a few safeguards put into practice. The
political philosophy INGSOC is totalitarian. And their motto is “Big Brother is
Watching You.” Totalitarianism is a major
theme and aspect of “Big Brothers” political indoctrination. This philosophy is
explored early on in the book setting the foundation for controversy. All of
the party slogans are contradictory. Maintaining that war is peace creates a
paradox. This and the statement “two and two makes five” is part of the party’s
concept of “double think”.
Back to the main point, The Telescreens watch almost every
single aspect of the people’s lives. This is one method of ensuring that
everyone is staying in line. The second way they control the masses is by
indoctrination is by writing history as they see fit. It’s clear that whoever
controls the past controls the present. What I like is that they channel
everyone’s emotions, fears, and energy towards one directive: Goldstein. This is
one way they remove any opposition. The newspeak
language reminds me of The Giver in
the fact that its purpose is to remove any emotion or “unnecessary” words from
the diction. This is another means of controlling the people. If they can’t
think of the concept or idea of what a words means, how can they convey that
feeling? We know what a tree is merely by hearing the word. The word itself is
only a conjunction of letters. It’s the idea it conjures that we focus on. 1984
is one of my favorite books because of the dystopian society. I think that
Orwell wrote it in 1948 after the war to illustrate some of his fears for what
a post war world could have looked like. Besides, there were more than enough
types of governments present in that era and I think he saw the possibility of
a new world order so to speak. Propaganda is probably the most prevalent part
of the book. After all, all of the nations in that time used some tailored for
to provoke a response.