1984 Essay

Marvin 1 Janise Marvin H. British Literature 20th Century Novel Essay June 5, 2009 1984 Could Be 2010 It is imperative for individuals to have rights. When a government is given complete control over anything, there are no limits set for them. The government can do anything they desire, because they control everything. This is the world that George Orwell feared the world was heading toward. Orwell wrote his novel 1984, as he said, “to alter other people’s idea of the kind of society they should strive after” (Orwell). The direction that Orwell saw the world heading was not the direction that was, in his opinion, the best for the interest of the entire world as a whole. He saw communism take over in Soviet Russia under Joseph Stalin. The influence of the French Revolution was apparent in the sense that the revolutionists turned out worse than the monarchy they overthrew. Orwell held a belief in man’s fallibility. Mankind cannot be trusted to know what is right for themselves. Orwell saw a trend in the world of capitalism, and he felt a need to forewarn the world of what could happen if this trend continued. In 1984, there is one party, but two classes inside the party. There is the inner party and the outer party. The inner party can be considered the upper class. They are the ones who control the party and are wealthy. The outer party consists of the commoners: anyone from a worker in the Ministry of Truth to the bookkeeper in the shop below where Winston and Julia rented a room. This separation in the party shows the potential of capitalism, and how the gap between the rich and the lower classes in society could

Marvin 2 transfer over to politics and influence the government. Another comment that Orwell had on mankind was their contradictory nature. Over and over again, the world changes, and people change policies and viewpoints. This belief is apparent in the nation of Oceania. The party’s slogan was “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 7). These three phrases are all contradictory to what the words by themselves mean. In Oceania, this was called doublespeak, which was having two opposite ideas at the same time. These statements of the nation’s slogan were sort of paradoxical, because if one thought logically about them, they could see the truth in some of them. War gives a nation a common enemy, therefore bringing the nation together in peace, and the same logic applies to the other two. Even the different departments that the government had set up were oxymoronic. The Ministry of Truth was where they changed books to fit what the “Big Brother” had decided was okay. The Ministry of Peace handled all the wars. The Ministry of Love was where they tortured anyone who went against Big Brother and the Party. Winston described it as the worst of the three ministries: “The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometer of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to the outer barriers were roamed by gorilla faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons” (Orwell 8). Because of mankind’s contradictory state of living, nothing is ever sure and things are always changing. Under normal circumstances, this would not prove to be a problem, but because Orwell is warning about the future by showing the extreme, he sees it as a problem. The changes are fine for the most part, until the change comes that cannot be changed. Oceania started by the Party overthrowing the previous rulers and Big Brother

Marvin 3 taking over as the dictator. Instead of the happiness and bliss that should follow bad rulers getting thrown out, the population of Oceania is overridden with fear and oppression by the new government. The Party changes history to fit their own ends. They use telescreens to watch people for signs of rebellious behavior. Two-minute Hates are held to unite the people against one common enemy (Goldstein) instead of them seeing Big Brother as their oppressor. Orwell points out many poor qualities of mankind that needed to be changed and warned of what could happen if they didn’t change the trends in the novel. Orwell wanted society to change the direction they were headed in, toward extreme capitalism and socialism. He took these principles and wrote a book about what life would be like if these ideas were taken to the extreme. 1984 serves as a reminder that governments can get power hungry and make the needs of the population less important than the needs of themselves. Looking back on the years since the book was published in 1949, the warnings contained in Orwell’s novel are more pertinent than back then. In these times of national threat and war, it is easier for the government to justify using whatever they can, including tactics which infringe on personal rights, to ‘protect the nation’. Individuals need to be more on their guard against governments on power trips. In his novel 1984, George Orwell creates a very clear depiction of his views on politics and mankind: Politics can corrupt and create more problems than they solve, and mankind cannot be trusted with complete power. Orwell created the Party in 1984 to show what the socialist and capitalist ideas could be turned into with a little betrayal and perversion. The warnings presented in the book are even more applicable today than they were when it was published. The hard economic times and the threats to the nation’s

Marvin 4 security both attribute to the possibility of government intruding on personal rights. Orwell saw this coming and wrote 1984 to try and counteract it.