In the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, the main character, 39 year old Winston Smith, lives in a country called Oceania. He is a member of the Outer Party and works in what is called the Ministry of Truth. Also, he constantly struggles with oppression and the Party scrutinizing every human action with Big Brother. Winston defies most of what the Party forbids, thinking and writing thoughts of hatred towards Big Brother and the totalitarian government, which ultimately defeats him. The language of Oceania is known as Newspeak and was created by Orwell although Oldspeak, or common language, still exists. What is Newspeak? Newspeak by definition is saying or writing one thing in guise of its opposite.(dictionary) It plays a significant …show more content…
He believed that the decline had political and economic causes. Other countries under dictatorships had suffered language deterioration as well and found that controlling or limiting language is a key tool of political control (limits of language). “ When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer”(orwell). The invention of Newspeak was invariably created due to the idea of “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”(orwell). This relates back to the novel in such a way that illustrates the Party’s use of language to restrict the minds of people. The Party ultimately believes that language corrupts thought therefore the Party continually cuts “the language down to the bone”. (orwell) Newspeak’s purpose served to narrow the language to control the minds and actions of the people “diminishing the range of thought” and “eliminating political and intellectual freedoms” (doublespeak) The language is constantly losing words unlike the English language which is always continually evolving. By removing the unnecessary words it loses those which are the opposite concept again, doing away with broadened thought and expression and is why Newspeak is so significant to the novel. If you say something is good and the opposite of good is bad, therefore when you remove the word bad out of the minds of people they have