FREE ESSAY ON 1984

1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a compelling novel,
written in the period just after W.W.II. It details the life of one man, Winston Smith,
and his struggles with an undoubtedly
fascist government. The book is set approximately in the year 1984, in which Winston's
society is ruled by a governing force
known as The Party. At the head of this government is a fictional figure known as Big
Brother, to whom all citizens must love
and respect. In this society, privacy and freedom do not exist. People are constantly
monitored by telescreens, and subjected
to a constant barrage of propaganda. Any devious thought or action is dealt with by cruel
and deadly punishment. Winston is a
worker in one of the government agencies. His job: to rewrite the past so that The Party,
specifically Big Brother, appears to
be omnipotent. From as long as he can remember, he has despised The Party and what it
stood for, although he doesn't reveal
his true feelings to anyone around him. When Winston begins a torrid love affair with one
of the young women in his agency
named Julia, he finds someone else who shares in his beliefs. The two have several
meetings throughout the book, in which they
discuss their hatred for the government. They join a secret alliance called The
Brotherhood, who's specific purpose is the end
of The Party. Through the literature of The Brotherhood, they learn about the inner
workings of The Party and how it
accomplishes its stronghold on the people. The world as Winston knows it comes crashing
down when he and Julia are
arrested by the thought police, a faction of the government which deals with those who do
not agree and abide by the ways of
The Party. They are taken to a prison unlike any other. Winston is constantly tortured
and beaten, until he confesses to crimes
which he didn't commit or never even happened. If the party just killed Winston right
away, they might run the risk of making a
martyr out of him. Instead they re-educate him with the morals of The Party, using such
techniques as pain, starvation, and
using Winston's greatest fear against him. Once re- educated, he is introduced back into
society. But he is not the same person,
just a hollow shell. Winston had once said in the novel that if he could die hating Big
Brother, then he would have won. But
when Winston is finally killed, the only thing he can think is that he loves Big Brother.
As this book was written just after the
reign of Hitler in W.W.II, one can easily guess where Orwell got the basis for it. The
world was in a general state of disbelief
and panic after the atrocities that Hitler had committed. It was hoped that nothing like
this would ever happen again. Nineteen
Eighty- Four is a good reason why. The novel shows what could have happened if Hitler was
able to continue upon his quest
for power. The novel can also apply to the present era, as the novel was actually set in
more modern times. Not only does the
novel apply to Hitler's way of thinking, but also to Stalin. Even though both are at
opposite sides of the political spectrum, they
both established totalitarian governments. The Party also ran a totalitarian government
but on a much larger scale. A large part
of the novel deals with the relationship between The Party and society. Many of the
techniques used by The Party are similar to
those used by Hitler or any controlling government for that matter. One of these ways is
by propaganda. With telescreens in
everyone's homes, it was very easy to broadcast the views and beliefs of The Party. Also,
as this was the only form of
broadcasted media, the government could easily control what the people watched and
listened to. Another form of propaganda
was by means of posters and slogans. In this society it was impossible to go anywhere
without seeing a poster of Big Brother
and reading slogans such as BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU and War is Peace...Freedom is
Slavery...Ignorance is
Strength. Hitler was a big fan of propaganda and used it a great deal. Also, The Party
controlled all written media, and
therefore could write and re-write anything it chooses to. During his reign, Hitler
realized that he needed to get younger people
involved in his conquest. He set up youth camps and youth organizations. This made the
younger generations of Nazi Germans
feel like part of the struggle. In the book, youths are also involved in various
governmental groups. The mind of a child is a very
easy thing to manipulate. If the government can convince a child, even reward them for
turning in family members and loved
ones, they will have succeeded in corrupting one of the basic units in society, the
family. One thing you can count on is that your
family is usually there to support you, and not be more loyal to a dictatorial leader
than yourself. When establishing a society in
which you plan on oppressing the people, you must make sure of one thing: they do not
think they are being oppressed. The
only was in which you can do this is to withhold information and blatantly lie to them.
One way that this is done in the novel is
by re-writing history as time progresses. By doing this, people can look back on the past
and will only see whatever the
governing party wishes. Although Hitler did not go to such extreme measures, he had no
problem lying to the general
population to give them a false sense of security. Back in the 1930's and 1940's, the
population of Germany probably thought
they were better off than they actually were. When one of the key governmental figures in
the novel is discussing the motives
behind the rule of The Party, he mentions that its main purpose is to watch over and
guide the people, as they are frail and
cowardly, and cannot do it by themselves. This is very similar to what the English
political philosopher Hobbes thought. He
believed that man was self-destructive and needed a powerful government to control them.
Many people today despise the
views of Hobbes as they are very insulting to us as humans. We like to believe that we
can be responsible for our own destiny,
and do not need an all-knowing government to take charge and run our lives. One
interesting point in the novel was that the
chief enemy of The Party was a Jewish man named Emmanuel Goldstein. Goldstein was a
political figure who had vanished into
the underground and was rumoured to have started the group called The Brotherhood. Since
The Party was an extreme
version of Hitler and the totalitarian movements in the earlier part of the twentieth
century, it was ironic that the crusade for
freedom was led by a Jewish man. This also relates to W.W.II, as the Jews were the
principle group of people persecuted by
the Nazis. On a whole, this novel was a very interesting piece of reading. It really
makes one think how lucky we are to live in a
society in which we have the freedom to live as we choose. If many of the fundamental
freedoms which we sometimes take for
granted were taken away, we might find life to be like it is in the novel. I could not
imagine living when anything I believed
which deviated from normal paths of thought could result in my death. Many of the
greatest changes in society have been
made by those people who stray from the well-beaten path in search of a greater truth.
The novel also caused myself to reflect
upon how important it was that such tyrannical dictators such as Hitler have been
stopped, sometimes with great costs, from
making life unbearable. Reading this novel gave me a great sense of hope for human kind,
as we have been able to keep
totalitarian movements under control. Maybe sometimes people can get carried away with a
lust for power, but it will always
come back to living in a society that is tolerable to everyone. It is safe to say that a
Utopian society will never exist, but we
must make an effort to get as close as we can. Many disputes which occur today are
because of petty differences between
people. Although there are some flaws in human nature, we have always been able to keep
from digging a grave too deep to
climb out of. It is scary to think how close the world could have come to having a
society like the one in Nineteen Eighty Four,
and know that we as humans have to gain a better understanding of one another. I enjoyed
reading this book because not only
did it give the reader something exciting to read, but it also was able to put an
interesting perspective on life itself. 
Bibliography
1984 by george orwell