Comparison Of 1984 And Ogawa's Memory Police

The Lower Takes On The Higher What if you, a student or faculty here at Mira Costa High School were a part of an amoral government system and couldn’t do anything about it? Throughout the world we see governments' pedantic attitude lead to a disintegration of their civilization. A product of this statement would be North Korea, with their people being socially astray and their leader, Kim Jung-Un being tyrannical. Another example of this would be China, with the higher ups silencing protesters trying to make a meaningful change. This relates to my theists in the way that in both George Orwell's 1984, and Ogawa's Memory Police we see that a corrupted government trying to perfect things will eventually lead to a society’s demise.

In Yoko Ogawa's Memory Police we see that same theme throughout the novel, but to an amplified factor. Due to the main character's mother she is able to make breakthroughs when it comes to discovering the truth: “My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even if they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls. And even if a memory disappears completely, the heart retains something. A slight tremor or pain, some bit of joy, a tear.”(Ogawa 29).
Quotes like these throughout the earlier chapter of the novel show its relation to the opening statement. Later on our main character continues to make quantum leaps in succession. This success closely ties to her access to taken away memories. Alas there was not an appreciable end like its counterpart 1984, without her mother she struggled to make advancements:
“Sometimes I try to remember—those were precious moments with my mother—but I can’t recall the objects. My mother’s expression, the sound of her voice, the smell of the basement air—I can remember all that perfectly. But the things in the drawers are vague, as though those memories, and those alone, have dissolved.”(Orwell

In Orwell's 1984 people live in utter despair, for example throughout the book we are frequently informed that winstions living conditions are run down and depressing. This got to the point we’re Winston was described as nearly skeletal. The people has no choice but to accept it as this quote demonstrates with pure perfection:
“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.”(Orwell 3).
This shows how many have to purely endure these improper conditions for the sake of their own precious lives. The higher ups are attempting to make all of their inferiors forget leading to poor living conditions for the cause of a lower cost for the higher ups. This idea is amplified into a quote near the end of the novel:
“And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.”(Orwell