Abdulrahman Alshehri
February 16, 2018
Orwellian Newspeak In his book 1984, George Orwell talks about Newspeak as the official language of Oceania, the setting of the story. Newspeak aims to replace Oldspeak, or the Standard English, in a way that would favor the Party members or the elite. It was designed to limit the range of thought of people which would make them easier to manipulate. Although there were some words that could still be used in Newspeak, the way they should be used have changed to make sure they do not stir up the people’s mind into greater thinking. A Newspeak dictionary contained all the vocabulary used for that purpose. There were three kinds of vocabulary which include A Vocabulary, B Vocabulary, and C Vocabulary. Each set of vocabulary was designed for specific purpose. A Vocabulary consisted of words for ordinary life, B Vocabulary was constructed for political purposes, while C Vocabulary consisted of scientific and technical terms. Orwellian Newspeak reveals how certain changes to language can be used to control or oppress people to serve the interest of the elite or the government. People would have no choice but the obey since “Big Brother” is watching them and could hear and see them anytime and anywhere they are. Since language is used to express people’s thoughts and feelings, controlling language and limiting them to certain uses also limits the mind from thinking freely which is a form of oppression. This practice of Newspeak is not only
1984 George Orwell’s 1984 created a society that created men that work like machines, this allows for anyone to be submitted to do the unthinkable. George Orwell captured this concept by forming unusually long sentences to give the audience a true understanding of how machine like the people of Oceania are by explaining ideas so in depth. Also the use of connotation and specific diction, gives the reader a chance to really see how different the views and responses of the people of Oceania are, compared to the views and responses today. Along with diction, connotation, and unusually long sentences, George Orwell utilized periodic sentences to help the audience understand how a character was feeling or describe a situation in ‘layman's terms’
In this alternate 1984, the governments of three fictional nations – Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia – take control of mankind’s free thought by taking control of its media institutions, both written and spoken (Bossche). His points are relevant in the real world, because governments are developing institutions of surveillance and propaganda, just as they did in the novel. In the novel 1984, George Orwell employs the rhetorical techniques of symbolism, allegory, and
Newspeak is slowly creeping its way into the public, and will soon extinguish any word that could transform into a thoughtcrime. Newspeak is quite simple in the scheme of things, its goals are to obliterate any sort of negative thoughts towards the government. “ Newspeak is engineered to remove even the possibility of rebellious thoughts—the words by which such thoughts might be articulated have been eliminated from the language. Newspeak contains no negative terms.” ( sparknotes).
In George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, the author uses cacophonous and anaphora diction with rhetorical and imperative syntax to convey the fragility and selfish state of human nature; the author further portrays the immense suffering guided by abused power at the hands of a totalitarian government. An analytical and commentary writing on society, 1984 discusses topics such as the exploitation of and total control in the absolutist manner of tyrannic leadership. Written through the perspective of Winston Smith and his conflict between reality and illusion in a deceptive society, Orwell intentionally warns the future society of these topics. While forcefully observing himself in a mirror, Winston notices that “a…skeleton-like thing was coming towards him… [with] a bald scalp, a crooked nose, and battered-looking cheekbones” and under the layer of dirt, “the red scars of wounds, and… the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull” (296-297).
Newspeak is a way of limiting words that the people have access to they limit the peoples abilities to rebel since they cannot effectively communicate the reason to rebel. Something that makes this a dystopian society is that they use propaganda and the citizens’ freedom is restricted. in the short story “Harrison Bergeron” they make people conform by making them wear uniforms and making them use handicaps. The handicaps can be weights if you're above average strength, mask if you are more good looking than others, or making them use a radio in their ears if your intelligence is above average. the reason that this is a dystopian short story is because they give the illusion that it is a perfect utopian world.
The whole aim of Newspeak [was] To narrow the range of thought”( Orwell 55) Big Brother or the party thought if the range of thought was slimmed down. Newspeak was the tactic to complete his goal. He slowly was erasing and replacing English. To distract the
Language as a form of mind control in 1984 and Brave New World Although one 's idea of Utopianism is unique to one’s beliefs, the genre of Utopian and Dystopian fiction is commonly tackled in novels, from which the authors convey the idea of a depraved society through detailing inhumane characteristics which would be seen unacceptable to any world citizen. In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell authors create tyrannical governments responsible for a set of callous actions such as the eradication of freedom of speech and ideological control over their population’s mentality. These wrongdoings are achieved through the application of methods that obligate people to act as machines, such as the ad campaigns in Brave New World and the implementation of the Newspeak dictionary in 1984. As Orwell creates the ministry of truth as a means to demonstrate the lack of ideological freedom in oceania, Huxley discusses the concept of World Controllers and the use of SOMA as examples of the alienated society of Brave New World.
Language: “The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall.” (2) “Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations... Not a word of it could be proved or disproved... It was like a single equation with two unknowns” (74) L(1) George Orwell, the author of 1984, uses figurative language within this quote with a perfectly crafted simile.
Orwell wrote the Juvenalian satire, 1984 in the year 1948, as during the time period the world was recovering from the effects of war. INGSOC was the political philosophy adopted when the socialist party began to rule, the use of language was a common pathway for a government to manipulatively control their people. Newspeak, aims to eliminate any thought opposed to the party, which was an allegory of the ways in which World War leaders attempted to manipulate their people. Newspeak establishes all the knowledge, meanings and values and ultimately uses it to manipulate the
Language is a major themes in both novels “1984” by George Orwell and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwool. Language are heavily reshape in both novel in order to crave a goal to control individuals. “1984” creates authority over citizens through altering and reducing the English language to its most basic form. To “return” to the root of English, the Party have to eliminate the complexity of the language - synonyms and subtle meaning of words -from the existence of the people minds in the apparent belief that there is no justification from antonyms and ‘shades of meanings’, and only one concept should only subsist . However the true purpose of simplifying language and destroying words is to eliminate concepts that might led to the idealism of rebellion and disobedience; The Party does not want the thoughts of rebellion and disobedience to exist therefore they have to destroy and simplify to a huge extent.
The Party is working on their Newspeak dictionaries. Newspeak is a limited language, intending to include only words that the Party deems acceptable and which works for their prerogative. When speaking about the Newspeak dictionary to Winston,
Joseph Goebbels once said,”Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their freewill”. This statement is proven to be true in 1984. The author, George Orwell, creates a fictional dystopian society in which the population is manipulated into thinking they live in a great world, whereas the government has full control over them. In 1984, George Orwell’s prime message, supported by the article called Liberty in North Korea by Hae Re, was the lack of individualism gives power to the applicable leader, which is conveyed using the characters speech and symbolism. Orwell’s dystopian society showed the author 's message through what a character was saying and symbolism.
The trope of a controlling government overreaching its bounds and establishing clear laws defining a person’s freedoms. Many novels and films have the whole population following rules that for ethical reasons should not be in place, rules that tell someone how he or she should handle a personal aspect of his or her life. Aspects that are considered the extremely personal such as who a person is allowed to be in a relationship with, or what career path a person should take, and even how much sex a person is allowed to have. In 1984 (a book by George Orwell) the main characters tell us how his ex-wife never really had sex with him and he tells us that she would cringe when touched and would only have sex once in a while to try to have children because she saw it as her duty and the government required that of her. It is later explained that girls are taught early on that sex is sinful and should only be done with the intention of creating more followers for big brother.
In 1984, Orwell paints a nightmarish picture of a totalitarian system gone to the absolute extreme. He believed that totalitarianism and the corruption of language were connected and he integrated it into the novel by using language as the ultimate weapon of destruction. Big Brother uses the power of language to oppress, persuade and control the people of Oceania. The official language of Oceania is Newspeak, which the party use to control its subjects and outlaw subversive thoughts.
In Orwell's opinion, the destruction of Language is used to dumb down the people and control the minds of the masses. This ideology is exhibited in the fictional language of Newspeak, the language created by Orwell in the book 1984. The purpose of Newspeak is to lessen the knowledge of the people under the Party and eventually make thought crime impossible. An example of this is in the