Effects Of The Party Watching People Through Telescreens

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Copious amounts of people have suffered under the rule of totalitarian governments. For instance, the German society of 1933 underwent a time of great pain governed by Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a man of power, capable of controlling the vast majority of the country. He thrived off of manipulating and injuring individuals solely because of their natural characteristics. If a person failed to fit Hitler’s definition of perfection, they would be tortured to death. Ruling strictly through hatred and animosity created a fear that lingered with the continuance of Hitler’s power. Psychologically destroying society helped him gain this vast leadership. George Orwell, an English novelist and journalist, explains how this type of control helped The Party …show more content…

This invasion of privacy helps Big Brother to control society on a deeper level. The method behind this action was explained by authors Mitrovic and Vasiljević: “The technique improves compliance with the interviewer by monitoring his behavior or gesture…” (Mitrovic and Vasiljević). As stated, watching people can increase the compliance of individuals drastically. Beginning to do so helps The Party to keep all citizens acting within the guidelines of the government, denying any kind of rebellion. The Thought Police watched people through telescreens attached to any and all places within the community. It must be remembered that these screens had the ability to watch almost every angle of a building. This level of control allowed them to vaporize any and all offenders of The Party. Despite the fact that Winston was capable of finding loopholes in the system, he was still watched and caught. This method manipulated people of The Party to do as they wanted. Additionally, telescreens have the ability to watch you at any time of the day. Orwell explains that “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it…There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment” (Orwell 5). The deviousness of Big Brother helps greatly in catching offenders of the law. Telescreens helped The Party in stripping away society’s individualism, taking away all types of freedom. By implanting these devices into citizens’ homes, The Party succeeds in molding society into exactly what they wanted it to be. As Orwell states, there was no way of knowing when the Thought Police were watching or not. They could be looking at any moment, ready to vaporize and convert people back to the well-trained Party members that they were before. Big Brother utilizes this method to convince society