The world in George Orwell’s book 1984 is controlled by power, hatred, and violence. People always live in poverty but they never realize that because they are brainwashed by the party to think that they live in abundance. They are constantly being watched by the controlling power(government) by a device called telescreen, and are also being heard all the time because there are hidden microphones everywhere you can think of. Anyone who tries to tear the party apart, would get caught, and tortured until they are brainwashed to be devoted to the party with their whole heart. The party also has very famous quote that is posted everywhere in the world of Oceania.
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
The quote is very paradoxical...but it's the main principle that controls the mind of the people in Oceania.
I don’t think this type of oligarchy can be found in many parts of the world today, but still there are places in Africa, where hatred dominates people’s emotions, causing big and small wars and fighting to continue on. The novel does not shed any light on how the situations could be resolved or fixed, because in the novel, the government brainwashes anyone with signs of rebellion with torture. O'Brien, who controls the torturing of the rebels tell the protagonist Winston Smith that the reason the party can stay in power is because of the way they handle rebels. O' Brien speaks that Stallin and the Nazi, and even back in to the days of witch hunting, people did not change the minds of the rebels, and just simply killed them off or prosecute them. So, Leaving bad marks of history, and not being unable to pull the root off the rebellion, in the end, they got overthrown by people against them. But the government, they know that they are in power because they want to stay in the power, so by demanding absolute loyalty by force, they can never be overthrown, and they will always stay in power, continuing to brainwash the ordinary citizens.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Are there any current situations in the world that relate to the novel?
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1 comments:
I liked what you said about the people living in the world of 1984. After I read your post, I realized that North Korea is another good example of a country where the citizens live under an oppressive government.
In North Korea, the people are brainwashed into thinking that they are living in the grandest nation in the world. The citizens believe that the United States and South Korea are "evil." They are brainwashed into thinking that Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il are supreme gods (although if they were, Kim Il-sung wouldn't have died). It's quite sad to see how abject the people of North Korea are.
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