QUESTIONNAIRE 1984

Sneider Cardona Vsquez Relatos Extensos Ingls VIII Semestre

Questionnaire 1984

1. Make your own conclusion about what the intention of the author was when he wrote this book? George Orwel had socialistic thoughts, I think he idealized a society different from our capitalist and democratic system, he went further creating a society with a government that exceded in power even becoming totalitarian.He wrote 1984 a few years after the end of world war II a period of disturbances, strong changes and reestablishments, he was worried about the many changes that would occur to the world after those conflicts, he visioned and somehow predicted the many transformations what would find the citizens of the contemporanean age. He also knew about political processes, so it could be considered that he was also interested about the relation between the political leader and their subordinates and also about the corruption of these leaders. 2. What did the book make you think about governemnt systems nowadays? Is it similar or not in your own country? I think we live nowadays in a technological era more or less similar to that described in 1984. Telescreens are obviously not the same but we live in a country where cameras and surveillance are getting more common in every place we enter,also we see in the film that telescreen were tools not only to watch but also to hear and listen carefully what people do and say, in Columbia we know any agency and all hackers know how to spy your phone calls and accounts on internet. What about the conflicts in the book it looks like the states were always at war, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Just lets take a look to the situation of our country, every minute we have to be careful with our problems since one day we are quarelling with our neighbour countries such as Equator, Venezuela or Nicaragua. What about the dilogos de paz it seems like at any minute everything is going to turn out wrong and start up the war, it is exactly the same famiies in Colomba live the same fear people felt in 1984. Now the corruption and the manipulation of information are present not only in the book but also in Colombia, the leader san all the people opposed to the ideas of the goverment are like they say in the bok vaporized and information is also sometimes contradictory, newspapers make us doubt about the reality of our country making us think taht everything is ok when indeed it is not, very similar to the doublethink. 3. Talk about the different ministers and express what you think about them The ministry of truth or minitrue. It dealt with the propaganda and the changing of information, they adjusted the past events to suit the needs of the other ministriesaaand also to refrain the peoples ability to reflect, they manipulated books, newspapers,

magazines everything they could change. This wa the ministry of lies and forgery and the ministry in which Wiston the protagonist of the novel worked. The ministry of peace or minipax. This was chaaarged of all the wars and battles betwen the states, this ministry also encouraged the people to keep believing on the INGSOC and the Big Brother, it was like akind of entity with the mission of increasing the patriotism of the habitatnts in Airstrip One. The ministry of Plenty or miniplenty. In my opinion this was the most corrupted, the people here worked with the economy and most of all with the food and other supplies, through all the book we can see all the citiizen lived in por conditions and everything was scarce, they lacked of many of the mnimum or primary utensils such as razor blades, they had to look for those tems in the free market like smmubling. The ministry of Love or miniluv. This was the most terrible of the ministries since here the people searched and punished or tortured the thoughtcriminals, those who were contradicting and disagreeing with the government rules. They were eliminated after horrible physical and emotional torture. 4. The phrase ignorance is strength what does it mean? Is it applicable to lack of education is strength? This was the eslogan of INGSOC, this first phrase says that when we keep like being dumb it will be easier for us to be conviced to control our minds and opinions, the governors then will be more powerful and less likely to be overthrown. When the society is ignorant rebellion is less likely. Orwell was right in predicting this for the future. Of course it is applicable for education,nowadays the government are searching for ways to make their subordinates more innocent and naive so that they can buy anything the state as a rule. Education is the forc wh mke the people progress, many tyrans would see this as a mean to get rid of false ideals and make their own nation. 5. Winston is a very interesting character, what do you think? What do you think he represents in the story? I think Winston is a representation of everyman in some point of is life, we all know life is full of any kind of surprises, lies and corruption are a big part of our communities, Winston is the man who reflescts on what is happening, the one who keeps secret that he does not agree with everything in his world, he wants a change but he knows thepowerful people would kill him. Winston suffered because he use his mind and he was right when everything was wrong, he died but he could never be changed his mind.