1984 by George Orwell
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George Orwell, author of 1984, aspires to change the communication , wishes to modify history, as well as wishes to alter the level at which one can think. Orwell wants everyone to rely on the Inner Party as their government. Orwell wants the reader to trust in Big Brother, who relays his plans out through the Inner Party and the thought police. He wants to make it seem like the way to live according to the Party is not just the best, but the only way to live. He submits a powerful tone to remain in control throughout the entire novel.
Orwell wished to change the way everyone communicates. In the novel, Newspeak is the new and improved language of the Inner Party, and is being spread out into the public. Orwell wished to have communication change to very short and simple, instead of having a variety of vocabulary. To influence newspeak, Orwell creates posters, a new dictionary, and phrases in the newspeak language. Rather than the normal making a dictionary larger every year, the Party creates a dictionary smaller and smaller every year. Orwell created 3 main Newspeak phrases: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. These phrases set a powerful and controlling tone. The phrases are everywhere, reminding the Outer Party that the Inner Party is large and in charge. “The whole literature of the past will be destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespear, Milton, Byron – theyll exist only in Newspeak versions”(53)[.] The writings of famous authors would be altered to contradict what they were originally meant to mean. Reading a book that wasnt modified wouldve made an Outer Party member think, and in no way did Orwell hope for such a thing.
Orwell aspired to altogether remove peoples ability to think. The thought police had literally brainwashed anyone who still had a mind of their own into believing that the way of Big Brother is the only way. The Outer Party, because they were being forced not to think, left them in a numb mood. “The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness”(53). “The purpose of Newspeak was to make all other modes of thought impossible”(299). “In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten”(52). Syme, who worked in the dictionary department, explains to Winston the process of thoughtcrime, ironically before he is vanished by the thoughtpolice. Syme was vanished because he had bad thoughts while sleeping, and was betrayed by his own daughter. Syme knew too much about the actual truth, so he was eliminated. One was never safe, thoughtpolice were everywhere.Their every