1984
“War is peace,
freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” When something has great power and
force it can emasculate a person’s mind and thoughts at appoint where anything
the greater force says is accepted and believed. In the book 1984 written by George
Orwell, it is about a lower class middle aged man named Winston in the nation
of Oceania. The ruling figure is “The Party” and the leader and face of it is
Big Brother. The party is constantly watching Winston, taking note in
everything he says and does in an attempt to catch any rebellion acts or thoughts,
which is the worst crime of them all. But Winston strongly disagrees with what
the Party wants and attempts a series of rebellion acts including a
relationship with a girl named Julia. But the consequences for this are much different
than what Winston expected, which was death. 1984 communicates that the Party
has power by showing their manipulation of knowledge and privacy.
The Party expresses their powers by manipulating
the people’s knowledge by lying to them. On page 72, as Winston goes through a children
history books he sees a text saying, “In the old days, before the glorious revolution,
London was not the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty,
miserable place where hardly anybody had enough to eat and where hundreds and
thousands of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to
sleep under….But among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great
big beautiful houses that were lived by rich men….” This explains that the
Party described history of london as place worse than how they are in the present. But based
on how Winston described London in the beginning of the book, it sounds almost the
same. Winston described a great pyramid like house and how there were only
three of them in London with the other old 19th century, broken
down houses. This sounds very similar to the text in the history book which
explains how there were only a few big beautiful houses compared in the
terrible poverty. The Party is trying to make people think that things were
better than how it was before, even though nothing changed. This also tells us
that the people didnt know much of the past and can’t compare their
surroundings of their present with the past. The Party also conveys their power
of manipulation by lying about the amount of rations the people get. On page
58, Winston hears what flowed out of telescreen and says to himself, “It has appeared
that there had even been demonstrations to thank big brother for raising the chocolate
rations to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday, he reflected, it had been announced
that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week.” Winston later
explains that the rations of chocolate were 30 the week before. This interprets
how much the people are gullible and forgettable about things. The Party first
tells the truth about reducing the rations but they knew how desperate the
people are for anything. So saying they raised the ration to 20 was an easy
manipulation to make them so happy and grateful that they
forget what they said a day before. The party’s power is so great, they can
make someone forget and believe in a day. This concludes that the party has the
power to control a person’s knowledge of history and their amount of rations
they have.
Not only can the Party control a persons knowledge
of things but it can also control your privacy. On page 3 Winston explains a
television-like device called “telescreen” saying, “The telescreen received and
transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a
very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained
within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen
as well heard.” This describes that Winston and everybody else are required, by
the party, to have a telescreen in their homes. This means the party wants to
know everything the people are saying and doing. The party also has thought
polices which are the people that are getting the information from the
telescreen. If the thought police see you doing anything the Party doesn't
allow, they will report you to the Party. We can infer that the people don't complain because they recognize the Party is the high power and anything they do correct. The Party also invades peoples’ privacy by manipulating
children to believe whatever they Party wants and become spies. On page 24-25, Winston
thinks about his neighbor’s kids and explains modern children. “Nearly all
children nowadays are horrible….they were systematically turned into
ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever
to rebel against the disciplined of the party…. “child hero” was the phrase
generally used – had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his
parents to the thought police.” This is saying the party knew that kids would
believe a lot of the things people say. So they made them believe in their
policies and taught them not to rebel. The children then became into human
telescreens. They are usually in all homes, they notice what their parents are
doing and saying, then tell the thought police if they did anything wrong. We can tell the party really thought this through because they chose kids knowing that they are too young to
fully understand the consequences of turning in their parents. From this we can figure the Party has power because they are able invade privacy by using telescreens and manipulated
kid spies.
1984 reveals that the Party can control people’s understandings
and their amount of isolation because they have power. I believe the higher
power in our society, the government; have some similarities and differences
with the Party. For one, they both are able to control a lot of the aspects of our lives. Both the Party and our government give us knowledge of the world through the
media and books that are extremely bias which make us think a certain away. But
freedom is an issue with the Party, as they give very little of it to the
people. While our government has the constitution which gives us rights like
freedom of speech and the right to bare hands. But our government can change if it falls in the wrong hands (a bad leader) and possibly follow the steps of the Party in 1984. 
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