198451: The Year of the Salamander Essay

Absolute control over society is the central theme in the novel, 1984, by George Orwell. One method this power over society is exercised is use of language to manipulate and control people. The story features a society called Oceania, which is located in the European region. In Oceania, there is a form of totalitarian government called the Party which controls the entire society. The Party controls thoughts by making certain words or phrases illegal. In addition, any anti-party thoughts or motives are also deemed illegal. To control society, thoughts are monitored by telescreens which read reactions and record speech. A force, called the Thought Police, is also engaged to take power over and eliminate society’s individual beliefs. The

1984 examines a future under the rule of a totalitarian society. One of the unique notes about Orwell's 1984, is the views that Orwell presents on humanity, and human nature. Orwell presents humanity as divided into two sides- the dominant, and the submissive, with few quickly-eradicated anomalies in between. Human nature, however, is universal, and all humans

George Orwell uses his novel 1984 to convey that human beings, as a species, are extremely susceptible to dehumanization and oppression in society. Orwell demonstrates how a government’s manipulation of technology, language, media, and history can oppress and degrade its citizens.

The freedom to think is often taken for granted among civilization. What people do not realize is that their freedom of thought can be controlled with enough deceit and manipulation. Sometimes, most people do not even know that the way they think is being controlled. This fact is proven in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The book peers into a dystopian society led by a corrupt government. Total mental and political control is what the government wants, while freedom of thought is what they do not want. These goals are achieved through means that are subtle, and obvious: manipulation through social media, through legal restrictions, and through the destruction of books.

The world of burning books, talking parlor walls, and speeding cars captivated the readers who read Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. Through the use of figurative language, Bradbury creates a complex, yet a dull-minded, society where literature and human philosophy are degenerating. Bradbury illustrates this society through the protagonist, Guy Montag, who develops and changes his mentality on his society throughout the novel after realizing the truth behind it. However, Bradbury does not only paint the truth about Montag’s society, but he also conveys a representation of our society through the media of Fahrenheit 451. The media of Fahrenheit 451 displays a rather disillusioned, ‘perfect’ image of how this society portrays itself to be even though it is the opposite.

Could you ever imagine living in a world where books were not allowed, houses were fireproof, and firemen started fires instead of putting them out? Ray Bradbury created this dystopian society of backwards thinking in his novel Fahrenheit 451. When he wrote the book, during the Cold War, the United States was beginning to censor many things and his fear of what it would turn into inspired him to write this novel. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury overly exaggerates a future society from where the United States in the 1950’s was heading through loss of humanity from television and the theme of censorship by; yet, the symbol of rebirth detracts from the overall effect of exaggeration.

In George Orwell’s “1984” and Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, the citizens and characters presented in the novels accepted the mistreatment they were dealing with for a various number of reasons. However, one important reason as to why most citizens of both books accepted the mistreatment they were dealing with, was simply because they were unaware that what they were experiencing was even mistreatment. They were sheltered from the outside world and so severely brainwashed, that they accepted any form of mistreatment imposed upon them. In the world of “1984”, people are constantly being deceived and mistreated; they are oblivious to what is really happening in the outside world and only obey the false information provided by the Party. Winston explains, “this process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, soundtracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance” (Orwell 40). As the citizens of “1984” are sheltered by all forms of media and free thought, their moral compass is slowly compromised. They are soon unable to differentiate what is mistreatment, and eventually come to accept it. Similarly, in “Fahrenheit 451”, people are sheltered from books, and more importantly, the ideas and themes they express. By eliminating this powerful form of media, people begin to lose their humanity and sense of

In 1949, George Orwell wrote one of the most influential and relevant scientific fiction books of modern time. The book critiques the rule of totalitarian governments using subtle and not so subtle satire. The book reveals the dangers of a government gaining too much power over its citizens. The government can abuse its abundance of authority by controlling all of the media available to the citizens. In 1984, Orwell fears government control of media because it helped brainwash and control the citizens in Nazi Germany and the USSR and today it continues to inhibit free will and thought in areas such as China and Russia.

As said by George Orwell, “It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it,” (Orwell). This idea, under the category of knowledge, is reflected through two novels—Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984—as people who spend time thinking are caught rebelling against the government’s power and face severe consequences. The protagonists, Montag and Winston, are both desperately searching for answers that pique their curiosity, though this action is considered illegal. In both written works, the government controls the information that is known among the citizens, regardless of whether or not it is the truth. Bradbury’s and Orwell’s novels both involve the elimination

The novel 1984 was a vehicle for George Orwell’s social commentary on the world of the 1940s. World War II was in full swing, Russia was an uneasy ally with the United States and the United Kingdom, and Hitler was the most dangerous man on Earth. In an attempt to prevent Western society turning into a distorted version of the very countries that the Westerners (UK and USA) were against, Orwell wrote 1984, filled with parallels to issues in the war. One of the issues Orwell focused on was the matter of control, and how totalitarian societies go about executing the most effective form of control, and what that means. Through the use of situational/verbal irony and motifs,

George Orwell grew up with overbearing jurisdiction where he “recalls how his experiences in Spain ‘taught [him] how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people of democratic countries” (Elkins 5), Spread of such alternative facts was blindly believed and listened and was a prime example of the individuals who lived in 1984’s blatant world such as people, “neither the Brotherhood nor THE BOOK was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it’’ (Orwell 18). Initially Orwell, grew up very poor which streams into his novel as “the reality of poverty and filth, and the debilitating psychological effects of scarcity, emerge in vivid detail in the imagery of 1984” (Elkins 4), evident in descriptions of characters: ‘’A colourless, crushed-looking woman, with wispy hair and a lined face, was standing outside.’’ ( Orwell 1984”. Orwell’s Psychological history not only shape the type of human harsh reality he vented through growing up but also help disrespect the utmost control that is poised in society. His prod upon the views he witnessed as a child and as an adult invest into his book as an embodiment of vulgar shame at how bigger entities work to dehumanize others and may be at fault for his social structuring when he was a growing as an individual. And all of his implications of how the the perception should take the unconstitutional blights of government control is “to let the meaning choose the world, and not the other way around” (Rosendfeld 4) ultimately giving insight to how language has allowed such inhumane propaganda can’t utter differences in communication ability, even in his contradictory language of

Orwell describes a time in which language and history are manipulated and controlled to assure the dominance of the government and technology is used only to the government’s advantage. Several of the most alarming things that are described in 1984, and that Orwell ultimately warns about include the manipulations of history, the use of language as a means of control, and the use of technology as a means of surveillance. History is more powerful than one might think; when it is changed and manipulated it can become a means of subconscious propaganda. This can be dangerous because one might not even be aware that they are being persuaded to think something. Suppression of a historical event can cause tension in society. In 1984, a new

In ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, by George Orwell, and ‘Fahrenheit 451’, by Ray Bradbury, individuality and conformity are presented as fundamental toward the stability of both societies: without the command over these two factors the governments’s influence on the masses would “break down”. Accordingly, in order to maintain dominance, the control of these determinants is imperative to both totalitarian regimes, and in consequence of this the protagonists Winston Smith and Guy Montag undergo radical changes in disposition and rebel to counteract these alterations. The inspiration behind the possession of power in both novels is seemingly 20th Century totalitarianism, as with “each variant of Socialism that appeared, the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned”, with Nazi Germany “burning” and the Soviet Union “rewriting” sources of information. The authoritarian nature of both novels would have certainly resonated amongst 1950s Westerners, by virtue of the recent rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the genuine oligarchic threat posed by the USSR.

The last novel George Orwell finished, Nineteen Eighty-Four impacted not only the way the world thought but also how the ideas were communicated. Through this novel Orwell introduced many new words and terms added to the political vocabulary, such as “newspeak”, “doublethink” and “Big Brother” (Glover). In this book Orwell creates a government in which its citizens are under constant surveillances and the system controls and disciplines specific actions, going so far as to attempt to control its people’s thoughts. George Orwell saw privacy as one of the single most important things needed in a human’s life. Freedom and speech, self-expression and love are absolutely forbidden, and refusing to abide these rules resulted in you disappearing and never heard from again. The author made the audience question war, the distinction of classes and the true motives behind their government (Glover).

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked by radical Islamic terrorists. The American government responded quickly and aggressively to the attack, through military action and increased government surveillance and regulation. The creation of greater government control begs the question of when the control of a government becomes excessive. George Orwell explored this controversial issue in his book: Nineteen Eighty Four. During his apex as a writer in the 1940’s, Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union each tried to expand their empires through the use of propaganda and military force. Orwell himself fought in the 1932 Spanish Civil War and fought both the fascists and the communist in separate engagements. These experienced polarized Orwell against totalitarian governments and caused the writing of his two famous political satires. George Orwell’s dystopic 1984 demonstrates that once a totalitarian state has seized power, its control over the masses is pervasive and the most basic subversion against the ruling class becomes futile and impossible.