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1984 George Orwell Corruption Essay

1657 Words7 Pages

During World War II, political corruption exasperated many individuals, especially the prolific author George Orwell. George Orwell’ 1984 warns of the dangers of corruption, ambitious figures and vicious tyrannies whilst reflecting on salient events in his life. His novel 1984, is set in a futuristic society of Oceania, where the ruling party and its leader, Big Brother maintains absolute control over its citizens. He emphasizes the danger of losing one’s individuality whilst under the control of a totalitarian regime. In Oceania, citizens are unable to express themselves under the party’s rule fearing persecution. The Party retains its power through the destruction of history, the invasion of privacy and the outlaw of love. In 1984, using …show more content…

Winston works at the Ministry of Truth where he changes historical articles to fit with the current political doctrine. In order to match the party’s ideals, “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, and every date has been altered” (Orwell,178). Through the falsification of records, the party is able to gain control over its citizens as they are unable to identify the veracity of the work published by the party. To continue, the Party eradicates the language proficiency of its citizens with the introduction of Newspeak, a language created by the party. Syme, a language specialist, speaks of its true purpose when he says, “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten" (Orwell, 60). As words slowly become annihilated, citizens are unable to express themselves, limiting their

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(Burt Nineteen). Together, these ministries function as a system of governance over the people of Oceania. They are a crucial part of the Party’s objective to hold total control over society. Another way the party exercises their control over the citizens is through Newspeak. “The immediate goal of Newspeak is to reduce the English language to only a few hundred words with functional and extremely narrow meanings; its larger goal is to eliminate dissent by eliminating the ability to express dissent” (Bloom Nineteen).

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Orwell’s decision next was to join the Indian Imperial Police where he would face the harsh justices that would later become influential in his transcendent writing of dystopian societies. George Orwell would then live through both World War I and World War II, but the effects of World War II’s spread of dictatorship would be one of the major steps towards the writing of 1984. While reading of Orwell’s fictional, dystopian world of Oceania, there are potential moments where the audience could become lost and confused as to what is happening in 1984. The main character of the story, Winston Smith, feels as if the antagonist, the Party and Big Brother, have a cruel system of government. Once the audience gets further along in the book, Winston will have “learned” that the Party is a safe way of living life.

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CONTEXT All around the nation, there are displays of the three most important lies in Oceania, “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” (26) What Winston is describing is a society that does not let you have the right to feel what you want to feel. The Party uses language to reconstruct your thoughts and decide what your mind should think about. They lie through their slogans and describe opposite views through language, history, and hate. The Party’s goal is to reshape how one thinks by changing what people read and hear.

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1267 Words | 6 Pages

As a worker in the Ministry of Truth, Winston was a record editor and his job was to change newspapers and articles to praise Big Brother. The party also used ‘double think’ to change people's thoughts and alter their beliefs. Orwell wrote “Whatever the Party holds to be truth is the truth. It is impossible to see reality except through the eyes of the party,” (Orwell 102). What this quote means is there is no creativity or imagination, the only point of view is the party’s.

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In 1984, the Party prevents rebellious thoughts from arising by limiting the vocabulary of the citizens. While Syme and Winston have lunch together, they discuss the recent punishments given to thought-criminals as well as Syme’s progress with the Newspeak Dictionary that he is compiling. Syme speaks of the destruction of unnecessary words and as an expert on Newspeak, he believes that “the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought[.] In the end [the Party] shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it . . . The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

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2234 Words | 9 Pages

In a world of constant fear where citizens blindly obey their government, the 1984 novel by George Orwell shows examples of totalitarianism and controlling governments. The book includes many themes of manipulation, control, hope, and fear within the society of Oceania. The novel is written in the perspective of a middle class worker named Winston who wants to rebel against the corrupt government that rules Oceania. Throughout the novel Winston continues to go through trails of monitoring, toxic relationships, and torture in order to take down the evil government called the Party. At the very end, Winston does not get past all of his obstacles and falls down and becomes an ordinary and obedient citizen who blindly follows the Party.

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His articles are translated into Newspeak and then rewritten in that language because Winston will not write in Oldspeak. This demonstrates how the Party is working to gradually eliminate Oldspeak and move everyone to

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In 1984, the central theme of absolute control and its impacts are explored within the numerous techniques the Party uses to micromanage society. At the start of the

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Another example of how the Party controls its people and makes them conform to their liking is by using technology to make citizens fear being an individual. All over Oceania there are telescreens and hidden microphones. These allow the Party to keep constant surveillance on every single person at all times. The telescreens could hear “any sound” that someone “made, above the level of a very low whisper” and as long as someone was in front of one, the person “could be seen as well as heard”. Worst of all, a person had “no way of knowing whether [they] were being watched at any given moment” (Orwell 3).

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In the book, 1984, George Orwell’s world of Oceania, is similar to the world we live in today, but different because George Orwell’s world is more of an extreme version of the present. For example we use acronyms such as OMG or SMH, just like Oceania’s language newspeak, but we still can express ourselves. If anything, I believe we are on the road to becoming a totalitarian ruled world, but we are still somewhat free. First off, in the past few years, the new type of smart TVs have come out.

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In 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society pervaded by government control and the obsolescence of human emotion and society. Winston is forced to confront the reality of a totalitarian rule where the residents of Oceania are manipulated to ensure absolute government control and servitude of the people. The theme of totalitarianism and dystopia is employed in 1984 to grant absolute power to the government and ensure the deference of the people through the proliferation of propaganda, the repudiation of privacy and freedom, and the eradication of human thought and values. The repudiation of privacy and independent thought and the ubiquity of government surveillance is employed to secure absolute power to the government over the populace

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1836 Words | 8 Pages

He is responsible for rewriting the past and writing the determined present and future, allowing him to know the real truth and the presented truth. As he does this he learns the ways in which the party and the inner party have manipulated the people, changing their beliefs, their knowledge and their ways of life. When Newspeak is presented, most citizens accept it as another way to help the people protect themselves from danger, when in reality they are just limiting the people’s freedom of expression. According to Harold Bloom there are two argued purposes of newspeak, “one has linguistic worries that were groundless and that language obeys laws that government can’t interfere with, or that Orwell’s linguistic insists now that language is easy to neutralize and suppress the people” (Bloom). Orwell presents two given interpretations in order to further separate Winston from the rest of society; as most citizens accept their new language as laws the government has placed that are forbidden to interfere with, Winston sees it as another easy way for Big Brother to suppress and neutralize the people.

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421 Words | 2 Pages

The party believe that destroying words will inevitably prevent power from slipping through their fingers. Values such as ‘honour, integrity, morality, etc’ cease to exist. In chapter five, Syme explains to Winston, “We’re cutting the language down to the bone. Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year”. Through this quote, it is easy to interpret that ‘Newspeak’ is merely used to restrict the freedom of expression.

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In Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, “newspeak” is established as the official language in Oceania. As a language fabricated for the convenience of the totalitarian government, newspeak only allows a limited set of expressions, which in turn limited the freedom of thought. The notion of newspeak reflects Orwell’s concerns about the English language; he feared that by distorting it, its beauty, and more importantly, its ability to convey truth and voice would vanish. Unfortunately, his warning has come true; today, the manipulation of English language limits the creativity and efficiency of this language and meanwhile exploits disadvantaged social classes.

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1413 Words | 6 Pages

This is particularly evident in the story when the character Syme is tasked with creating a new version of the Newspeak dictionary and one day informs Winston of the fact that “Newspeak is the only language whose vocabulary gets smaller every year” (Orwell 52). This information exaggerates the slow process of language devolution and helps to enlighten unaware readers of the detrimental changes taking

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