preview

Who Is Big Brother's Marionette In 1984

Decent Essays
Open Document

Diamond Ulibarri
Ms. Stockton
English 12, P5
4 November 2016 Big Brother’s Marionettes (Rubic)
All citizens in the ordinary world of 1984 do not, or acts as if they do not realize that every aspect of their lives are being controlled by a symbolic government figure named Big Brother. By portraying a decisive potentate, the government is able to manage citizen’s lives as if they are all marionettes. Many different mind-control techniques are executed upon the society in 1984, such as the novel's telescreens and the brainwashing of children; however, doublethink surpasses them all in terms of conveying George Orwell's intended subject of "psychological manipulation," which proves that it is possible to believe anything that the government tells them, even while possessing information that runs counter to propaganda.
A slogan from the Party that occurs throughout the novel and is the basic introduction to the idea of doublethink is “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell, 4/16/26/104...).” By weakening the ability of a citizen to think logically and forcing them to live and learn contradictory ideas, the government is …show more content…

Each of the ministries names contradict the context of their behavior: the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Love associates with torture and discipline, and the Ministry of Truth manages propaganda and modifies history. The Party has a slogan which states “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” the novel then continues to say “...the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered… All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink” (Orwell, 34).” This slogan is an essential example of the government’s technique of using their misleading history to control the psychological abilities of the Oceania

Get Access