What Is The Power Of The Government In 1984

The Power of the Government

“War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength.” (Orwell, 7) These are the three strongest aspects of Oceania’s government. This is the phrase that they keep instilled into every citizen’s mind to spark fear and keep them from rebelling. George Orwell’s novel 1984 is a perfect depiction of the effects of running a society as a complete dictatorship. It is the story of Winston Smith, a man who questions the power and influence of his government and gives into the temptations of wanting to be free. Through him it is seen just how corrupt and powerful the Ingsoc government is. War is not used to fight for the people, but used to fight against the people, to keep them from being able to develop society and

The power from the government comes from keeping their citizens oblivious to the world around them. There were alterations to their history in books and a new language created, just to make the Party look better for the people. By giving the people minimal education, it keeps them from being able to form their own formal and educated opinions on serious topics and issues. “All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.”(173) By knowing less, there is much less responsibility and stress put on individuals, meaning the more involved they are in Big Brother’s movement. Big Brother is then used to give the people a place to look for guidance and leadership. He tells them what to do, who to love, who to hate and how to live their lives. This is what introduced the topic of Newspeak. Newspeak is a language that was created to limit the vocabulary available to the citizens of Oceania. Using Newspeak to replace Oldspeak is the Party’s attempt to remove thoughtcrime altogether. Thoughtcrime is an individual's beliefs and thoughts that contradict the Party. By limiting the language to only Newspeak, there will no longer be any words to contradict the party, leaving them forever in power. “Don’t

This part of the slogan is different compared to the two other parts, in the sense that both of the others start with a negative and end with a positive. The government shapes war and ignorance to make them seem like actual good things. War leads to peace and ignorance leads to strength. Freedom and slavery, however, turns a good aspect into a bad one. This can be represented as anyone who tries to exercise freedom and form their own opinions other than what the party tells them to think will be enslaved. For example, when Winston is arrested as a political prisoner, Winston’s neighbor Parsons is arrested for thoughtcrime. When expressing his worries for a crime he unintentionally committed, he talks about possibly being sent to a labor camp to serve out his sentence. “I tried to do my best for the Party, didn’t I? I’ll get off with five years, don’t you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labor camp. They wouldn’t shoot me for going off the rails just once?”(192) This leads into the fact that as long as Big Brother and Ingsoc are in control, a person’s life is no longer their own to live. They are a mindless slave whose only purpose is to serve the Party. “The terrible things that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once