Range of Issues in George Orwells 1984 - Research Paper Example

? George Orwell’s 1984 Word Count: 2,500 (10 pages) I. Introduction George Orwell’s fascinating novel 1984 deals with a wide range of issues that areultimately ones to which everyone can relate who has been involved in politics: the criticism of totalitarian ideals; the deliberate distortion of history; the psychological and physical control of a nation’s citizens; the ideas of “Big Brother,” the “Thought Police,” and INGSOC; and the nature of the main characters and their overall contribution to the novel. These issues will be discussed. II. The Criticism of Totalitarian Ideals One of the major ideas that this novel takes head-on is the fact that totalitarian governments are inherently evil and ultimately misleading. “[The novel] 1984… remains useful in warning of the consequences of totalitarianism.”1 Everyone knows that governments which are still totalitarian—such as in the case of China—have horrible human rights records. People are not allowed to speak freely—in the press or otherwise—because they are afraid of retribution. This is in direct contrast to the United States, where freedom of speech is built into the First Amendment of the Constitution, the founding document upon which U.S. ideals are based. Totalitarian governments don’t want people to think, live, or do anything without the government’s approval. For example, Communist China only allows one child per family. So, even the means of reproduction is controlled in that country, simply because it gives the government power over even peoples’ private sex lives. Not only this, but the government can claim that it is instituting such a law to have one child per family due to “the ecology” or some other such reason. This is not the true reason why leaders do not want the Chinese people empowered by having many children. China thinks that by controlling the fact that even these poor citizens of their own country cannot have intimate relations without worrying that the government might execute their child—puts them in a state of continual fear. This persistent fear that people would wake up to also include the fear that someone is watching them all the time who may have a higher place in the government than is originally known. That happens a lot in 1984. People are not whom they seem, and there are several shifting sands in this book, leading one to believe that one cannot always blindly accept the simple platitudes of what appears to be reality. Not only this, but Orwell warned against the dangers of giving leaders totalitarian power. One of the ways that this was achieved was that the so-called ‘winners’ in history would completely and most convincingly erase history. They would do this by incinerating any documents that would show proof of any kind of wrongdoing by the government. Thus, the government’s actions could only be analyzed through the narrow view it had of itself—which was that it was basically a perfect entity, at least, according to its own records. This is the position in which poor Winston Smith finds himself. He works for the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), and finds himself having the task of ‘revising’ history. What is interesting is that Winston starts realizing, as an Outer Party flunky, that the Inner Party is using him as a tool to help manipulate information control so that the top 2% can remain at the top. This reflects something similar which is going on at the Occupy Wall Street protests all over the globe and in riots in the UK, Africa, and the Middle East—people are realizing that their power comes from taking back their history, and seeing history as it really is and was as opposed to how it might be or should have been. This leads us to our next topic, which has to do with historical revisionism and its evils. III. The Deliberate Distortion of History The deliberate distortion of history is what Winston was in charge of doing. The novel 1984 depicts how detrimental history can be when it is written through the lens of the people who were on the winning side of any conflict. “In his novel 1984, Orwell provided a frightful picture of how ‘winners’ can control history.”2 Distortion of history definitely can paint a different picture than what originally happened. For example, most Caucasian Americans would like to believe that the Native Americans and the white settlers from England gathered peacefully for Thanksgiving without much interference. However, the true reality, as told from a Native’s perspective, reveals that this might indeed be a story embellished to the point of hilarity. For, as everyone knows, white settlers in Plymouth Rock and the surrounding First Nations tribes did not get along well—the settlers even passing along their diseases to the Native Americans, which would later practically wipe out their people, besides the innovation of more modernized weaponry from Europe. Another example of the deliberate distortion of history comes directly from the history books themselves—the modern-day revisionist movement surrounding the events of the Holocaust. Now, some people regard the Holocaust as sacred, because how in the world could anyone ever murder 6 to 12 million people and get away with it, scot-free? The answer is, it’s possible but would be very difficult. It is rumored that Hitler never died in a bunker with his lover and secretary. In fact, it was reported that he moved to Argentina (as did many World War II war criminals), and died 17 years after the war in 1962. Some people, however, do not feel that the Holocaust should be regarded as an event worthy of historical examination—nor do they feel that such undivided attention should be given to studying one of the most widely-documented massacres in recent modern history. These people are called Holocaust revisionists. They have a school of historians who go around to various places in the U.S. and around the world who basically tout the undisputed “fact” that the Holocaust never happened. They are saying that there were no gas chambers, no mass graves, no piles of skeletons stacked on top of each other—when there is obviously telling photographic evidence all to the contrary. It only makes sense that there has to be something wrong with these people who are, in essence, trying to “revise” Holocaust history. What is convenient for them to do is to pretend as though a massive pile of evidence doesn’t exist. This is how these people make a living. Not only that, but distortion of history can be used to psychologically and physically control the people of a sovereign nation—which will most definitely be discussed more in-depth and at length in the next following section. IV. The Psychological and Physical Control of A Nation’s Citizens There are several ways that the Inner Party and INGSOC seek to gain psychological and physical control of the citizens of Oceania. “In 1984, Orwell's main character, Winston Smith, is subjected to various methods of control, some social, some physical, and some psychological, ranging from propaganda to the falsification.”3 The psychology of a nation is important to its survival. If the prevailing message is that war is essential to the protection of the nation—but in reality is being utilized by the administration of a government to make ill-gotten gains—this is propaganda. This is exactly the kind of sin that the Bush Administration was guilty of when it allowed the Vice President, Dick Cheney, to have his construction company Halliburton rebuild Iraq after President Bush was given the carte blanche to go to war unilaterally without Congressional approval. Other types of propaganda were propagated within the Administration, such as the touted supposed ‘necessity’ of waterboarding as an interrogation technique in learning information about terrorists. Of course, to this day, Dick Cheney neither has regrets nor apologizes about waterboarding, even though this was a form of torture that, under the Bush Administration, was deemed legal—waterboarding being one physical way that the U.S. was known to use to break down detainees, stripping them of their senses and then shocking them to the point of no return. Physical control and torture are one thing—which Winston Smith definitely experiences, as he is given electroshock treatments until he finally agrees with the Inner Party’s governance, not to mention has a rat cage inserted onto his face, one of Smith’s biggest fears. Physical control over the populace is one thing—which happens in many countries where there are rampant crime issues, such as what happened in Trujillo’s dictatorship over the Dominican Republic. Psychological control over a country is what places a nation in even deeper turmoil that previously thought. If a people are being psychologically repressed—they can’t do or say anything that might interfere with the government’s ‘agenda’—can have serious consequences for peoples’ mental frames of mind. If people are constantly living in fear, they can be controlled. This is what Marx meant what he said when he said that religion was the ‘opiate of the masses.’ In essence, religion, his argument was, is what makes people afraid to do certain things. However, once religion is taken out of the picture, they no longer worry about whether what they are doing is right or wrong but do what they will do on the basis that some actions are necessary and some are still wrong but not really necessary. It’s important to remember here that, in order for this ‘society’ to get anywhere, it must rely on the fact that the people of a sovereign nation are being deceived—otherwise those 2% of the upper class at the top of the food chain would essentially not have a method of subduing the Outer class and the Prole (proletariats). V. The Symbolism of Big Brother, the Thought Police, and INGSOC What Orwell could not have known, necessarily—but what his mind knew intrinsically—was that there would be an uprising of a great nation, to one day rival all of the other nations in terms of having a form of socialism. In his book, Orwell called this English Socialism, which was INGSOC in Newspeak. Essentially, “Big Brother” was formed in order to ensure that the Outer Party and the Prole did not overstep their boundaries with regard to their thoughts. “Big Brother” was constantly watching the people in Oceania. To make things worse, there was an organization called the Thought Police, who basically regulated the thoughts of the people who were living in this particular society. So far, Big Brother—as a project—had much success. Big Brother had been watching Winston and therefore, since one of his confidantes was actually working for the Thought Police—including the keeper of the small business where Winston and his lover Julia had a retreat—this actually impeded Winston from ever having any true love for Julia since he was made to renounce his love in prison. The prison not only forced Winston to recant his love for Julia, but the prison also forced her to recant her professed love for Winston as well—so the torture was mutual, in that sense. Winston kept unorthodox or forbidden thoughts in his diary, which he was always scared that the Thought Police would see, the punishment being meted out being on the pain of death. “There was another, wilder possibility that kept raising its head… that the message did not come from the Thought Police…but from some kind of underground [group called] the Brotherhood…”4 Of course, it comes as no surprise that Winston ultimately had to recant his love or suffer horrible consequences. Thus, he does this, but not necessarily agreeing with every facet of the agreement that he profess the law of the land, even if he feels that it is unfair or unjust. The novel leaves us feeling the notion that, in the end, both Winston and Julia are not to reunite, but they meet in a public place where they both admitted that they betrayed each other. One of the heartbreaking works of staggering genius in this novel is that of the realization that Winston had to betray Julia, or else he would have been punished more for his various many offenses found by the Thought Police. The INGSOC is actually something similar to what is going on today in the United States. The only difference is that, instead of having a system called “English Socialism,” this kind is called American Socialism. What is scary is that the contrasts and some of the predictions that Orwell makes about the future are eerily close to what eventually could happen—and, in fact, has happened—in terms of various elements of the U.S. developing as a country. VI. The Characters and Their Overall Contribution to the Novel There are five main characters which make up a great bulk of the story. The first character is named Winston Smith. He is the proteagonist. “Smith is a thirty-nine-year-old Outer Party member who, as the book opens, has already committed the thoughtcrime which will inevitably bring about his downfall.”5 Smith’s ‘thoughtcrime’ is merely writing down ideas in his journal, which is a crime simply because he was having an original thought. This translates into today’s terminology as the crime of not being fake. Thus, people would have to have been devoid of original thinking in order to support the state-sponsored terror of ignorance. Julia is Winston’s lover. She is definitely someone who plays a pivotal role in the story, because she is what gives meaning to Winston’s utterly hopeless life. Although she belongs to the Junior Anti-Sex League (evidenced by her wearing a red sash around her waist), in actuality, Julia is anything but in agreement with the League’s policies. In fact, she turns out to be somewhat of a slight but lovely figure with whom Winston falls deeply in love. In addition, the other main characters that are really important are rather minor, except for save, perhaps, Big Brother. Big Brother is the organization that is always watching those who are not in power. Perhaps there will be some type of ‘Administrative Review’ introduced into mainstream society at some point, but let’s hope that it never comes to that. Big Brother is a perfect example of what is wrong with countries who spy on their people. VII. Conclusion The following elements were analyzed in the brilliant work of George Orwell, so aptly named 1984: the criticism of totalitarian ideals; the deliberate distortion of history; the psychological and physical control of a nation’s citizens; the ideas of “Big Brother,” the “Thought Police,” and INGSOC; and the explanations about the main characters and their overall contributions to the book as a unified whole. George Orwell’s book 1984 gives us all pause to wonder about the state of politics and international affairs today—knowing that, in a heartbeat, our lives could be changed forever by one government’s actions. It is hoped that, through this analysis, one can begin to understand how the government’s control over various elements of citizens’ private and public lives can be infringements on their privacy and space. It is within our reach to stop oppression, and as such, we should be people willing to stand up for causes we believe in, in order not to be bullied by people who have significant powers definitely assigned to them by the rule of law. WORKS CITED Bivens, Rena Kim. The Road to War: Manufacturing Public Opinion in Support of U.S. Foreign Goals. Germany: GRIN Verlag, 2008. Pp. 10. Bloom, Harold. George Orwell’s 1984. US: Infobase Publishing, 2004. Pp. 17. Licona, Michael R. The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. US: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Pp. 36. Orwell, George. 1984. US: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1983. Pp. 239. Reed, Kit, et al. George Orwell’s 1984. US: Barron’s Educational Series, 1984. Pp. 96. Read More