Jennifer Rosas
Ms. Tobenkin
AP English Literature
14 August 2015
1984 Analysis Paper 1984, by George Orwell is a novel depicting life within a totalitarian government, where there is no freedom and they control all features of human life. George Orwell exposes the ways of this system through the point of view of, Winston Smith, the main character. Big Brother represents the oppressive figure and the Party. The Party conducts numerous experimental methods to implement their totalitarian system to its participants, methods such as manipulation to the language they spoke and the way they thought. The party frightens the citizens by threatening them with violence and torture and the government controls everything and everyone. The technology
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Removing certain words created difficulties for the individuals to express their ideas and thoughts. Adjustments are continuously being made by the Party to improve their language and suppress the way of thinking of their citizens. “We’re destroying words ---scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050”. (Orwell, 51) Syme explains that their government is not only creating a new language but they are also destroying their culture by doing this future generations will no longer understand due to phrases no longer existing. In order to stay in control the government manipulates the language there is very little to no possibility that anyone will question or overthrow the government because they will be at a loss for words. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it”. (52) Another significant issue in this book is thought crime, in which the citizens are not allowed to be individuals and come up with their own ideas but instead must follow those created by the
“Newspeak was designed to. . .diminish the range of thought. . .by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum” explains George Orwell, the author of a dystopian fiction novel, 1984 (Orwell 300). Orwell designs a society in which a totalitarian government rules, depriving people of their thoughts. The story gives us a look into the life of the main character, Winston, who seems to face issues with reality control. Today, we will delve into the depths of this novel and explore Orwell’s views on the nature of language. In simple terms, Orwell suggests that language, if used in a certain way, has the ability to influence people and compel them to alter their thoughts. With this statement and supporting evidence, it can be concluded that the effective use of language can give individuals power to modify or reshape opinions that will allow for change in society.
Orwell designed Newspeak to demonstrate the importance of language to ideas. Orwell thought literature was dying out, which he connected with dying language (Kazin 235). Language is not only the means by which an idea is expressed, but also the means by which an idea is thought. The purposes of Newspeak are to allow for the expression of thoughts Ingsoc deemed proper and make impossible the expression of thoughts Ingsoc deemed heretical (Kendrick 344). According to Orwell, control of thought follows control of language. The government in 1984 means to control the language, and
The government is clearly trying to change everyone’s vocabulary/the way they speak. They are trying to make everyone speak “newspeak”, this is vital to the government’s manipulation so they can take more control over us. The exact same thing happened in real time after the war in 1948, this form of manipulation is called “Logocracy”.
The novel 1984 by George Orwell is an eye opening novel which showed how Big Brother had full control over his citizens. He created a sense of fear into the minds of the manipulated. Protagonist Winston Smith went through a series of challenges for trying to go against Big Brother due to the fact that they used physical force and psychologically manipulated their citizens to gain authority against their citizens.
“Don 't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” In 1984 every thought is considered a threat towards the party.
The book, 1984 by George Orwell, is about the external and internal conflicts that take place between the two main characters, Winston and Big Brother and how the two government ideas of Democracy and totalitarianism take place within the novel. Orwell wrote the novel around the idea of communism/totalitarianism and how society would be like if it were to take place. In Orwell’s mind democracy and communism created two main characters, Winston and Big Brother. Big Brother represents the idea of the totalitarian party. In comparison to Big Brother, Winston gives and represents the main thought of freedom, in the novel Winston has to worry about the control of the thought police because he knows that the government with kill anyone who
The government created a new form of English which was called, “Newspeak, in which vocabulary is strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official line.”
In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four the power of language empowered the Party to solidify their control over the citizens. The politicians isolated the citizen’s state of mind instructing them to do what was asked of them. They were not able to have their own critical thinking because they worked like machines who were functioned by the Party. Throughout the entire novel, Newspeak was used by the Party to take the citizens of Oceania to such an extent where their state of mind was isolated from their own self and they were only able to describe their actions with one word that was already “decided” by the government in the language of Newspeak. The citizens are isolated from their lives not only through the use of Newspeak but as well as the
Written by George Orwell in 1949, 1984 introduces the reader to the totalitarian country of Oceania, ruled by the all-knowing Big Brother and the Party. Winston Smith, a single man quietly opposing the Party, sees Big Brother two different ways in the novel; for almost the entire novel he hates everything that Big Brother is. After his capture, the original hatred of Big Brother is changed to absolute love, through the use of highly developed torture methods. Thus the reader, through the eyes of Winston, is able to make connections between the two sides of Big Brother and the similarities to God.
In the novel 1984 George Orwell demonstrates how the government maintains power through mind control and manipulation of the masses. Orwell hints that when the government (Big Brother), holds too much power they become crooked and devious towards the rest of the population. In a nutshell Orwell is conveying that a corrupt government destroys all chances for an ideal society. Collectively, George Orwell made a prediction of what was going to happen, and it has become a reality to some extent. Overall this is a great book for the current political state.
“1984” is an imaginary novel wrote by George Orwell in 1949. The novel takes place in a fictional country called Oceania. In 1984, the society is a mess in the control of the “big brother”, people are leveled by three three classes: the upper class party, the middle outer class party, and the lower class proles. But the lower class make up 85 per cent of the people in Oceania. Winston is a outer class party member working for the “big brother”. This novel uses Winston as an example to show how the “big brother” takes the control by mind, manipulation and technology.
In George Orwell’s “1984”, Orwell is cautioning his readers of the dangers of totalitarianism and the loss of language.
In the totalitarian world, which Orwell describes, language is the most significant and effective approach to maintain the rule. From Orwell’s perspective, everything including language, which is particularly powerful, belongs to political measure. In fact, language is the fundamental motivation of creating a nation or a tribe. It is also the foundation of thought because Human’s thought must rely on the language expressing. Then it could be deduced by analogy that controlling human’s language equal controlling human’s thought. Except expressing, it has the ability to build facts. The Party controls citizens’ thinking through controlling the language so that the Party applies euphemistic words to mislead public and prettify its policy. It is unimaginable that language contributes to the rule. The totalitarian utilize every language method to hold the dominant position.
Changing the language to such an extent allows the government to limit the thought of the people, preventing possible talk of
Since without language thought is nearly impossible the party believes that by altering the language they can impose their untrue reality. They will be able to restrict it to the point that even a person’s thoughts are manipulated; things such as individualism and imagination will cease to exist. Which ultimately will give the Party total control over society. The newspeak engineer also goes on to state “ In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it.” (55) This quote proves how vital control of language is to the party, it is the key to becoming a controlled state. By creating the element of Newspeak in 1984 Orwell is warning against the potential consequences of manipulating language to benefit people in power and how this can eventually lead to a totalitarian state.