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Janise Marvin

H. British Literature

20th Century Novel Essay

June 5, 2009

1984 Could Be 2010

It is imperative for individuals to have rights. When a government is given

complete control over anything, there are no limits set for them. The government can do

anything they desire, because they control everything. This is the world that George

Orwell feared the world was heading toward. Orwell wrote his novel 1984, as he said, “to

alter other people’s idea of the kind of society they should strive after” (Orwell). The

direction that Orwell saw the world heading was not the direction that was, in his

opinion, the best for the interest of the entire world as a whole. He saw communism take

over in Soviet Russia under Joseph Stalin. The influence of the French Revolution was

apparent in the sense that the revolutionists turned out worse than the monarchy they

overthrew. Orwell held a belief in man’s fallibility. Mankind cannot be trusted to know

what is right for themselves. Orwell saw a trend in the world of capitalism, and he felt a

need to forewarn the world of what could happen if this trend continued.

In 1984, there is one party, but two classes inside the party. There is the inner

party and the outer party. The inner party can be considered the upper class. They are the

ones who control the party and are wealthy. The outer party consists of the commoners:

anyone from a worker in the Ministry of Truth to the bookkeeper in the shop below

where Winston and Julia rented a room. This separation in the party shows the potential

of capitalism, and how the gap between the rich and the lower classes in society could
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transfer over to politics and influence the government.

Another comment that Orwell had on mankind was their contradictory nature.

Over and over again, the world changes, and people change policies and viewpoints. This

belief is apparent in the nation of Oceania. The party’s slogan was “War is Peace,

Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” (Orwell 7). These three phrases are all

contradictory to what the words by themselves mean. In Oceania, this was called

doublespeak, which was having two opposite ideas at the same time. These statements of

the nation’s slogan were sort of paradoxical, because if one thought logically about them,

they could see the truth in some of them. War gives a nation a common enemy, therefore

bringing the nation together in peace, and the same logic applies to the other two. Even

the different departments that the government had set up were oxymoronic. The Ministry

of Truth was where they changed books to fit what the “Big Brother” had decided was

okay. The Ministry of Peace handled all the wars. The Ministry of Love was where they

tortured anyone who went against Big Brother and the Party. Winston described it as the

worst of the three ministries:

“The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in
it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometer
of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by
penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden
machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to the outer barriers were roamed by
gorilla faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons” (Orwell 8).

Because of mankind’s contradictory state of living, nothing is ever sure and things are

always changing. Under normal circumstances, this would not prove to be a problem, but

because Orwell is warning about the future by showing the extreme, he sees it as a

problem. The changes are fine for the most part, until the change comes that cannot be

changed. Oceania started by the Party overthrowing the previous rulers and Big Brother
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taking over as the dictator. Instead of the happiness and bliss that should follow bad

rulers getting thrown out, the population of Oceania is overridden with fear and

oppression by the new government. The Party changes history to fit their own ends. They

use telescreens to watch people for signs of rebellious behavior. Two-minute Hates are

held to unite the people against one common enemy (Goldstein) instead of them seeing

Big Brother as their oppressor. Orwell points out many poor qualities of mankind that

needed to be changed and warned of what could happen if they didn’t change the trends

in the novel.

Orwell wanted society to change the direction they were headed in, toward

extreme capitalism and socialism. He took these principles and wrote a book about what

life would be like if these ideas were taken to the extreme. 1984 serves as a reminder that

governments can get power hungry and make the needs of the population less important

than the needs of themselves. Looking back on the years since the book was published in

1949, the warnings contained in Orwell’s novel are more pertinent than back then. In

these times of national threat and war, it is easier for the government to justify using

whatever they can, including tactics which infringe on personal rights, to ‘protect the

nation’. Individuals need to be more on their guard against governments on power trips.

In his novel 1984, George Orwell creates a very clear depiction of his views on

politics and mankind: Politics can corrupt and create more problems than they solve, and

mankind cannot be trusted with complete power. Orwell created the Party in 1984 to

show what the socialist and capitalist ideas could be turned into with a little betrayal and

perversion. The warnings presented in the book are even more applicable today than they

were when it was published. The hard economic times and the threats to the nation’s
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security both attribute to the possibility of government intruding on personal rights.

Orwell saw this coming and wrote 1984 to try and counteract it.