In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the author suggests that a totalitarian government requires complete surrender of it's citizens' intellectual and social life.
In 1984, the party’s control over thought is essential in maintaining a powerful monarchy and an oppressed society. Winston Smith, the protagonist, has a strong dislike against the party, and demonstrates this by writing in a diary, breaking their rules. “The diary would be reduced to ashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?”(435). Winston clearly understands
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When Winston meets his friend Syme, who works on the Newspeak dictionary, both talk about the party and it’s future. Syme, who seems to be thrilled by the future exclaims, “But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing Thought Crime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control”(124). The key to controlling people’s minds is to control what they speak and how they speak. Having”fewer and fewer words” in the language allows the party to control what people can say. Also, the more limited the language becomes, the less chance there is for any rebellious thought because there will not be any words to express how to rebel. By regulating the language, the people of Oceania only speak what the Party wants them to speak. Through Newspeak, the Party arrests the mind’s ability to