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1984 Totalitarianism

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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 …show more content…

Propaganda provides a vehicle for the subversion of the people who willingly submit to the information fabricated by the party. Winston is employed in the Records section of the Ministry of Truth where he alters documents to “reconstruct the past” (45) with the “substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.” (43). Winston compares all of history to a “palimpsest”, which was “scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary” (42). The Two Minutes of Hate also serves as a form of propaganda which is meant to control and restrain the masses. Viewers inevitably become enraged with a “hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness” (16). The slogans of the Party, in their contradictory nature, are the central tenets of doublethink. The final slogan of the Party, “Ignorance is Strength” (18), postulates the inability of the people to recognize contradictions affixes the power of the authoritarian regime. Winston observes a Party mantra which states “who controls the past, […] controls the future” and “who controls the present, controls the past” (37). The prevalence of propaganda instilled by the government inculcates the pedagogy of the party to enforce a fervent …show more content…

Throughout 1984, Winston is forced to confront a society which rejects the central tenets of humanity and independent thought, and which presides over society through the dissemination of propaganda. Orwell’s novel explores the dangers of totalitarian government and absolute control and is a prophetic tale of power and control that must be heeded in modern times. Totalitarianism is employed to grant absolute power to the Party and ensure the deference of the

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Many a literary critic claims that the strongest aspect of the book 1984 by George Orwell is its plot. Indeed, there is some merit in this conclusion, as the entire purpose of Orwell’s writing of this book was not to create a literary classic, but to warn the public about the dangers of communism if it got out of hand, and what better way to do this than to write an engaging plot? Others may claim that 1984’s greatest strength is in its character development. This aspect, too, is quite strong in the book, as not only are the minor characters effected in serving the dystopian theme, but the major characters are believable and very human in their failings. Winston’s transformation from an oppressed office worker to revolutionary and finally

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Brainwashing, especially in children, is an effective method of keeping power, because it teaches discipline, toleration, and even love for the government. Brainwashing is accomplished in many ways, such as hate week, the Two Minutes of Hate, popular slogans, and the never-ending wars. In particular, a significant type of brainwashing used throughout the novel is the rewriting of the history. “This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs – to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance” (Orwell 45). This demonstrates that the Party controls what its citizens read, hear, and essentially learn, through controlling all forms of literature.

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