1984 By George Orwell
The novel 1984 by George Orwell portrays many political dynamics and propaganda techniques. The party in control uses the Ministry of Truth to disseminate lies and control the news, and newspeak to manipulate the population by changing the language. Newspeak is the modification of the working language in which the citizens of Oceania live by. The modification of the language is way of controlling the people’s thoughts and actions, and obtaining the will of “Big Brother.” If you take away the knowledge of revolt for example, how will the people think of it? At one point Winston is chatting with one of his comrades inside of the Ministry who states, “don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end,
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we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Orwell, 1949, p. 52) The party controls the language, and therefore many of the people’s thoughts are within the realm of the party’s vocabulary. The elimination of words is not the only method of Newspeak.
The party also changed the way in which thoughts and words are expressed by changing word and sentence structure. For example, the word good could be altered to good, ungood, plusgood, doubleplusgood. By attaching these suffixes to the word good, the party is controlling the depth of thought that an individual might take part in. The simplification of words is relatable to real-life. Take for example, Congressional legislation. Recently, the Republican controlled Congress unveiled their replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Democrats were immediately opposed to the replacement package and began to label the bill Trump Care. Trump implies a negative connotation with many Democrats and the title reduction is used as a form of propaganda to instigate backlash and automatic dislike for the legislation. The same thing was done for the Affordable Care Act which became labeled Obamacare. The Republicans were against it and the name had an automatic negative connotation for many of them. However, Obamacare carried a positive connotation for the Democrats and eventually became a rallying point for them. This happens in many cases where authors of legislation will fill the short title with words that will be catchy and appealing to other members and the masses at
large. The other propaganda arm of the party is the Ministry of Truth. This organization has complete control over the media and history of the world (within Oceania). Winston, who works for the Ministry, receives slips of paper which direct him to change certain aspects of historic press. If a member of the party has been eliminated, Big Brother will erase all memories of that individual. Winston would have to recreate newspaper articles about the individual under a different name or transferring the story to someone else. For example, one day a co-worker of Winston’s failed to show up to work. The next day, “nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the notice board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the of the members of the Chess Committee…it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme has ceased to exist; he has never existed” (Orwell, 1949, p. 147) The party controls the complete history and therefore controls the present thinking. In addition to altering history, the Ministry of Truth boasts the terrorist Goldstein as a common enemy for the people to fear, hate, and rally against. The purpose of targeting one central figure is that it gives the party a central scapegoat from which to blame the people’s problems on. Every day, the party members engage in the two minutes of hate against Goldstein and there is even a hate week. When discussing the two-minute hate, Winston says that the program “varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity…All subsequent crimes against the party…sprang directly out of his teaching” (Orwell, 1949, p.12) Goldstein was the scapegoat for the party, and because the party controls the history and the media, Goldstein would never die. He would always be there to blame for the misfortunes of the people. The use of a scapegoat can be witnessed in our daily lives. Throughout the campaign, President Donald Trump used President Obama as his scapegoat (so did much of the Republican party). President Obama was the reason that health care premiums were going up, President Obama was the reason that the military was weak, President Obama was the reason that Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon. To this day, President Trump continues to use President Obama as a scapegoat. However unlikely it may be that President Obama is actively sabotaging President Trump in the White House, Trump may claim it to be true on Twitter. Not only is this example played out in American politics. Another example would be North Korea. In no way shape or form is the childlike dictator Kim Jon Un responsible for the starving and dying population. It is the fault of the imperialist American who occupy South Korea. If they could only wipe us off of the face of the planet, all of their problems would be solved. However, neither is their situation or the claims of President Trump true. In the end the use of scapegoats prevent oneself from dealing with the true root cause of the problem. Would it be more difficult for Trump to roll up his sleeves get the job done and apologize? Sure, but it is much easier to cast the blame on someone else. The dystopian universe of Oceania presents an interesting world where the party in control controls the language one speaks, the actions they take, what they believe, and the history they know to be true.
we shall make thought crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Orwell, 1949, p. 52) The party controls the language, and therefore many of the people’s thoughts are within the realm of the party’s vocabulary. The elimination of words is not the only method of Newspeak.
The party also changed the way in which thoughts and words are expressed by changing word and sentence structure. For example, the word good could be altered to good, ungood, plusgood, doubleplusgood. By attaching these suffixes to the word good, the party is controlling the depth of thought that an individual might take part in. The simplification of words is relatable to real-life. Take for example, Congressional legislation. Recently, the Republican controlled Congress unveiled their replacement for the Affordable Care Act. Democrats were immediately opposed to the replacement package and began to label the bill Trump Care. Trump implies a negative connotation with many Democrats and the title reduction is used as a form of propaganda to instigate backlash and automatic dislike for the legislation. The same thing was done for the Affordable Care Act which became labeled Obamacare. The Republicans were against it and the name had an automatic negative connotation for many of them. However, Obamacare carried a positive connotation for the Democrats and eventually became a rallying point for them. This happens in many cases where authors of legislation will fill the short title with words that will be catchy and appealing to other members and the masses at
large. The other propaganda arm of the party is the Ministry of Truth. This organization has complete control over the media and history of the world (within Oceania). Winston, who works for the Ministry, receives slips of paper which direct him to change certain aspects of historic press. If a member of the party has been eliminated, Big Brother will erase all memories of that individual. Winston would have to recreate newspaper articles about the individual under a different name or transferring the story to someone else. For example, one day a co-worker of Winston’s failed to show up to work. The next day, “nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the notice board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the of the members of the Chess Committee…it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme has ceased to exist; he has never existed” (Orwell, 1949, p. 147) The party controls the complete history and therefore controls the present thinking. In addition to altering history, the Ministry of Truth boasts the terrorist Goldstein as a common enemy for the people to fear, hate, and rally against. The purpose of targeting one central figure is that it gives the party a central scapegoat from which to blame the people’s problems on. Every day, the party members engage in the two minutes of hate against Goldstein and there is even a hate week. When discussing the two-minute hate, Winston says that the program “varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity…All subsequent crimes against the party…sprang directly out of his teaching” (Orwell, 1949, p.12) Goldstein was the scapegoat for the party, and because the party controls the history and the media, Goldstein would never die. He would always be there to blame for the misfortunes of the people. The use of a scapegoat can be witnessed in our daily lives. Throughout the campaign, President Donald Trump used President Obama as his scapegoat (so did much of the Republican party). President Obama was the reason that health care premiums were going up, President Obama was the reason that the military was weak, President Obama was the reason that Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon. To this day, President Trump continues to use President Obama as a scapegoat. However unlikely it may be that President Obama is actively sabotaging President Trump in the White House, Trump may claim it to be true on Twitter. Not only is this example played out in American politics. Another example would be North Korea. In no way shape or form is the childlike dictator Kim Jon Un responsible for the starving and dying population. It is the fault of the imperialist American who occupy South Korea. If they could only wipe us off of the face of the planet, all of their problems would be solved. However, neither is their situation or the claims of President Trump true. In the end the use of scapegoats prevent oneself from dealing with the true root cause of the problem. Would it be more difficult for Trump to roll up his sleeves get the job done and apologize? Sure, but it is much easier to cast the blame on someone else. The dystopian universe of Oceania presents an interesting world where the party in control controls the language one speaks, the actions they take, what they believe, and the history they know to be true.