1984 Truth
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1984 Truth
In George Orwells “1984” society is manipulated and guided by an organization called the Party and an anonymous figure named Big Brother, who is used as God. One of the main aspects the Party controls is truth or tries to control is truths in the society and the truth in the minds of the individual themselves. The Party creates what they want to be true to make the individuals ignorant so they can manipulate them easier. This twist of the truth by the Party makes it seem like truth doesnt actually exist, but for Winston it does exist or it once did. Truth does exist if the individual is rebellious to the extent to where it will not get them vaporized and Winston is one of those rebels. He and others are able to experience the idea of truth mainly mentally or psychologically to better please themselves, but when the Party captures him his sense of rebellion is taken from him. When his rebelliousness is loss he loses his more vulnerable to the brainwashing of the Party.
Unlike the others in the society who have fallen by the Partys waist side Winston tries to maintain his own true identity. The Party needs to mold and shape these people so they are able to go through with their plans of ultimate control of all aspects of a persons life. They want no kind of individualism because of the fear of rebellion, which is what Winston has conformed to. He upholds his identity with his diary. He expresses himself and allows his thought to come out more freely. Winston knows that he is breaking the law of the Party and is afraid, but he still does it. “Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrainedHe had committed–would still have committed…Thoughtcrime they called it.(19)” Thoughtcrime is a fear the Party is able to put in the individuals mine. This crime is another hinderer of the Party to keep individuals minds locked in the state they want them to be in, to keep the truth in their identity and the environment around them in a locked state and the Party and Big Brother are the only ones with the key. The Party operates society into thinking they need the Party because they need to get into what the Party has for them, which is nothing but control, and since the Party is the suppose to be the key society must come through them. Winston is unable to refrain from committing thoughtcrime and lessening his self to believe what the Party has put out to manipulate his world. It doesnt matter to him because he believes is already dead anyway; “Thougtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.(27)” Since Winston believes that in some way he is already dead then its gives him more reason to not follow the ideas of the Party. He wants and has too much of his own mind to let the Party confuse and influence him so easily.
Since Winston works in the Records Department it gives him more of a shield against the Partys propaganda and maneuvering of the truth. He sees and knows what happens to the actual printed truths and even though their maybe no evidence he has his memory, which is what the Party wants to control with all persons. They try to use the society like it is a word processor and they are the keyboard and mouse. They dont want the peoples own memorys to exist because they need to edit and change the memory to make it what they want so they can have better control. It may be impossible to call it memories because the Party doesnt let them exist permanently, they want to control all of time. “Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past…All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. Reality control, they called it…doublethink. (32)” The Partys exploitation of the truths of the past, present, and future doesnt have to affect the peoples truths, but the fear the Party puts in their minds is what gets them to erase all knowledge or truth they knew of a certain issue and reenter new truths and deny or act as if the other did not exist.
The language that is being developed, called Newspeak is another method of the Partys used to keep the individuals dumbfounded and unable to commit thoughtcrime also to keep them dependent upon the Party. This is another initiative used to keep the individual from there own truths to deprive them even more of an identity. “Dont you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Its merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. (46)” Winstons coworker Syme believes that Newspeak will end the issue of thougtcrime, which it seems it is true. Newspeak is used by the Party to take away multiple meanings, expressions, individual thoughts to make the individuals more ignorant of individualism and other ideas that could ruin the ideas of the Party. With this language the people want be able to create thoughtcrime because they want have the knowledge to do so. Winston doesnt