1984 Thematics Essay

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thematic
1984 by George Orwell
English Pre-IB 10

1984, written by George Orwell, is a novel about a man who defies the rule of society. Winston Smith lives in a world where the earth is dominated by three super powers: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Oceania is governed by a mysterious figure that goes by the name of Big Brother. Oceania’s government is split into four ministries: The Ministry of Truth (deals with the education, entertainment, etc), the Ministry of Peace (deals with war), the Ministry of Love (deals with law and justice), and the Ministry of Plenty (deals with economic affairs). Their government has a secret police called the Thought Police who hunt down people who commit Thoughtcrimes. Thoughtcrimes are any thoughts opposing the rule of Big Brother or the Party. Winston does not agree with the way the country is run but he fears what the Ministry of Love will do to him. Later on he falls in love with a woman named Julia, they have an affair. They are both soon invited to join a conspiracy; they are both soon discovered and are taken away to the Ministry of Love to be punished for the crimes they have committed.
The major theme in the novel 1984 is control; not just control over the people but control over the past, body, and mind. In order to establish power, you need the people on your side. That is where propaganda plays a major role; in the novel, Winston sees the poster of Big Brother every with the caption “Big Brother is watching you”. The Party used Big Brother as there symbol, the population did not actually know who Big Brother really was, and they just assumed he was the man on the posters. The face of Big Brother is really just a group of people using his face as a cover. If the population believes whatever Big Brother says then the population is under the Party’s control.
To have control over the people you must control the past; “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past” The Party controls every source of information, managing and rewriting the content of all newspapers and histories for its own ends .if the people believe that everything that the government puts out then the Party has complete control over the population. Maintain this control they forbid individuals to keep records of their past, such as photographs or documents. As a result, memories become fuzzy and unreliable, and citizens become perfectly willing to believe whatever the Party tells them. By controlling the present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can justify all of its actions in the present.
To rule over population you need to be able to have power over the mind, by giving the people falsified information, forcing them to participate in community activities, and stuffing their minds with propaganda, the Party was able to establish control over the civilian population. “And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.” This quote shows how one understands of the past affects one’s attitude about the present. Winston tried to find out how the world was like before the revolution but his attempts failed because the fuzzy memory of the old man he asked and he realizes that the Party has intentionally set out to weaken people’s memories so they are unable to challenge what the Party claims. If no one remembers life before the Revolution, then no one can speak against the Party about forcing people to live in conditions of poverty, filth, ignorance, and hunger.
The vast majority of the civilian population is easy to control but there will always be those who rebel, who reject the rule, so they must be eliminated or they will start to stir the people and they will start a revolution, and then society
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