George Orwell's 1984: Effects Of Controlling The Past, Present, And Future

In his novel, 1984, George Orwell places a thirty-nine-year-old man, Winston Smith, in a realm where the ruling powers have complete control over their citizens. The inhabitants of this dystopia are expected to have absolute loyalty to that of “Big Brother,” the face of the government. The plot follows Winston’s rebellion against the world’s leaders and their policies. According to his perspective, Winston is alone in his disapproval of the “Party,” which is the term allotted to the followers of “Big Brother.” This solitude ignites hope in Winston that after all, he is not isolated in his beliefs.

Granted the Party can warp laws and control knowledge, its greatest tool for taking away freedoms and controlling the public is its ability to revise history. This idea is displayed throughout the novel, and is fundamental to our understanding of how perfect the Party is. A prime example occurs when Winston is at his job at the Ministry of Truth, the manipulators of history and truth. He contemplates how he simply substitutes one lie for another in his daily work rewriting history, and explains, “And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain" (Orwell 36). This highlights the genius of the Party’s control; there is no history. As mentioned earlier, the Party controls all publications, and destroys all facts that are not helpful. Much of it is simply fake information that bolsters the Party. Thus, when Winston changes

In Book I Section II, Winston helps his neighbors,the Parson family, with their plumbing. While he is in their apartment,Winston views the “scarlet banners of the Youth League and the Spies, and a full-sized poster of Big Brother” hung on the wall. A short while later, the son and daughter come in and accused Winston of being a “thought criminal” and “traitor”. Both of these are slanderous imprecations that, if true, could lead to death. After this interesting interaction, Winston reflects, “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy” (Orwell, 24). This quotation shows that the Party has succeeded in indoctrinating children at a very young age to their philosophies and ideas. The government uses organizations such as the Youth League and the Spies to “systematically turn” children into mindless members of the Party. ______________’s essay from The Abuse of Power in 1984 reads, “Orwell describes a world in which familial loyalty is deliberately undermined so that the displaced emotions can be appropriated by the state. The solidarity of the family is treated as a threat to party loyalty and is therefore systematically weakened” (_____,___). This quotation reveals that the Party intentionally removes the love and devotion that normally

When George Orwell wrote his novel, 1984, Hitler and Mussolini had recently been defeated in World War II, the nuclear arms race was warming up and the Soviet Union was a threat to the world. Although these are not problems in today's society, 1984 is still very relevant in current time, "The twentieth century will soon be over, but political terror still survives and this is why Nineteen Eighty-four remains valid today” (Ricks 5). In the novel 1984 the main character Winston is faced with challenges when he meets a woman named Julia. Julia makes him question his loyalty to the government. They are living under a totalitarian government that sees everything you do, hears everything you say, and knows everything you think. George Orwell’s novel 1984 is still relevant in today’s society.

It is found that the children accepted the ways of the Party and some of the adults had some cases of second thoughts or fear. Julia pointed out that this might be because the adults remember a time when their lives carried on differently. This is evident when the main character, Winston Smith, dreams of a time when his mother was alive. He also remembers a time when Ingsoc was not in power and there was a time when life was different. Since the children grow up without such knowledge, they accept the words of Big Brother as the best possible lifestyle

Psychological control is a major theme throughout 1984 and Orwell shows this theme is possible by giving examples of how a totalitarian government could gain psychological control using their power to control history and technology. George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning to people of what might come in the future if people were not careful about our government. During the time Orwell

Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler ruled in totalitarian governments. Totalitarian governments are defined by a government that stays in power through propaganda, media, restriction of speech, mass surveillance, and fear. In the early 1900s, totalitarian governments were on the rise. Examples of totalitarianism in Europe existed in fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia. George Orwell, a British author, recognized the horrors of totalitarian governments and wrote 1984 as a warning against totalitarian rule.

The word government is derived from two Latin words, “Guverno” which means to control and “Mentis” which means the mind. Government manipulation is seen clearly throughout George Orwell’s 1984. 1984 is a novel that tells a tale of a rebellious man by the name of Winston Smith who is trapped in a society ruled by a totalitarian government. The main character Winston attempts to exploit the government because they use manipulative tactics whether it be through propaganda, or through the citizens of Orwell’s Oceania who have no free will. Winston wanting to know why the party’s main goal is to establish no independent freedom and to make sure that every citizen does not have the ability to think freely. Winston eventually realizes that the government, who is led by a figure called Big Brother, controls the minds of the people by changing the history of the world so the citizens have nothing to compare their lives to and therefore, have no reason to think that they are being manipulated into being controlled. Although It is quite obvious to the reader that the totalitarian government which is displayed in 1984 manipulates and controls citizens, some of the practices and rules used by the fictional government are being displayed in modern governments today. Two examples of how the practices of the government in 1984 mirror the way governments are today are how the use of digital screens control our lives and how the government

In 1984, by George Orwell violence contributed to the plot by having three stages of reintegration. The stages are to learn, understand, and to accept, Winston was forced to learn that 2+2=5 under torture, understanding that the party is good, and seeks power for its own. Winston accepts and understands the Party and Big Brother as soon as Winston wishes the burden of torture on someone else who he loves, and to learn that Big Brother is eternal and that 2+2=5, Winston then is committed and loyal to the Party and its understands purpose, as he awaits his execution to prove his devotion to the party.

The Party also manipulated the family dynamic. Later in the novel, Winston sees Parsons in the Ministry of Love. Winston had thought that Parsons would never break the law because he was too ignorant and unwise. However, Parsons was caught saying “Down with Big Brother” by his daughter while he was sleeping. The connection between parents and children was broken.

“Oceania was at war with Eurasia; Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia” (Orwell 287).Despite the fact that the opponent switched three times in 1984, nobody bats an eye at this change. People just accept it as the truth. However, Winston is able remember the switches in the war. Winston is an outlier, his job allows him to look through records as he is changing them.

As human beings, there are distinct characteristics that separate us from feral animals; the ability to create, to appreciate art, to curiously question the world and most importantly to sympathize for our kind. However, when that exact nature is stripped from us, we tend to become mindless, restricted, cold, and degraded as an entire race. This is the setting of George Orwell’s last book, 1984. A world where human thought is limited, war and poverty lie on every street corner, and one cannot trust nobody or nothing. It is all due to the one reigning political entity, the Ingsoc Party, who imposes complete power over all aspects of life for all citizens. There is no creative or intellectual thought, no art, culture or history, and no

This book starts in London on April fourth, 1984. The book is written in partly third person, and partly in first person. The book is divided into three distinct parts. The first part is showing you the main character, Winston Smith and his differences and frustration with the world he works and lives in. The country or the “Super state” he lives in called Oceania is run under a government called INGSOC (English Socialism). The leaders of the nation are called "The Party." The Party is divided into two sections, The Inner Party, and The Outer Party. The "Rich" and the "middle-class." There is a third group of people called "The Proles," or "The Proletariat" who are the lower class or the poorer class. The main leader of this government is called “Big Brother” and there also a very famous conspiracy theory about a traitor of the state by a person called “Emmanuel Goldstein” who was part of the inner party and then betrayed the state. The book is about the life of Smith with his frustration towards the government and the society he lives and the journey he embarks on from hating the party to finding comfort in another party worker and to eventually falling in love with big brother. The book is divided into three parts with the first part explaining the dynamics and structure of the new world. The second part focuses on how Smith finds solace by committing “though crime” as his act against the party and finally,

The novel 1984 is a futuristic totalitarian society where everyone is kept under close surveillance and is forced to follow all rules and laws of the state. The novel 1984 was written by George Orwell and published in 1950. The main characters were Big Brother, Winston Smith, Julia, O’Brien, Syme and Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston Smith is a low man on the totem pole when it came to the ruling Party in London, Oceania. His every move is watched by the Party through devices called telescreens. Posted everywhere around the city is the face of their leader, “Big Brother” informing them that he is always watching. He works in the “Ministry of Truth” which is ironic seeing that they alter history to fit the liking of the Party. As this book continues Winston challenged the laws and skirts around the fact that he is always being watched. His shocking and rebellious act is “falling in love.” Throughout this novel George Orwell utilizes symbolism to further enhance the totalitarian features of the society. In many ways these symbols represent the things that this society hasn’t experienced and doesn’t understand.

Hopelessness, deep and gaping ever lasting hopelessness. If the course of humanity fails to change, to this everyone will succumb. That is the message that George Orwell has left for the future, and it would be in humanity's best interest to heed. Winston Smith of 1984 lived in a world that had been consumed by the everlasting abyss of injustice. Eventually this world became too much for our hopeful protagonist and thus, like the future that is bound to a horrific fate, he succumbed. “It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it” (Orwell 248). No one in this world is any different than Winston, they will follow his path like all of those before them, following the five stages of Kübler-Ross. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance make up the cycle that every feeble life will follow and that Winston grew to know all too well.