1984 Truth

The Party uses surveillance in various intrusive ways to police the thoughts and actions of the people. In the opening scene, Winston uses an alcove in his flat to write in his diary out of sight of the telescreen, an instrument similar to a television that cannot be turned off. Winston knows that it is watching his every move. Later, when O’Brien simply turns off his telescreen, Winston is amazed at this inconceivable privilege. The screens cover public areas as well as each house in Oceania. Also covering the streets are posters of a man with a black moustache and following eyes, which everyone knows as Big Brother. This idyllic, anonymous figure

The motif, Newspeak, recurs throughout the novel, and illustrates how the government restricts knowledge through the limitation of language. Newspeak is a language that has a narrowed vocabulary in an attempt to exclude words that can raise awareness of any suppressive behavior that the Party exerts. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” This quote best illustrates the Party’s intentions for Newspeak in regards to this slogan. The first sentence establishes how this motif is increasing ignorance, by narrowing the range of thought. In doing so, the second sentence holds true as the more ignorance that is spread through society, the more strength and power the Party gains control over the people of Oceania.

Throughout the novel, Winston wanted to rebel against the government, but the fear of the thought police made him conform. The party used telescreens and other things to monitor the citizens to make sure they were not thinking for themselves. This is why Winston had to be careful in what he does because if he got caught he would have been killed. When Winston finally found people that he trusted and thought were on his side, he started to begin to do things outside of conformity. This is when the party stepped in and began to punish him with his worst fear of rats to make him conform again. Winston knew that Big Brother was not real, but he was forced to conform by being brainwashed by his

Thirdly When Winston and Julia go to O'Brien's to look at the newest version of the Newspeak dictionary, O'Brien turns the telescreen off, and immediately Winston feels like he can say anything. Winston exclaims, "You can turn it off!" (173). Every fear of the Party's eye immediately vanishes when the screen is turned off. The screen represents all that is frightening and once turned off the thought of fear is eliminated (to a degree). Every thought that Winston has held in is spilled without the fear of O'Brien or man. Winston speaks for Julia and himself saying, "We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought criminals. We are also adulterers." (174). The fact that the constant eye through the telescreens of "Big Brother" is gone, or at least thought to be, eliminates the thought of being afraid making Winston feel invincible.

No one knew if what they remembered was true or not because of all the false stories put into their heads. In Orwell’s novel, the rebels were beaten and the soul they once had floated away to never come back. “We have beaten you, Winston. We have broken you up. You have seen what your body is like. Your mind is in the same state. I do not think… You have whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation that has not happened to you?” (Orwell, 273). This is clear proof that Winston was tortured and beaten into believing what the government wanted him to. He hated Big Brother his whole life and now the person that he was once was had been taken away from him. A new and government improved version appeared. No flaws, no doubts, no anger, just confidence that everything Big Brother said was true.

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” (part 1, pg 74) this not only foreshadows Winston, how he knew the truth about the party, rebelled, then chose to be ‘unconscious’ again, but also shows how one cannot be enlightened if they choose to be blind. In the first half of the book, Winston, in a way, was ‘free’, free in terms of understanding that the party was wrong. Once the party found out, they didn’t have a choice but to torture Winston into submission, instilling fear in him. This left him with the choice of having knowledge and death, or a twisted form of ‘happiness’ while being ignorant; “The choice of mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” (pg.

Near the end of the novel, 1984, Winston’s, and the way he acts, transforms due to false consciousness. The false consciousness in Winston was generated by his persecutor, using painful methods. Winston was forced to believe whatever O’Brian, the torturer, said, “And if the Party says that is not four but five then how many?” “Four” (Orwell 255) After that point, Winston eventually began to accept that ‘four plus four is five’, due to the pain and torture he was put through. Winston constantly thought and wrote the statement ‘four plus four equals five’. This could be considered as, what is called, memory amplification. “This process tends to involve the subject remembering more trauma than they actually experienced.” (strange/Takarangi 2016). Winston’s traumatized state, caused by O’Brian, led his mind falsely recreate the traumatic events, different from how it actually occurred. This rethinking of the traumatic event, cause Winston to bring about its own sense of false consciousness. The event is in his memory forever, and therefore he begins to believe the statement, even though it’s false. Winston inevitably changes; his mind and what he believes in, all because of his newly reformed state of mind, creating false

“By sitting in the alcove, and keeping back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his

In this passage located in the first paragraph of 1984, the reader immediately gets a sense of contradiction. April is usually filled with cloudy weather and rain but here, it is cold and bright, directly contrasting the perceived weather of April. In addition, clocks only have twelve numbers, but the clock was striking thirteen. In the same paragraph, Orwell writes that "Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him" (5). The “gritty dust,” along with the previously described conditions of this setting in this quote shows that it is not safe for human life.

After capturing Winston Smith for thought crime, O’Brien describes real power as “tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your choosing” (Orwell 266). By this he explains that true power is being able to choose what people minds think. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, Winston, a Ministry of Truth worker who hates the Party, slowly starts to disobey the Party rules such as having freedom of thought and individuality. He entrusts a Party member, O’Brien, with his secret for the hatred of the Party. O’Brien reveals that he is a high Party leader who will fix Winston’s corrupt mind. Throughout this novel, it demonstrates that government is controlling people’s minds and

In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the totalitarian government is adamant that all citizens not only follow its policies, but wholeheartedly agree with them. In order to maintain his individuality and avoid the Thought Police, Winston lies about his allegiance to the government and his beliefs and thoughts. He learns that his lies are weak and shallow after he is caught, and he eventually realizes the true power of his lies when he deceives himself. The totalitarian government Orwell presents encourages deception as a means of survival, increasing the government’s power when the citizens are eventually driven to lie to themselves. As the Party grows stronger and individuality crumbles, Orwell displays the loss of humanity as a result of a government built on deception.

The book states “By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen.” (Orwell 6) This quote presents how Winston has found himself different ways to get around and have freedom. All of the other citizens are compliant to being watched every second of their lives.

1984 is the world where thought has become a crime, and the fact these words kept coming back to Winston’s mind fills the idea of “Magical truth

None of the state's lies and deceptions could change any part of reality, although the state could, and did, obscure the truth of reality for its purposes. O'Brien tells Winston that he is mistaken in this idea of reality. In a reeducation session, O'Brien challenges Winston's belief, telling him "reality is not external" (Orwell 205). He claims that it is only existent within the mind. In other words, "it's all in your head." O'Brien essentially says that the outside world does not contain anything real until the mind perceives it, and the mind should not perceive it until given permission by the Party. What the mind believes to be true, to be real, affects the world outside of that mind. As an introduction to this idea, O'Brien tries to convince Winston he sees five fingers, when his senses, conscious to a reality independent of Big Brother, report only four. The audience finds that a person could actually see five fingers instead of four if the person's reality allows for the possibility and existence of such things. Winston himself, his sense of an external reality dulled by pain and drugs, sees the five fingers instead of four (Orwell 213). For a moment, he shares the reality of the Party. He felt a "luminous certainty" (Orwell 213) and briefly absorbed the Party ideology before "everything was normal again" (Orwell 213). After a few more "teaching" sessions, Winston let go of his earlier concept of independent, external

Newspeak has minimised the amount of words available to maximise the power that the Party has. The Party believes that if the dictionary is rewritten until no words exist that can express resistance then people will fade into a single, ignorant and brainwashed mass that accepts the Party’s words as Gospel.