Examples Of Totalitarianism In 1984

In George Orwell’s 1984, Orwell explores totalitarianism and how in society, totalitarianism can be used to manipulate its members. In 1984, the dystopian society of Oceania is characterized by a totalitarian government that owns complete control and power over its citizens through various ways of manipulation through language, history, and technology. The strict rules and regulations condemned on the society not only limited freedom but as a result, forced citizens to be condemned under a society characterized by ignorance which limits the possibilities of threats against the government. Under the totalitarian government, the trajectory of Winston’s fate is shown through foreshadowing his rebellion which began with his secret purchase of the

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” (4). The irony of the slogan is it is self contradictory, in that, it is understood to readers that each notion of the slogan is an absolute antonym to what it is actually saying. Thus, aiding to the thought that ignorance is bliss and if the people of Oceania are ignorant, that diminishes the chance for them to rebel. Furthermore, the party further promotes this ideology in various ways of language and propaganda. The Party, who holds complete control over Oceania, uses their Newspeak, a nullified and restricted form of language that gets shorter and shorter with time, as a way to limit the ability of citizens to think and express themselves freely, especially when expressing negative emotions. The party also implements the concept of “doublethink,” which involves the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and to believe in them equally. Thus, this enables the Party to manipulate the truth and rewrite history to benefit them. With this, Winston who works in the Ministry of truth is one who rewrites the past and lines it up with the Party’s beliefs: “[His] greatest pleasure in life was in his work…in it there were also jobs so difficult and intricate that you could lose yourself in them as in the depths of a mathematical problem” (55) . This articulates how lying about the past can be hard and he must base it off of what he knows about the Party’s beliefs. Adding to this, Winston sees right through the slogan. “If there is hope [wrote Winston] it lies in the proles… Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious” (73). This demonstrates not only Winstons frustration with the lack of ability the proles have to overthrow the government but also the lack of awareness of power they potentially have. The cyclical contradiction furthermore proves that the