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1984 Totalitarianism

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In 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society pervaded by government control and the obsolescence of human emotion and society. Winston is forced to confront the reality of a totalitarian rule where the residents of Oceania are manipulated to ensure absolute government control and servitude of the people. The theme of totalitarianism and dystopia is employed in 1984 to grant absolute power to the government and ensure the deference of the people through the proliferation of propaganda, the repudiation of privacy and freedom, and the eradication of human thought and values. The repudiation of privacy and independent thought and the ubiquity of government surveillance is employed to secure absolute power to the government over the populace …show more content…

Propaganda provides a vehicle for the subversion of the people who willingly submit to the information fabricated by the party. Winston is employed in the Records section of the Ministry of Truth where he alters documents to “reconstruct the past” (45) with the “substitution of one piece of nonsense for another.” (43). Winston compares all of history to a “palimpsest”, which was “scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary” (42). The Two Minutes of Hate also serves as a form of propaganda which is meant to control and restrain the masses. Viewers inevitably become enraged with a “hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness” (16). The slogans of the Party, in their contradictory nature, are the central tenets of doublethink. The final slogan of the Party, “Ignorance is Strength” (18), postulates the inability of the people to recognize contradictions affixes the power of the authoritarian regime. Winston observes a Party mantra which states “who controls the past, […] controls the future” and “who controls the present, controls the past” (37). The prevalence of propaganda instilled by the government inculcates the pedagogy of the party to enforce a fervent …show more content…

Throughout 1984, Winston is forced to confront a society which rejects the central tenets of humanity and independent thought, and which presides over society through the dissemination of propaganda. Orwell’s novel explores the dangers of totalitarian government and absolute control and is a prophetic tale of power and control that must be heeded in modern times. Totalitarianism is employed to grant absolute power to the Party and ensure the deference of the

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