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1984 Literary Analysis

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In every country, county and city, a government is intact to resolve each community’s issues. It is formed to further perfect each society to become a utopia for its citizens, but even within the government itself, obstacles, such as the balance of the state’s power, remain. This type of dilemma is demonstrated throughout literature; one example can be recognized in George Orwell’s 1984. George Orwell uses literary elements to express social issues of the dystopian society in 1984. Many social issues involving social control from the government is expressed through the literary element of symbolism. Different recurring symbols in 1984 by George Orwell include the government figure Big Brother, Winston Smith’s occupation, and Oceania’s language …show more content…

In Oceania, history in textbooks cannot be trusted because of its many revisions in its short amount of time. This process of revision is in Winston’s job description. It is his and his department’s responsibility to manufacture lies, and out of all of this slander that is created, some are hand picked by the Party to become sick twisted truths. With the selected fabrications becoming authentic, only human memory proves facts to be true, but “since the Party is in full control of all records, and equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it,” and it can be altered by the Party numerous amounts of times without citizens questioning their authority (213). As the Party exercises control of Oceania, it becomes an issue of social control. It symbolizes that nothing in Oceania is a reliable source, not even the human mind. This kind of power soon becomes a powerful controversy of the mind to Winston. Even as an employee of the fabrication department, Winston is not able to differentiate which country his country is at war with; is it Eurasia, or has it always been Eastasia? The occupation of Winston and his fellow comrades represents the power and control over its citizens without most citizens recognizing how powerless they are. …show more content…

The country’s language, Newspeak, also symbolizes a form of the social control issue. This language is a digression from the original language Oldspeak, which is closely related to the English language. Newspeak is a gradual regression of Oldspeak because the dictionary for Newspeak is always being revised and shorten. Over time the citizens of Oceania gradually develop a smaller range of vocabulary. Thoughtcrime is opposing the Party in any way or having different beliefs from the Party, and this is a dilemma in Oceania. The only other way for the Party to eliminate thoughtcrime is to “narrow the range of thought...make thoughtcrime impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed in one word, ” and make other thoughts inexpressible (52). Therefore there will not be a word to express a certain thought or feeling eliminating individuality and any way for the people of Oceania to know any different. Soon there will be no expression to explicit the strong feelings such as love or even hate. This is a very strong form of social control, but this social issue is recognized by Winston

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