Totalitarianism In 1984

1984 is a book set in the year 1984 written in the year 1949 predicting a dystopian take on what the world would be like if nothing changed and things only got worse. It’s about a man in a place formerly known as London, now in a country called Oceania, named Winston Smith who is in his mid-forties, has had his past erased and is being constantly watched by Telescreens (screens with microphones and surveillance cameras), being told what to do and not exactly accepting it like everyone else. He works in The Ministry of Truth, where people rewrite history so that the Party, their government, has won everything and gotten everything right. Big Brother is their symbol and his face is plastered everywhere with the saying “Big Brother is Watching

They won’t let him die until he accepts with his full heart and mind that the Party is correct and in control and after this he gets shot in the back of the head. The main theme is the danger of totalitarianism. The book is written as a warning that citizens have to keep their freedoms of speech and know what the government is doing. Oceana is the perfect totalitarianism government where the citizens don’t have any control. Every aspect of life is monitored and controlled through Thoughtcrime (if you seem to think the wrong thing), Telescreens, Junior Spy League (children who watch adults for any suspicious actions), The Thought Police (policeman who arrest even the slightest of rebels usually in the night) and Newspeak (the shortened version of language so that citizens don’t have any real words to describe what they are feeling about the Party). The Party channels all of their negative emotions, ruining family structures, shutting down true love, ruining the next generation of children through brainwashing them and having their citizens like Winston take out their anger on foreign lands and wars. The Party even bombs the Proles (the luckier citizens) and says it was the

They try to control reality with statements that they use in torturing Winston like “2 + 2=5” and having everyone change what country Oceania was at war with and had always been fighting. They try to control time with Winston’s The Ministry of Truth and the future as well. People get vaporized (erased from all history and forgotten about) who rebel such as a man at Winston’s job who “was too smart and asked too many questions.” When Winston and Julia fall in love in the book it is partly genuine and partly a way to rebel. At first it’s romantic and risky but it lands them both in the Ministry of Love, which deals with torture and warping people’s sense of the world and who they are. This seems far off for a story but honestly when I read it I saw some of the stuff in it was happening today. Language is becoming shorter like Newspeak, children are giving in to what they are taught without questions, people are being under constant watch through technology-and more. I think George Orwell had a big message for us that still applies today, if we don’t look to change anything and if we don’t speak up and stay active in what is going on around us we won’t see things get worse and we will become a part of the system we are