What it Means to Exist in 1984 During the totalitarian reign of Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, a beacon of hope for the English, declared in a speech to his people that “all the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope” (Winston Churchill). George Orwell was inspired by this period of terror to write 1984, which explores the capabilities of a totalitarian society in our world. Under the rule of the chillingly exclusive Inner Party and mysterious dictator Big Brother who seek nothing but power, England submits to a terrifying totalitarian rule. The Inner Party forces the eradication of all that Churchill spoke to be great; freedom, justice, honor, mercy,
…show more content…
This is typical of totalitarian powers to display the propaganda for their cause in places where it is constantly digested by the people. This is a form of manipulation in itself. The poster reads, “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 4). The meaning behind WAR IS PEACE is that the three world powers (Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia) constantly remain ‘at war’ in order to keep the citizens of each country in line or, peaceful, thus war = peace. The second piece, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, speaks of doublethink. The government manipulates its people into thinking that their way is the right way often without the citizens realizing that this is happening. They may feel as if they are leading their own lives when in reality, the government is leading their lives for them. The final portion, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH concerns newspeak. The Party eliminates words such as love, therefore eliminating love itself. When you have no concept of what love is, you are unable to do so which then eliminates an emotional and passionate society that could possibly rebel. The Party’s slogan is the blueprint for their goals of obtaining and sustaining a totalitarian …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Winston is the symbol of hope. He is a believer that good shall prevail over evil in the end and feels in his heart that he is able to maintain is sanity no matter what the Party puts him against and therefore he will die honorable, fighting for freedom from the Party. He states that “”There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad”” (Orwell 250). Before the hope and sanity is beaten out of him by O’Brien, a man who enforces the Party’s practices upon Winston, he genuinely believes that if you maintain what is the truth and what is not in your head, you are in the right, you are sane. What the government does, however, is strip him of that sense of truth and untruth through a.) physical pain and b.) maintaining what is untruth as truth. This is doublethink at its finest. In “The Hell of 1984”, Malcom Pittock states that “[doublethink] is a key feature of Oceanic society but the sort practiced by O’Brien and the Inner Party is so different in degree as to involve a difference in kind” (Pittock 119). Pittock discusses the meaning of doublethink as well as how this changes when looked at through the eyes of the Inner Party and the eyes of the citizens who have knowledge of the word doublethink but are unaware of its severity and true meaning. To the Inner Party, it is a means of the highest
This is typical of totalitarian powers to display the propaganda for their cause in places where it is constantly digested by the people. This is a form of manipulation in itself. The poster reads, “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 4). The meaning behind WAR IS PEACE is that the three world powers (Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia) constantly remain ‘at war’ in order to keep the citizens of each country in line or, peaceful, thus war = peace. The second piece, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, speaks of doublethink. The government manipulates its people into thinking that their way is the right way often without the citizens realizing that this is happening. They may feel as if they are leading their own lives when in reality, the government is leading their lives for them. The final portion, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH concerns newspeak. The Party eliminates words such as love, therefore eliminating love itself. When you have no concept of what love is, you are unable to do so which then eliminates an emotional and passionate society that could possibly rebel. The Party’s slogan is the blueprint for their goals of obtaining and sustaining a totalitarian …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Winston is the symbol of hope. He is a believer that good shall prevail over evil in the end and feels in his heart that he is able to maintain is sanity no matter what the Party puts him against and therefore he will die honorable, fighting for freedom from the Party. He states that “”There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad”” (Orwell 250). Before the hope and sanity is beaten out of him by O’Brien, a man who enforces the Party’s practices upon Winston, he genuinely believes that if you maintain what is the truth and what is not in your head, you are in the right, you are sane. What the government does, however, is strip him of that sense of truth and untruth through a.) physical pain and b.) maintaining what is untruth as truth. This is doublethink at its finest. In “The Hell of 1984”, Malcom Pittock states that “[doublethink] is a key feature of Oceanic society but the sort practiced by O’Brien and the Inner Party is so different in degree as to involve a difference in kind” (Pittock 119). Pittock discusses the meaning of doublethink as well as how this changes when looked at through the eyes of the Inner Party and the eyes of the citizens who have knowledge of the word doublethink but are unaware of its severity and true meaning. To the Inner Party, it is a means of the highest