Doublethink In 1984

The impact that Newspeak had on individuals was examined by Lewis, Xhinaku & Pema, and Ermida. The scholars contended that Newspeak caused the people of Oceania to be less understanding of others and to be more inhumane. As mentioned previously, Lewis believes Newspeak is meant to create a world where drawing logical conclusions is impossible, and therefore, by individuals not having the ability to fully understand and comprehend the state of the world around them using their reduced language, they are more likely to ignore, and therefore allow, the corruption and wickedness that the citizens regularly experience to continue to occur (28-29). Using this same logic, Lewis goes on to comment that “reduction in the socio-geographic space of language
has a great dehumanizing effect on people” (36). Xhinaku & Pema have essentially the same findings; however, they used a different thought process in order to describe how people were affected by Newspeak. Xhinaku & Pema seem to focus more on the fact that 1984 takes place in a dystopian society where everyone, and everything, is being watched. They suggest that the people of Oceania are being watched so frequently in order to monitor for the subtle signs of rebellion that were created by the Party. They state that the constant fear of citizens being watched by the Party causes them to have to constantly suppress their emotions in order to stay alive, making them appear outwardly as more unfeeling (Xhinaku & Pema 27). Ermida has findings related to Lewis’s and Xhinaku & Pema’s findings have in terms of negative tolls that Newspeak takes on individuals. Ermida examines how politeness played a powerful role in 1984, and they did this by investigating Winston’s conversations with Julia. Ermida claims that the people of Oceania are more impolite because of the issues that Newspeak imposed on their society. Looking at the slightly awkward dialogues between Winston and Julia, Ermida declares that they typically disregarded “politeness strategies” in every conversation that they had, such as greetings and farewells (850). In addition to this, Ermida indicates that Winston and Julia’s conversations tended to be very blunt in nature and points out that repeatedly, “Julia makes no effort to conceal her disagreement” (852). This goes against another strategy according to Ermida, which is avoiding disagreement with others. Lewis, Xhinaku & Pema, and Ermida agree that Newspeak presented the people of Oceania with different language practices that had negative impacts on their behaviors.
Newspeak also affected individuals with its heavy use of doublethink, a concept that was introduced with the development of Newspeak.
Doublethink, in 1984, can be defined as the ability to believe two opposing thoughts at the same time. Only Zolyan and Chapman considered the concepts of doublethink on individuals. Zolyan tries to express the concept of doublethink by relating it to understanding a metaphor, like Orwell suggested. Zolyan declares that in order for one to understand a metaphor, one must find a relationship between the literal meaning and the figurative meaning (137-138); if one is unable to do this, then the metaphor does not make sense and it loses its figurative meaning (138). Zolyan adds that the concept of doublethink was just another example of a claimed by George Orwell, “political language is a tool for disseminating falsehood and misinformation” (138). Chapman would likely agree with Zolyan, stating that in order to stay alive in the dystopian society of Oceania, one must adopt “both a truth-committed and a non truth-committed approach” in every encounter, and they must do so at the same time (75). Doublethink was an attitude that the Party expected all citizens of Oceania to assimilate; however, Chapman observes that doublethink is not simply the ability to believe two opposing thoughts at the same time. Chapman insists that it is the ability to be concerned about and to not be concerned about the truthfulness of certain events or ideas (75). Chapman expressed this concept by using Goldstein’s book as a focal point. Chapman maintains that Goldstein’s book tells about how the Inner Party members believe that Oceania’s war stories are true, but at the same time they understand that the content is “spuripus” (76). Both Zolyan and Chapman can agree on the fact that doublethink was an approach that the Party wanted all individuals to use, but all individuals were not able to fully conform to those
expectations.
1984 is looked upon by researchers as a guidebook for dystopian society, and various researchers see parallels to today’s society. The Party set strict regulations and attempted to alter their common language in order to control the people living under their undeniable corrupt regime. Scholars set out to assess the extent to which the Party’s efforts to control people affected characters in the novel. In order to avoid a future like the future envisioned in 1984, scholars wish to fully comprehend the novel and the concepts presented in it. As a whole, all of the scholars that were cited seemed to agree on the existence of the different trends, but they used different reasons for supporting them. They agreed that Newspeak was a major source of control for the party, as it was an attempt to cut down on peoples’ freedom of thought in their society. Also, Newspeak affected the citizens of Oceania by making positive interactions with others more difficult and by introducing new concepts, such as doublethink, to Oceanian society. Since the topic is thoroughly researched, there are few to no gaps in the research, so scholars should be focused on directing their efforts towards determining why Newspeak could not be fully implemented. Although it was common to be exposed to it by the Party, people still used Oldspeak in thinking and informal communication. Again, it is crucial to fully grasp the trends presented by George Orwell in 1984 in order to be aware of the signs and to guard against the rise of tyrannical governments and corruption.