Humanity is what allows a person to be more than just a human; it is what gives you individuality and makes you different from everyone else. Compassion, desire, drive, sympathy, kindness, love and much more are all characteristics which make up humanity. How much or how little of each characteristic you posses is what makes you who you are. In our world, we are lucky enough to be able to have our humanity and to never have known what it feels like to be deprived of such things. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the society in George Orwell’s 1984. “1984 depicts a fictional society ruled by an oppressive regime that functions mainly to ensure and to increase its own power and status” (Becnel 73). In the novel, the government, or
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That is how the Party saw things, at least. In 1984, the government uses dehumanization as a method to control their people. To dehumanize means to suppress all qualities that make a person an individual: thoughts feelings, freedoms, personal relationships, memories, etc (Fitzpatrick). Their policy was that by taking a person’s humanity, they were also taking that person’s power to fight back and realize just how brainwashed they were becoming. Without a mind of your own, you have no idea how to live and that is where the party steps in, like taking candy from a baby. One of the biggest examples of the Party taking away human qualities to make themselves seem more powerful is by rewriting history. Winston says, “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" (Orwell 34-35). The Party had no limits when it came to the amount of power they wanted to have and would do anything to get. By taking away and altering the past, changing someone’s memory of what they already knew to be true, they were taking away a human quality. Establishing why and how the Party dehumanizes their people is a key factor in the development of the plot of
That is how the Party saw things, at least. In 1984, the government uses dehumanization as a method to control their people. To dehumanize means to suppress all qualities that make a person an individual: thoughts feelings, freedoms, personal relationships, memories, etc (Fitzpatrick). Their policy was that by taking a person’s humanity, they were also taking that person’s power to fight back and realize just how brainwashed they were becoming. Without a mind of your own, you have no idea how to live and that is where the party steps in, like taking candy from a baby. One of the biggest examples of the Party taking away human qualities to make themselves seem more powerful is by rewriting history. Winston says, “And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past" (Orwell 34-35). The Party had no limits when it came to the amount of power they wanted to have and would do anything to get. By taking away and altering the past, changing someone’s memory of what they already knew to be true, they were taking away a human quality. Establishing why and how the Party dehumanizes their people is a key factor in the development of the plot of