How have the elements of Hegemony and Insurgency been contrasted in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’? Hegemony- Illusion of Choice and Obsession of control Whether it’s about secretly reading a book or thinking of something against Big Brother, the characters in both these book are faced with the ultimate choice, to defy or not to defy. These choices affect the characters involved because questioning the reality around them may yield unexpected or even unwanted results. They may topple their reality into something dangerous. Take Captain Beatty for example, he who used to be an avid reader and lover of books now burns them for a living and when confronted with the fact that Montag had kept books, decided to pursue him. In his efforts …show more content…
There are things the party wishes people to be ignorant of, such as the incremental decrease in the standard of living, freedom of speech and privacy; and things that are not true but are told nonetheless, such as the existence of a time when Big Brother did not exist. For example, the Ministry of Plenty decreases the chocolate ration, but announces its increase, deceiving the public to believe they have more. Oceania is constantly creating and dishonouring alliances with Eurasia and Eastasia in order to maintain global sustained warfare; yet they pretend to have been allied with one or the other all along to prevent suspicion of the Ministry of Defence. People are deluded in order to hide the flaws in the system and give them no reason to want to disrupt the status quo. In Fahrenheit 451, the truth is dealt with differently as the government has illegalised literature and writing. They propose that literature contains too much emotion and can therefore upset readers or cause controversy. Although the government wants people to be happy, their underlying motive is for the public to be dim-witted, vacuous and institutionalised. Literature contains all the ideas that oppose what they want in their people, such as art, science, religion, philosophy and natural beauty, so they forbid it and employ firemen to burn every book. The government in Fahrenheit 451 does not believe in the aesthetic and creative value of books, but instead that it is a source of material that can