Literary analysis on 1948 by george orwell

Literary Analysis
1984 by George Orwell

The novel ”1984” was written in 1948 by the English Indian author George Orwell. This dystopian novel tells us the story of a man, Winston Smith, who works at the Ministry Of Truth in London, Airstrip One, Oceania. The story takes place in a 1984’s Europe where a great war has resulted in a Europe conquered by a superpower - Oceania. Oceania is a dictatorship ruled by The Party, the frontman of The Party bears the name Big Brother. And Big Brother is watching you - everywhere and all the time. The Party governs its people through complete surveillance. The thought police is the institution that deals with people with, according to the party, vicious minds and the so called tele-screens are their tools. Anywhere you go in Oceania you are being monitored. The inhabitants of Oceania are generically completely indoctrinated by The Party’s propaganda. Some people feel doubt towards the regime, but needs to keep their thoughts to themselves, there among Winston. Winston writes a diary about his life, which is a severe thoughtcrime according to The Party, and therefore feels constant anxiety of the risk to be arrested by the police.
One day a girl who Winston has been having glances with, Julia, leaves him a note saying ”I love you”. That leads to a rather complicated relationship between them. After a while with this affair Winston gets ensnared into a rebel movement by an undercover member of the thought police and thereafter gets arrested. He then gets tortured and manipulated until the point where he understands his love for Big Brother.
Throughout the novel we get a view of how the regime controls and governs its people, and one very crucial way to get there is by oppressing the freedom of speech. Therefore i will in this essay discuss the power of words and media in ”1984”.

When you think of a dictatorship, most often you probably associate it with violence and and oppression by military force. You probably imagine a people in distress and a group of resistance which gets crushed over and over again by the military state. But this novel reveals a new side of the dictatorship coin. Big Brother controls ”his” people also by violent power, but primarily by manipulating their very minds, repressing their ability of critical thinking.
When Winston in the beginning of the novel starts writing his diary, the narrator describes it as an abomination and his handwriting as ”childish”, ”straggling up and down the page”. Which one can interpret as a sign that information in Oceania is not written in words - since it is obvious that he has not written by hand in a very long time. All the information given to the people is received through their tele-screens, which leaves no actual written proof of what have been said to the people and gives the signal that there is no other truth but the one sent by the government in their channels.
The catch phrase ”Who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past” on p. 37 sums up the principle of The Ministry of Truth pretty well. One task for The Ministry of Truth is rewriting, editing information which is to go out to the people. For example when the chocolate ration was to be reduced from thirty to twenty-five grams per week, The Ministry of Truth re-wrote the bad information to instead get the feeling of a positive action from the government - ”due to war success and extraordinary economic growth the chocolate ration has been increased from twenty to twenty-five grams per week”. Making it a piece of news in favor of The Party. And since no written proof of the former ration number exists, the population does not perceive the deceptiveness of the information. What they do is to edit current information, to change what society thinks has happened in the history, and by that glorifies the leadership. And as an effect manipulate the people.
Another concept by The Party is Newspeak. Newspeak is a new language under development by The Research Department. The purpose of it is to decimate the amount of words in the English language and the long term aim is to replace English. By doing that The Party intends to rule out the potential of committing thoughtcrime - if there is no word for it, then you can’t think of it. Ergo, they mean to manipulate their population to the very level where they erase the option of critical opinions fully.

The importance of words and media in the novel ”1984” can not be underestimated. Basically it is what the whole society is built upon.
What really catches my mind is that the situation described in ”1984” seems not too far fetched in todays society. Today’s technology could enable a totalitarian surveillance state as described in the novel. And therefor i think the most important message from the novel is to never stop perusing and reviewing the higher powers in society.