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Present day America vs. George Orwell's 1984

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Present day America vs. George Orwell's 1984

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Instead of comparing this book to a past event, I have decided to compare it to present day America.

In America today, when our leadership has tried to make us believe that a current event has not happened, the administration has claimed that the event is so-called "fake news." This causes some of the people to "doublethink" what they know is already true. Calling events "fake news" is similar to how The Party constantly alters the facts surrounding the never-ending wars with Eastasia and Eurasia. The current administration has denied that Russia had anything to do with the election, even though there have been reports that Russia had Facebook accounts that incited violence and havoc on issues present in the election. In fact, some people are tricked into believing that some of these reports are truly "fake news."

George Orwell's Thought Police is frighteningly similar to the National Security Agency of the United States. The NSA can monitor citizens on our phones just like the Thought Police monitors people with secret microphones and telescreens. The NSA is known as well to use social media as a resource to spy on citizens. Certainly, security measures are important in an age of technological terrorism, but citizens also expect a degree of privacy and freedom of speech as well. If the government found a reason to suspect you, they could dig up something from your phone, even a minor altercation, and use it against you just like the Thought Police uses these tiny infractions to kill people that could be dangerous to them.

If we continue on our path of "fake news" and no privacy whatsoever, we might as well call ourselves The Party. Although America is nothing like Oceania or the totalitarian governments of "the German Nazis and the Russian Communists" to which O'Brien refers when he is torturing Winston, there are so many similarities that do occur. Many Americans today fear the growing violence as well as the loss of personal freedoms.

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A totalitarian government is one in which the government controls everything. They control the people's beliefs, their speech, their jobs, and their thoughts. In a totalitarian government, the controlling leader or group of leaders has privileges that the common people do not.

In 1984, Big Brother is this dictator who has power over everyone. Big Brother even has the power to change the past. Big Brother could merely be a figurehead who once was an actual person. Oceania is divided into The Inner Party, The Outer Party, and the Proles. The Inner Party members, like O'Brien, control the secret intelligence factors of government. The Inner Party members are also provided with more luxurious physical accommodations and higher quality food, coffee, and cigarettes. The Outer Party members, like Winston and Julia and even Parsons and Syme, carry out the daily jobs needed to run The Party. Winston changes the facts and history; Julia produces Fiction; Parsons runs community patriotic events, and Syme develops Newspeak. They are all overworked and under-compensated. Food is served in bleak and dirty cafeterias; housing is the bare minimum. Winston notices the dirt and grime of so many bodies everywhere he goes. The food is watered down and without flavor. The cigarettes fall apart, and the coffee is weak. Rations on things like chocolate and shaving razors are limited and coveted. The gin, however, is always available.

Controlling the people's thoughts, movements, free time, food, clothes, and housing so successfully affects people's morale and their memories, therefore manipulating the past and the future. Winston struggles to remember if the past was ever better than the present, and most Outer Party members are too depressed and fearful to revolt. The gin keeps them sedated and their minds numb. George Orwell is telling us that in these societies the only hope to be free from the government's control is in the Proles, the huddled masses. A phrase that is repeated many times throughout the novel is "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." This shows that George Orwell is trying to tell us that these proles, or common people, are the only hope in a society like this because they are still mostly free to live and love. Because, if you can unite these people, then the power of the people will be too much for the government.

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Julia, a twenty-six-year-old woman with dark hair and a slender body, we first meet when Winston fantasizes about raping her and then killing her with a cobblestone. She seems from the outside, to be a valiant follower in The Party's way of life. She is the head of the junior anti-sex league and spends countless hours making flags and banners for hate week.

"She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the Junior Anti-Sex league, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and suchlike activities. It paid, she said; it was camouflage." -129

This quote shows that Julia leads a double life. She uses a hardworking party member as a cover-up of who she truly is.

Beneath the valiant party member disguise, lies her true identity. She is a rebel. According to Winston, she is "only a rebel from the waist downwards." (Page 156) This, in fact, is true. She is more of a physical rebel in the sense of she breaks the rules for her own pleasure. While Winston breaks the rules because he understands that the rules are wrong. She is not only Winston's lover but she is proof that the brainwashing of men to hate women. At first, Winston hates her solely because she is a woman, but after she shows him that women can be nice and lovable, his opinion towards women change and he realizes that everything the party tells him is a lie.

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The theme of this book is a warning to not let the constant strive for power get in the way of humanity. There is no humanity within The Party. The Party has stripped Oceania of all its humanity and their ability to remember the past for themselves. The only real human beings in Oceania are the proles. George Orwell was trying to tell us that if we someday become the proles, we need to fight back and use the power of the people to bring the power to the people.

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Theoretically, anarchism, in my opinion, would be the best form of government. The idea of truly being free is appealing to most. Though anarchism sounds like a good idea, an idea is all it can ever be. In practice, anarchism could never work. There will always be one group of people who think they are better than another group of people.

The most practical solution to the ideal government, in my opinion, would be a form of socialism that is different from the socialistic societies we usually see. The equality that is necessary for a socialist government would ensure that no one thinks they are better than any other individual. Of course, there would always be the people who work for their food and clothing and there would be people who don't work because they know they will get stuff handed to them, as is normal in a socialist government. The people, while all are provided with the basic necessities of life, will have to work for the finer things in life. The people would all work for the government, but there would be different jobs that you could choose on a first come first serve policy. The government would not pay you in the form of money but in the form of better living standards and excess food.

Under this government, there is total freedom over who you marry, what you say, and of course the pursuit of happiness. There is no right to carry a firearm unless you are actively in the military. If you break a law (which include most of which we have in America) the first offense is a year in prison, the second is 10 years and the third offense is life in prison. If you kill someone,  you are sentenced to death.

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Winston Smith is a thirty-nine-year-old member of the Outer Party who works in the Ministry of Truth. "His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended." (page 2)The Ministry of Truth is devoted to falsifying documents, at least the ones that prove The Party wrong. Because of his job, his knowledge of how the Party obtains all of its power is more than most. Yet he wonders why The Party needs this power.

"The past not only changed but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen and wrote:

I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY" - Page 79-80

This quote shows that even though the government doesn't want him to think about the function of their ways, he does question the motives of The Party. That is the way that Winston is. He believes with his whole heart that The Party is wrong.

In newspeak terms, Winston is considered a crimethinker. A "crimethinker" essentially is someone who has any negative thoughts about The Party. Winston's biggest problem with The Party is the fact that they control the past. In his work, he is completely aware that The Party is changing the truth because he himself is doing the falsification. Only once though, did he have proof that something in the news was false.

" The instant he had flattened it out he saw its significance.
It was a half-page torn out of ‘The Times’ of about
ten years earlier—the top half of the page, so that it included

the date—and it contained a photograph of the delegates at some Party function in New York. Prominent in the middle of the group were Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford."  - page 78

"The point was that at both trials all three men had confessed
that on that date they had been on Eurasian soil." -page 78

"That was ten-eleven years ago. Today, probably, he
would have kept that photograph." -page 79

These quotes show that not only did Winston have a piece of evidence against The Party, and he figured out the real truth, but he also stated that if he had found the evidence now he would have kept it.

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The dystopian novel is the opposite of a utopian novel. Utopian novels are about a happy, always satisfied society. Dystopian societies are societies in which there is usually a dictator that controls all people with harsh punishments.

A dystopian novel is a novel that plunges into the social and political problems and portrays them in a nightmarish world. It's a book that shows what would/will happen if we forget about the past. They are about a society that is dark and foreboding.

In most of these societies, the dictatorship will use propaganda to brainwash the masses into believing whatever they want the people to believe. The people in these societies are usually stripped of their rights and made to believe that being stripped of these rights is the only way of life.

In dystopian novels, the societies are made to believe that the world outside of theirs is dangerous and are taught not to venture out there