Doublethink: Nineteen Eighty-four and Big Brother Essay Example

Doublethink Nineteen Eight-Four , by George Orwell, is a story about a man named Winston Smith, a member of the Outer party, who lives in London, in a time when it is totalitarian society, which is led by Big Brother, who is constantly watching and surveillance its people. Big Brother controls and sensors everyones thoughts and behavior. They achieve this by public mind control, which is known as Doublethink. Doublethink is a term coined by Orwell, it means “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in ones mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Therefore Winston lives in a time where the government (Big Brother) defines reality. Also the “process of doublethink has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.” Everything is controlled by the Party is a manifest of doublethink, even history which is evident in Winston's job, his job is to literally change history. He is change old newspapers and other documents and records to match with “new truths” decided by the party. "History has stopped, nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. Another of the power of Big Brother with its use of doublethink, is how the citizens accept the Party's ministry's even though there name contradicts there function. Such as, the Ministry of Plenty really over sees the economic shortage, Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth, which Winston works for, really conducts propaganda and historical revisions. The Ministry of Love, dispute its name is horrific place, which is the center for torture and punishment. Although the thought of government having such control over a society, where its citizens are longer able to decipher the truth from lies, seems like an bad dream, the concept of doublethink is evident in
Bowe 2 contemporary American culture and society. From Doublethink comes