In the book 1984, George Orwell describes the life of a man named Winston who works for the Ever prevalent INGSOC. INGSOC is a society controlling government that is split into three parts. The inner party, the outer party, and the proles. INGSOC is omnipotent and all controlling of every aspect of people's lives. This dictatorial society is horrifying to the minds of americans who have nearly total freedom in their actions and thought. However, with recent changes in government policy on surveillance, war, education, and the increase of fear of outsiders, it begs the question. Is America becoming 1984? In the book 1984 by George Orwell, the citizens of Oceania are so fearful and hateful of the other countries being Eurasia and Eastasia, that they have a daily “Two minutes hate” which the government uses to enforce the hate of foreign people upon the population. Included in this government produced distaste, they have created a “Hate Week”. A whole week dedicated to hating and watching propaganda against the party’s current enemy. While America does not have nearly as much propaganda and active government allocated hate for other peoples, American racism and distaste of foreign peoples, mainly those being of mexican, muslim, and middle eastern races, has grown. In america, few peoples face more prejudice and hate than muslim americans. So much hate crime and fear surrounds muslims that they have even developed a word for it, “Islamophobia”. Islamophobia may be spreading
Every day, governments control what people know, what they learn, and what they can do. What if the people in society were punished for believing differently than their government? In the book, “1984” by George Orwell, the government manipulated the people into believing a certain way, the government’s way. If the people challenged the beliefs of the government, they were tortured excessively, then carefully sculpted and shaped into an ally of the government. Their old self no longer existed. In Orwell’s “1984”, society is controlled by the government and people are being altered to fit the government’s idea of a true follower. In our society today, social media has begun to sculpt and shape its followers.
Following the terror attacks in The Unites States in 2001, there has been an increase in Islamophobia in the Western World. Following 9/11, respondents indicate that levels of implicit or indirect discrimination in The United States rose by 82,6% and experiences of over discrimination by 76,3% (http://jiv.sagepub.com/content/21/3/317.short). A combination of how Arabs and Muslims are portrayed in the media, with the increase of organized terrorist groups and refugees since the Arabic Spring, makes this a big political challenge today. This bibliography is written to get an overview of why Islamophobia has increased and the challenges that comes with the rise of Islamophobia.
George Orwell’s 1984, widely known for its chilling descriptions of the dystopian society of Oceania, warns of a world in which individuality is virtually destroyed as one oppressive government controls all aspects of life. Decades after the novel’s publication in 1949, various nations today draw unsettling parallels with the characteristics of the government described in 1984. North Korea is one such example, particularly seen as a controversial topic in global debate. Although North Korea and Oceania in 1984 both possess totalitarian governments that attempt to control and restrict individualism, the means in which each government originated and gained authority differ.
George Orwell’s 1984 is a prime example of a deep dystopia with a totalitarian government. Totalitarian governments have full and total control. The Inner Party, which is the main form of government in Oceania, has total control over its people’s thoughts and actions. They use many forms of abuse in order to control them. The Inner Party controls the government and is the upper class. The middle class is called the Outer Party. These people are given jobs from the government and are more educated than the Proles, which make up the lower class. The Outer Party is in charge of executing the Inner Party’s policies, but they have no say in them. The government uses many forms of manipulation to control their people. The members of Oceania’s society do not misbehave out of fear of punishment. People who betray the government vanish. They disappear and there is no evidence that they even existed. The government also uses the threat of abuse to keep its people in line. People of Oceania know they can be tortured or killed for even the slightest misdemeanor. The middle class is led to believe that they are living a high quality life through a method of false prosperity. The government fools people by changing history so the only form of truth the people think they have is their own memory. Many people discard their own memories and believe whatever the Party tells them is truth. Winston Smith is the character in which the book is centered around. He has doubts
People hear about political issues all over the news and form their own opinions on them, but are they really deciding beliefs for themselves or are they just believing whatever the media tells them? Because of the modern day media biased, many people do not think independently, even when they think they are. They merely believe the lies the media feeds them and do not research the matter themselves to get an accurate idea of what is truly going on and how the control of information will impact the world around them. Because of people’s tendency to accept any piece of information that gets shoved down their throats, the US is slowly digging itself into the same government-controlled, no-freedom world as in the book 1984 by George Orwell.
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.
In 1934, the greatest purge in history started in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Soviet Union, upon the orders of its dictator Joseph Stalin. At first, the purge, later known as the Great Terror, targeted the upper echelons of the Communist party. Some of the greatest revolutionaries in history, including Leon Trotsky, were erased from all records. Either killed or exiled, these enemies of the state would be forgotten within years as books and photographs were ‘fixed’ by the state. Yet, this was not enough for Stalin. By the end of 1939, an estimated twenty million ordinary citizens were killed or sent to gulags, where they would eventually die. Many never committed any real crimes. It is easy to draw parallels between George
The novel 1984 was written by George Orwell at the closing of the Second World War, where the political ideologies of the Stalin and Hitler regimes are combined and amplified. The story is set in Airstrip One, a province in the highly impoverished superstate of Oceania which is under the control of a totalitarian government. Oceania is also in perpetual war with three other superstates, and the Party utilizes various methods to retain their absolute control over the entire population. The Party runs under the ideology Ingsoc, a term used by the Party for English Socialism. The story revolves around the life of Outer Party member Winston Smith who unsuccessfully attempts to rebel against the Party and is ultimately erased from existence. By controlling every aspect of a citizen’s life and preventing the formation of political opposition, the Party is able to maintain their superiority. The Party uses three main tactics to remain in power: public manipulation, widespread government surveillance, and the concept of fear.
The past is constantly changing and history is continuously being interpreted in different ways. This changing of the past is relevant in the modern world, as well as the fictional world in in the novel 1984, written by George Orwell. The government in 1984 has the ability to completely control the past, greatly impacting the daily lives of the people living under this invasive government. The government's ability to change the past causes the control that an individual has over their life to be stripped away, which stops individuals from making lasting impacts in society.
No one likes being overly supervised and watched. Whether it is a teenager with protective parents or an adult in the workplace with an ever-watching boss the feeling of continuously being watched is unnerving. Throughout history the levels of government supervision have fluctuated from lows to extremes but sometimes the future seems to hold even more watchful governments. These were the feelings when George Orwell wrote the novel 1984. George Orwell showed a world without the freedoms that citizens in the United States live with every day. From looking at the text of 1984 it is obvious how scary a world it is, however this would never be possible in the United States, where inhabitants are
Islamophobia has always been prevalent in the past 50 years in the U.S., and especially NYC. Since 1950, American courts used the excuse of being a Muslim in order to deny people citizenship (Wendeiss, BBC News). Ever since the tragedy of 9/11, Islamophobia has grown rapidly in the past two decades at a pace that has never been seen before.
1984 is a fictional novel written by one George Orwell. According to BBC history, “Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in eastern India, the son of a British colonial civil servant. He was educated in England and, after he left Eton, joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, then a British colony. He resigned in 1927 and decided to become a writer.” Nineteen eighty-four centers around a man named Winston Smith, a Party member, who works for the government erasing and rewriting history. The government (the Party) is focused around the character of ‘Big Brother’ the overseer. It has just about total control over its people, using telescreens to watch their every move and to spit pro-government propaganda at them twenty-four seven. Along with the telescreens, people called the thought police can also report people for not following the rules or committing a thought crime. The language is also modified, getting smaller every year so there are fewer and fewer ways to criticize the government and share information. Winston starts as a bit of a rebel and slowly ups the ante by having original thoughts, having sex, being in love, and meeting with the (perceived) rebel leader. His whole world crumbles when he gets caught with his lover and broken by the government. By the end of the book, he is a brainwashed member of society again. People speculate that Orwell wrote this as a warning, to make sure that people know that this could happen in lieu of Soviet Russia and
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
George Orwell’s key objective throughout his novel, 1984, was to convey to his readers the imminent threat of the severe danger that totalitarianism could mean for the world. Orwell takes great measures to display the horrifying effects that come along with complete and dominant control that actually comes along with totalitarian government. In Orwell’s novel, personal liberties and individual freedoms that are protected and granted to many Americans today, are taken away and ripped from the citizen’s lives. The government takes away freedom and rights from the people so that the ruling class (which makes up the government), while reign with complete supremacy and possess all power.
The governments in today’s society have brainwashed their citizens into believing everything their leader says and thinks is correct and everything else is wrong. This can sometimes be known as a totalitarian government. George Orwell’s novel 1984 revolves around totalitarianism. The members of the party in Oceania are taught and required to worship their leader Big Brother whether they believe in him or not. In the novel 1984, George Orwell shows the problems and the hatred with a totalitarian government through his use of symbolism, situational irony, and indirect characterization.