Toea Adrian-Ionuț, RE-B, an III

Essay - 1984

Dystopia represents a fiction world in which is described a process of dehumanization,

followed by a tyrannical government. Dystopia is an antonym of utopia which means a society
that has perfect qualities for its citizens. The dystopic society is based on frightened people.
There are shaped a lot of branches of society in this unbelievable world: politics, economics,
religion, ethics, science, technology.
The main thing is that dystopian society can be found in all sort of fictional works. It give
the reader details of a society in the near future. The dystopic society is reflected in
contemporary realities. All the characteristics that we can see in a dystopic society are based on
real examples. The aspects we can see are based on reality, but there a lot of things which are
more fictional let’s take the example of future technology. A dystopic society is based on a social
stratification, a propaganda system and ghostly political figure, things that we see in Orwell’s
novel.
The book ``Nineteen Eighty-Four`` by George Orwell is a dystopian novel, because of
the characteristics of a dystopian society. The action takes place, as the title tells that, in the year
1984 and illustrates a world governed by totalitarianism system. The main place is the Great
Britain which is also called Airstrip One. Oceania is commanded by a tyrannical Party which
have a ghostly political leader, Big Brother. The story is told by Winston Smith, an intellectual
person, who can see all the problem in this dystopic society.
The world is governed by tree big superpowers Oceania, Eurasia and Estasia. This tree
states are in a continuous war. The main reason of the war is to spend all the output of the
factories, because the Party will destroy the production in a continuous war than to give it to the
population. Winston can’t really understand how people aren’t able to see the true about the war.
He knows that Oceania has been at war against Eurasia for four years, but the problem is that he
remembers that Oceania was at war against Estasia five years ago. The Party says that they have
been at war against Eurasia since the beginning of the Party. This is the Winston’s problem; he
can’t understand how the Party manage to influence in such a way all the people and sometimes
he fells mad.
This Party’s power to influence people’s memories is its biggest weapon. Winston
described his work in the novel. He give the readers details about what he is supposed to do. He
has to rewrite all sort of notes, articles, books, so on and so for. All the original notes are thrown
away in the memory holes and they are evaporated. For example, the moment in which the Party
announces that they are at war against Estasia is followed by a stress-filled week for Winston and
his colleagues. He has to rewrite all sort of articles, books. They have to edit the history. This is
the way in which the Party manages to have the control on the people. The interesting thing is
that all new information are used to support all the Party’s ideas as being true, but they aren’t.
The Party modifies the past for their interests.
All the people are always followed. They can’t think what they want. This type of society
have just one major rule, which is called thoughtcrime. It’s not enough for the Party that can
control the past, it can control also the people thoughts. The telescreens can see what the people
do, they are able to see them every moment. These telescreens have no access to see what the
people think, but they can see their facial expressions, their heart rate. The Party doesn’t
encourage the individualism, which is a big characteristic of the dystopian world. It is an
advantage for Party the fact that people are not supposed to spend any time alone, due to the fact
the Party has control on them. If the people are caught that they spend some time alone they are
supposed to make a crime. Every room, every street, every building is supervised by a telescreen.
A person who will spend some time alone has no chance. The Party tries engaging the people to
think that individualism is a negative habit.
Big Brother is the fictive entity, the image of the Party and the ghostly political leader.
The town is wrapped in posters with his image. There is the same sentence on every poster:
``BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU``, which represent another way to implement the idea
in people minds that they are followed everywhere and in every moment. Winston describes the
Big Brother’s picture. He thinks that the Big Brother’s eyes can follow him and can see what he
does. This is a way in which the Party can convince the population that this unreal person, Big
Brother, can observe what they do. The people has to believe in this leader, even if he doesn’t
exist. Big Brother represents the hole Party, he is like a puppet and the members of the inner
party are the puppeteers.
 The society is based the hate for the strangers and for those who betrayed Oceania. This
felling is grown up by the Party, because of its wish to destroy all the human ideas and
conceptions. For example, the Party organizes two minutes of hate once a day. All the supporters
of the Party have to attend this event and they need to spread their hate for the strangers or for
those who are seen on the screen. The person who is seen in those short videos every day is
Emmanuel Goldstein. The Party tells the people that he betrayed Oceania long time ago. It tries
breaking down the gates of the human nature.
They want to destroy also the family life style. A man and a woman can’t marry if they
have felling for each other. If they want to marry, they have to be checked out by a commission.
The commission decide if they marry or not. The Party doesn’t wish them had filling for each
other and wants them to have feelings just for the Big Brother.
The family is the propriety of the Party and family’s goals are to born children for the
Party. The interesting thing is that the parents don’t have the rights to give the child the love that
they have to. The children are educated to spy their parents and to give the information about
their parents betray to the Thought Police. The Party’s wishes are to destroy every hope, every
last track of humanity in the family life. The children get instruments to spy their parents too.
Mr. Parson describe an instrument which the children use to catch their parents and to give the
information about them to the Thought Police.
The Parsons family is the best and single example that is presented in the novel. There
are details about Winston’s walk to their flat to repair Mrs. Parson’s sink. The novel gives us
details about the poorness of the families in Oceania, not only of Parsons family. Mrs. Parson is
the person who has no courage to speak. She is like a puppet who has no point of view, a person
who is afraid to not be caught by her own children. Mr. Parson tells Winston a story when they
are eating their lunch. His daughter and her girlfriends decides to follow a person who seems to
be a stranger and they tells Thought Police about him. This event is not as strange as it is the fact
that her daughter listen to him when he was sleep talking. This is the way in which the Party
succeed in spreading the fear in the population’s minds.
The propaganda system is used by the Party to convince the population that their life
style is better that was some time ago. It’s obviously for Winston that the things are no as the
Party says, but the population think that the life style is way better, because of the Party’s
influence. For example, Winston describes all sort of news that he listen to the telescreen. The
Party says always that they have overdone all the productions, but for Winston thinks that it may
be possible that a lot of people has no clothes or shoes to wear. Winston listen to a news that tells
that the chocolate ratio will be increased to twenty percent, but he knows that the chocolate ratio
was thirty five percent two weeks ago. They use this system to wash population’s minds, to make
them think that they have a better life, but the true is that they have the worse life in the history.
There is always a product which is missing. Winston give details to us that there isn’t to be found
razor blades and he has been using the same razor blade for two months.
The Party tries also to recreate the language which the people use. It is called Newspeak.
There are a lot of clever people who work to destroy the Oldspeak or standard English. The most
important thing for the Party is to control all the people. The old language give the population the
ability to think at whatever they want and that is the major problem which the Party want to
solve. The Newspeak is simpler, it hasn’t so many worlds and so many means as the Oldspeak
has. The Newspeak is better for the Party, because the people has no way to use the Newspeak to
think what they want. It’s impossible for them to use the Newspeak as Oldspeak.
It’s a miracle for Winston the moment in which he see himself reading a real book in
their shelter. The room of Mr. Charrington is like a free and clear breath of air. He and Julia
seems as there are no longer in that cruel world. That room looks for them as a portal to a
different world, a world which disappeared long time ago. Even if they had no chance to feel
how the world, before the revolution, looked like, they have the opportunity to see a little piece
of that world in that room.
Even if Winston and Julia have no chance to see the world without the Party, they have
the possibility to read Goldstein’s book. This book represent for them an escape to that forgotten
world. They can find out all sort of information about this world, things that more people won’t
ever be able to find out.
The Goldstein’s book, describe the ideology of the Party. Winston finds a lot of
information about those tree slogans of the Party: THE WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS
SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Of course, if we have in mind that the Party tries spreading his propaganda all around
Oceania, it’s obviously that this book is just a Party’s creation. O’Brien tells Winston that he,
helped the Party to create that book, which means that the book is just a way to lie the population
that there is somebody who wants to fight against them. Maybe, Emmanuel Goldstein is just a
ghostly character as Big Brother.
Neither Winston nor anybody else has chance to fight against them. Even if Winston is
still thinking that there may be a way in which he or the proles can destroy the Party is just a
dream. There is no way to fight against them. The main reason is that there is no proof that they
aren’t what the population think. They can always tell the population that two plus two equals
five and that’s it. Everybody will think that two plus two equals five. They can change the past as
it hadn’t existed, everybody would think just the Party will.

Bibliography:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four, accesat la data de 18.05.2020;

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia, accesat la data de 18.05.2020;

 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_mie_nou%C4%83_sute_optzeci_%C8%99i_patru_(roman),
accesat la data de 18.05.2020;
 https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distopie, accesat la data de 18.05.2020;