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Examples Of Doublethink In 1984

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In the book 1984, by George Orwell, Winston Smith is living in an oppressed, dystopian, society where every means of a citizen’s life is monitored and controlled by the government. As the story develops, Winston learns how the Party is able to keep everything just the way it wants. He also learns that the most important elements in the government’s system are communication and language. One such instance is the Party’s attempt to replace the language of Oceania with Newspeak. In 1984, Newspeak is being carefully altered and developed to perfectly fit the needs of Big Brother and the Party. As Winston’s comrade, Syme, explained in the book: “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.” The …show more content…

For example, if the Party announces that Oceania is currently at war with Eurasia, and always has been, everyone immediately believes that to be true. This is possible, even though just seconds earlier, they had been cheering on their military as it marched into battle against Eastasia. One reason this can actually work is because of a principle of Newspeak called doublethink. Doublethink allows someone to firmly believe multiple truths or meanings of a word even if they are contradictory. This also happens to be the foundation of the country’s slogans: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Additionally, doublethink is essential to the Oceanians when trying to understand the purposes of the three departments of the government: the Ministry of Love tortures people, the Ministry of Plenty pretends to produce millions of products then withholds them from the poor population, and the Ministry of Truth lies to the people of Oceania by altering the past to make Big Brother a bold, infallible

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In George Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother controls everything in Oceania from what individuals think to what individuals see. Big Brother along with the Party make a mutual effort to cut down the language the people of Oceania speak. This only results in greater control over the civilians in Oceania. Winston, a rebellion against Big Brother and the Party, comes across Syme who happens to love the cutting of words. In the discussion between Syme and Winston, Syme implements thought-invoking diction along with passionate tone while attempting to hinder Winston’s opinions on Oldspeak.

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This is where the concept of war is peace comes into play. The only reason that Oceania functions smoothly is because its citizens are always trying thinking that their fighting against some one. This is how they stay a general state of ‘peace’. “War it will be seen, not only accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way” (Orwell 158). This quote explains that in order for the proles to be happy/peaceful, that they need to be at war with some and working towards

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Normally, the growth of human intelligence is encouraged and is highly sought after. However, Newspeak strips words of their meanings such as amazing to doubleplusgood, and seeks to reduce human intelligence, which is ironic. When Syme talks about newspeak to Winston, he asks Winston “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…

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The statement being how authority can control how you communicate with others and how the limitation of communication can lead to the suppression or complete erasure of ideas and self-expression. For Newspeak, it’s purpose is to get rid of words that are deemed useless or over-complicated, leading to the English language only having one word for good and one word for bad. This gets rid of many different ways to

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As the world watched World War II emerge as one of the biggest wars in the history of the universe, George Orwell wrote 1984 to criticize the totalitarian approach of the socialist leaders in countries like Germany and the U.S.S.R. The book was written in 1948 when the act of communism became a dangerously threatening type of government to the citizens all over the world. In 1984, Winston, the main character of the novel, reflects on London’s dystopian society by creating his own diary, which is an act that brings him immense threat to the quality of his life. Even today, many citizens face the same types of situations that Winston experiences throughout the book. There are obvious parallels between the novel and America in 2016 in concepts

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The Party is working on their Newspeak dictionaries. Newspeak is a limited language, intending to include only words that the Party deems acceptable and which works for their prerogative. When speaking about the Newspeak dictionary to Winston,

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All Oceania is overseen by a metaphorical man called Big Brother which represents the “eyes” of the government. Even though there is not actually one person deemed Big Brother, he is the “embodiment of the

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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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