How Does Orwell Present The Government In 1984

Georges Orwell’s 1984 ~ An Examination of Controlling Government
George Orwell, in 1984, establishes a setting where the government’s intentions are self-serving to illustrate the impact of such on its citizens. In the book he demonstrates this through the character Winston. Winston knows that Big Brother and the government is just a huge lie. He writes in his journal about how he feels about Oceania and how he isn’t too sure about his surroundings. Everyone was for himself or herself and thinking negative about the government was out of the picture for all of the other citizens who were brainwashed by the government’s slogan “ BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. ”, besides a few people in the book. The government despised anyone who thought differently
In the book, if any person spoke badly about the government or thought anything bad about them; that person would be executed for not complying with their rules. Another strict law that they had issued was that you were not allowed to like or love someone. A person would be forced to have sexual intercourses with a person that they had no clue on who they were. Oceania’s government didn’t want their citizens to know what love was so they controlled their emotions and feelings towards others. The book explains this example on pg.36 as “Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time.” Reading this quote shows us that Oceania’s government is very strict. To have this character in this book have to think like this at all about their government is just crazy because at the end of the day, you should be able to like or love anyone you please and no one should tell you who you are supposed to be with for that period of
If every person fears them, then that means there will be less arguing and more cooperation with them. They showed fear to the citizens by big brother. “ BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” Is what was crammed in their minds and this put fear in their minds thinking that whatever they said or did; big brother will always be there watching everything they did so this kept everyone obedient towards the party. Another way they showed fear in the citizen was by putting telescreens everywhere. In the book, Winston is not stretching correctly and gets confronted by the telescreen. He is told that any man his age would be able to sketch better then him and that he needs to pick up his slack. This had Winston thinking about how much personal space he was able to have. He was thinking how the government put a telescreen in every room that a person stayed in and to think how someone would actually have the audacity to rebel against the party. He consistently reminds himself that it is foolish to do such a thing because he would just get caught. Winston feels like he is doing something wrong but really he is not. That is what the party wants, to make everyone paranoid on everything they do. By doing all of this, the people wanted to follow the government rules with out any thought of their meaningless