1984 Totalitarianism Analysis

During Joseph Stalin’s regime of the Soviet Union, 1984, the Classic Dystopian novel by George Orwell, was burned and banned, because the book shone a negative light on communism. The book, 1984, follows the life of Winston Smith, who lives in a country called Oceania. Oceania is a totalitarian society, ruled by a government known as The Party, whose leader is called Big Brother. In Oceania, every movement and sound every person makes is constantly surveillanced, and one wrong facial expression, statement, or action can cause the ‘Thought Police’ to take the person away to never be seen again. A small percentage of the population questions The Party’s dictatorship, and the novel follows Winston’s struggles to keep his hatred of The Party

“1984” is an imaginary novel wrote by George Orwell in 1949. The novel takes place in a fictional country called Oceania. In 1984, the society is a mess in the control of the “big brother”, people are leveled by three three classes: the upper class party, the middle outer class party, and the lower class proles. But the lower class make up 85 per cent of the people in Oceania. Winston is a outer class party member working for the “big brother”. This novel uses Winston as an example to show how the “big brother” takes the control by mind, manipulation and technology.

Thirty-three years ago, the unpleasantry that novelist George Orwell dreamt of never became the reality he predicted it would in 1949. The year 1984 was supposed to take society on an absolute turn for the worst, becoming a global dystopia in which everyone lived under the regulation and dominance of one of three totalitarian superstates. Orwell wrote of this future in his book 1984, creating the fictional universe of Oceania in which the lives of Winston Smith and the other characters in Oceania seemed genuinely real, especially by use of various literary devices. Motifs such as the linguistic concept of Newspeak and the majority of society’s convergence of feelings towards the Party and Big Brother appear multiple times throughout the pages of the novel. Through such recurring ideas, a major theme stands out - the lack of self-expression. Living under an authoritarian and oppressive government, party members such as Winston are forced to follow the socialist policies of Ingsoc. In the book it is written that, “The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of dependent thought” (Orwell 193). If everyone were to give into the Party, self-expression would be entirely eliminated because everyone and everything would be censored. With such motives made clear, Winston along with a minority realize the absurdity in the Party’s ways. Nevertheless, many more others do not, loving Big Brother and embracing

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

Over seventy years after he lived and wrote, the works of English journalist and democratic socialist George Orwell, continue to fascinate, stimulate and enrage his readers concerning the structure of society and the organization of government. The controversial writer openly spoke out against the absolute power of any government, warning that a fascist government would deprive its people of their basic freedoms and liberties. Orwell’s novel, 1984, serves as a reminder of the danger of totalitarianism by depicting a future in which all citizens live under the constant surveillance of the “Big Brother.” Through the main character, Winston Smith, Orwell demonstrates the dangers of totalitarianism; writing of the consequences of absolute government in several essays and proposing socialism as an alternative. To Orwell, the role of government is to represent the common people rather than the old and the privileged.

Winston Smith is a typical example of vertebrae in the spine of any society. Hard working and keeps a rigid structure by absorbing impact, filling the spaces with his unknown desires. The bending of laws to avoid self-destruction in constant pressure from society and government. The idea of having every thought controlled, monitored and limited to what the elite deem as a necessary compromise to maintain peace and order in Oceania or any other Utopia in a general sense. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of their own choosing, to understand the concept is the true hell for Winston.

Imagine a world where the government, also called The Party, controls everything the citizens do. The Party monitors their every move by the telescreens that are in every home. Thoughtcrime is the act of thinking something that goes against Big Brother or threatens the Party’s power. If one does commit thoughtcrime, then they Thought Police will capture them and give them consequence. There is no essence of humanity in this world. Everyone is stripped of their own thoughts and told what to do and what to believe. This is the world portrayed in novel

To start things off let's look at the differences between dictatorship and totalitarian control “Totalitarian regimes seek to establish complete political, social and cultural control. ”(Nazi Fascism and the modern totalitarian state) and “dictatorships seek limited, typically political, control. ”(Nazi Fascism and the modern totalitarian state).

1984 is a book that explains how bad it would be to be under a totalitarian government they control how you think and act. A totalitarian government can almost every form of government as long the people do not have all of the power in the government. The reason for this is that people would not willingly consent to to lose their freedom to act or how they think. 1984 was written during the years of the rise of the nazi germany. This book was written to inform people about how bad life would be if totalitarianism was your government.

In 1984, a totalitarian dictator rules over Oceania. A totalitarian government is a government where one ruler, the dictator, has absolute control over citizens’ lives (“Totalitarianism,” Encyclopaedia). In 1984, Big Brother has the role of the dictator, as he is ultimately in charge of everything that happens. No matter what anybody does, he always has the final say. If anybody does anything he does not like, then they are completely eliminated from society. The people in his society are all programmed from birth to follow what he says, and even turn on each other in favor of the Party. In Encyclopaedia Britannica’s page on totalitarian governments, it addresses social interaction between people under rule of a dictator:

The dictionary definition of humanity is the fact or condition of being human; human nature. This means that any natural emotion or natural human instinct is apart of one’s humanity. George Orwell used a person’s humanity in his book “1984” to show the ways of the Party and totalitarianism. In a totalitarian society, the rulers try to control their citizens through violence, torture, and abuse of power. One way is to try and control one's thoughts or their humanity which is exactly what the party members tried to do and in some ways succeeded.

Although some people believe that our government is on the right tracks, others have privacy concerns. In the book 1984, we have seen this, we have seen comparable situations to the world today. We, the people, elect officials to make decisions and rules. The people elect single officials for each state and one to rule everything, the way things are looking, the United States of America, is going from the land of the free, to the land of totalitarianism. Although some people believe our government is on the right tracks others do not.

How would you feel if you lived under an oppressive government with no privacy and constant surveillance? Well, George Orwells hate for totalitarian governments lead him to write about a dystopian society in 1984. Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union were heavy influence for the novel. Orwell implicated many of the same methods that the Soviets used throughout the novel, such as using fear to control people, restricting information from citizens, and having a figurehead that ruled over a whole nation. As the protagonist of 1984, these were some of the ordeals that Winston Smith was forced to face.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was written by a major contributor to anticommunist literature around the World War II period, and is one of the greatest stories of an anti-utopian society ever. Nineteen Eighty-Four was not written solely as an entertaining piece of literature or as a dream of what the future could be like, it was written as a warning of what could happen as a result of communism and totalitarianism. This was not necessarily a widely popular vision of the future at the time of publication, but it was certainly considered a possibility by many people. The popular vision of the future, if analyzed as from a character in the book's point of view, sometimes changes, depending on the character. The mass of people, the proletarians, have a

In “1984,” Orwell describes a terrible society where totalitarianism reaches the top. In this circumstance, personality and freedom are strangled and thought is controlled. The most frightening aspect is that citizens have no sense right and wrong. Without a doubt, the reason why these happen is the governing of the Party, which is controlling everything in the country, Oceania. Orwell uses the control of language to show the idea that the Party solidifies its dominant position.