FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND LETTERS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

ENL8004 GRADUATION PROJECT (COURSEWORK COVERSHEET)

STUDENT’S NUMBER: 1502020028

STUDENT’S NAME: Selen Kaptan

SUPERVISOR’S NAME: Ayşegül Turan

DATE WORK SUBMITTED: 30.05.2020

TITLE OF ASSIGNMENT: “Abstract Tool of Dominance”

WORD LENGTH: 3323

Statement:

I confirm that this assignment is all my own work and conforms to the code on Citing

Sources and Avoidance of Plagiarism.

Signed: Date: 30.05.2020

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Selen Kaptan

1502020028

ENL8004-AT

Ayşegül Turan

30.05.2020

Abstract Tool of Dominance

Fear is a response to any kind of danger that every human being has by nature. But

what can a person do if he/she cannot respond to the fear since responding to it would make

the situations even worse than before? A person’s most dangerous enemy is his/her own

“nervous system” says Winston in 1984 (Orwell 67). In a place where fear is used for

dominance, inability to respond to fear overcomes the instinctive respond to fear with the

sense of survival. Imagine a world where a spider-like robot dog is sent to your house to

search with its mechanic sting and your house is burnt by firemen especially at night time so

that everyone can see that you had a gun in your house or policemen arrest you just because

you think or look displeased and torture or vaporize you as if you have never existed.

Through these threats, it is easy for the rulers to dominate because the citizens fear for their

lives. Dystopian governments in George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

use fear as a tool of dominance, whether visibly or secretly, which result in hatred, violence

and alienation among their citizens.

In dystopian worlds, the fear is constructed by the governments, but fear, rather than

being a one-way control mechanism to control the citizens, has also another side. Fear, like a

mask that the governments wear, fills the citizens with horror but at the same time hides the

fear of its wearer. So, it transforms itself to invisible bars for the governments as well, since

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they also fear that the citizens will rise and take them down. As Brecht said in his poem, “fear

rules not only those who are ruled, but the rulers too” (qtd. in Green 236). So, the constructed

fear inhabits the minds of both citizens and the totalitarian governments. While the dystopian

governments try to prevent their fears from happening, they turn the lives of their subjects

into a nightmare. To be able to achieve this, the citizens are detained from any possible way

of feeling safe and alone through transformation of the environment. And their minds are

numbed so that the chance of thinking critically against the government in any way is

exterminated. Firstly, through manipulation of technology, people are kept under complete

surveillance of the government which eliminated both privacy and freedom of thought and

action from the lives of the citizens. While pacifying the citizens and stopping them from

doing anything against the governments’ ideologies, through fear, people are also stupefied.

Being manipulated to consider the books as dangerous weapons in Fahrenheit 451, the

citizens are turned into a submissive audience for the numbing simulation created in the wall-

size televisors. As Beatty says “a book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it”

(Bradbury 56). So, the government, by turning a beneficial instrument into a dangerous entity

and burning the houses with books in them, uses fear to control the citizens and to lead them

to participate in the artificial world that is created on the televisors. Thus, people are turned

into manipulated and unquestioning human beings just like Faber describes the televisor, “it

tells you what to think and blasts it in [...] It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions

your mind hasn't time to protest” (Bradbury 80). That is to say, by bombarding people with

propagandas one after another and not even giving them enough time to process it, people are

made numb and passive. Plus, altering the concept of firemen and their loyal dogs with them

into men who start fires with their spider-like mechanical dogs which can smell the books,

makes the atmosphere in the city even more tense and makes people estranged from the

books and the ideas inside them even more. On the other hand, in 1984, surveillance is so

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complete that even a muscular contraction on face, or looking “unconsciously nervous” from

outside would mean crime in Oceania (Orwell 65). Nobody has any sort of freedom of either

mind or body. Because there are Big Brother’s posters which look like his eyes follow

everyone everywhere and telescreens that both watch and listen all the citizens almost all-

around Oceania. There are also spies among people who are following the steps of the

citizens and thought police whose mission is to track the thoughts of people. So, the people

are made to live constantly with stress and fear where they need to repress their emotions and

control their thoughts which turn people into machine-like individuals. However, repressing

thoughts and emotions does not mean that they are gone and the government, being aware of

that, glances at the depths of the mind as well. Through that, the Party finds the worst fears of

its subjects so that it can use their fears against them to torture them severely in Room 101

where is designed especially for torturing. Also, party members are given only enough

supplies to be able to survive and made work for extremely long hours where they can do

nothing but work, eat and sleep. Therefore, making the Party members live under pressure

while stressing them about how to meet their needs, the Party makes them obedient. Although

people are manipulated to be like automatons by the Party, they still have emotions and they

can feel fear. Just like Edmund Burke mentioned “no passion so effectually robs the mind of

all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear” (Burke 55). Since nothing torments the mind

more than fear, both governments who love taking advantage of peoples’ state of mind, to be

able to have more power over their subjects, use fear as a tool to dominate.

To begin with the first outcome, fear hegemony that the government has established on

the people incites hatred in them. As Winston says “no emotion was pure, because everything

was mixed up with fear and hatred” (Orwell 133). People cannot have genuine feelings

anymore with the fear surrounding them all the time like oxygen. In 1984, the Party uses a

concept of common enemy named Goldstein to unite every citizen in the city. But according

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to Winston, the image of Goldstein, even the idea of him, evokes fear and hatred on the

people (Orwell 15). So, the Party uses Goldstein as a technique to unite the citizens under

hatred and in “Two Minutes Hate,” that is an obligatory everyday activity to attend, the Party

makes sure that every citizen keeps remembering hatred every day. As Winston describes, in

“Two Minutes Hate,” when the image of Goldstein comes on screen, people start to burst out

screaming as high as possible to be able to fade the sound of him (Orwell 16). It seems like

this public enemy has a torturous effect on the party members with the fear he projects, which

is so maddening that it comes to a point where with the fear of him, people think to torture

and kill living beings. This “Two Minutes Hate” activity is so influential that this impetuous

madness “momentarily mesmerizes even Winston” (Thorp 10). Even he finds himself

shouting and unwittingly kicking the floor. That is because, through conditioning, people are

manipulated to hate certain people when the triggering imageries and sounds shown to them.

By conditioning people to react to triggering imageries and sounds, the citizens are in a way

obliged to feel and show hatred towards certain people unconsciously. While in one day they

were feeling hatred towards “Eurasia,” the other day they can abominate “Eastasia.” Because

“in the eyes of the Party; the ‘truth’ must be interpreted for you” (Thorp 11). That is to say,

manipulating and conditioning people on unconscious level is an implement of the Party to

practice its ideologies. And, since the government watches people constantly through

telescreens, it is easy to perform conditioning on them. So, like manipulating peoples’ hatred

towards Goldstein, Winston’s hatred towards Big Brother has been manipulated by the Party

in the first place. But since he cannot show his hate to Big Brother, he redirects it to Julia. But

this ability makes the Party angry since it is the kind of power that the Party has at hand. To

be able to direct unconscious hate to any object is what the Party does to the people and, as

O’Brien says “only the disciplined mind can see reality,” apparently Winston cannot do it

because the power only belongs to the Party (Orwell 261). Besides, Winston’s hate towards

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Julia and Big Brother comes from his fear of them. He fears both of them because the

consequences of feeling love or hatred towards them are unknown. Although Winston was

conditioned to love Big Brother, he is also conditioned to hate him as well so he is not sure

how to feel about him which is the same with Julia. While she is an object of desire for

Winston with her young body, she is also a possible symbol of rejection and a possible

symbol that foreshadows Winston’s annihilation. So, while he desires her, he also fears that

he will be rejected or worse, she will turn out to be a spy of Big Brother which will cause him

his own vaporization. That is why he directs his fear of ambiguity to hate her at first.

Furthermore, as it can be seen from the previous paragraph, being ruled under a

constant fear makes the citizens violent as well. People who are under the influence of fear

become eventually paranoid of everything around them. As danger bears fear, being

surrounded by Big Brother’s eyes and telescreens and trying to keep an emotionless face all

the time, since their lives depend on their actions and thoughts, citizens of Oceania live under

constant danger, therefore with constant fear. Winston in 1984, is so stressed out with the

perpetual fear he is living with that he says he can do anything to change this situation. When

O’Brien asks him if he can “sabotage which may cause the death of hundreds of innocent

people” or “throw sulphuric acid in a child’s face,” Winston says that he would (Orwell 180).

Just to be able to escape from that perpetual atmosphere of fear he says that he can hurt

innocent people. Similarly, while Winston was afraid of Julia with the uncertainty of her

feelings towards Big Brother, he was thinking of raping her and then murdering her after by

smashing her head with a stone (Orwell 127). The fear of annihilation drives people violent

because under certain amount of pressure, anyone can lose control. Also, the people are

unable to point out the reason of wrongness on their lifestyles in Fahrenheit 451. So, with the

fear that is emerged out of uncertainty, people keep rushing their selves as the government

taught them to do on the simulation shown on telescreens. It is clear that most of the people

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are not happy with their lives in Fahrenheit 451, as they constantly take too many sleeping

pills. Just like when Montag asks why the hospital have not sent a doctor to help Mildred who

has overdosed, the operator tells that every night, nine or ten people call for overdose. It

shows that people are so depressed that a lot of people suffer from insomnia or their minds

are made so numbed with the simulation on televisors that they suffer from amnesia as well.

According to Smolla, people “mistake time for leisure and stimulation for a genuine life of

the mind and soul” (910). In this case, stimulations are televisors and sleeping pills which

people seek happiness with. People, unaware that they are living in a simulation with the

televisors on their parlour walls, think that nothing is absurd about their world. So, unable to

comprehend the wrongness of their lives, they just drive fast on the highways to be able to

become happy through what they know best, which is rushing. As Montag says he has a

terrible urge to “smash things and kill things,” Mildred responds, “you get it up around

ninety-five and you feel wonderful [...] You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs” (Bradbury

61). So, with the fear of obscurity of their lives, people drive fast without being concerned

about the lives of the other living beings. Only important life is theirs and they think that

hitting animals on the road is making them feel better while they do not actually focus on the

real problem that strikes fear. Likewise, as the government annihilates the family as an

institution from the city by reducing the conversations and bonds within people through the

televisors, the children become prone to violence with the lack of attention and love from

their families. With the fear of ambiguity of future because of the lack of information about

life, since there are no books to learn or a family member to talk to as they all participate in

the simulation shown on the televisors, children become violent. For instance, a number of

children try to kill Montag for no reason at all when they see him on the sidewalk walking

(Bradbury 122), and as Clarisse mentions that she is afraid of the children in her school

because they kill each other (Bradbury 27); it is clear that children in Fahrenheit 451 are

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prone to violence because of their state of minds. As it is stated by Atchison and Shames,

when the dystopian governments adequately manipulate the citizens about a threat of “the

other”, the citizens easily believe that solely the governments can guard them from the

possible harm of “the other” (78). Thus, by instilling an unknown threat inside the heads of

the people, the governments promote the atmosphere of fear and disbelief. Even their

children become “the other” for the parents so, with the inaccessibility of a parent’s affection

which would allow them a relief from the fear of the world that they are living in, the

children try to grow up with a perpetual fear with the constant “jet bombers” flying above

them in Fahrenheit 451. In this case, it is the act of violence that provide them a relief.

Therefore, while the governments use fear as a disguise of their own fears, from the point of

view of the citizens, it is violence that is used as a disguise for fear.

Lastly, once a person realizes that he/she cannot trust anyone but him/herself, the

person avoids having contact with other people. Like Freud states, alienating oneself from the

others willingly is a shield to protect oneself from the possible agony that a human relation

might cause (Freud 24). So, through alienation, people who are ruled under dystopian

governments escape from possible danger and thus, from fear. As in the case with Faber, as a

retired professor, he stays in his house and does not trust anyone even when Montag asks for

help, he hesitates to help him since he fears that he might be trying to trap him. All citizens

are afraid of each other because of the suspicious and fearful atmosphere that the government

created. Therefore, as Green states, “fear divides communities through suspicion and

apprehension not only of strangers but of each other” (Green 227). Fear, not only divides

people within a society but also people within a family as well. The Party in 1984, uses

children as spies to track others through conditioning them to be completely loyal to the

Party, even if that means torture, or worse vaporization, of a family member. That is why

people could not even trust their families who are the closest to them. The Party even gave

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equipment to children to be able to hear what their parents are talking about in the next room

so that the children can sneak on their parents and turn them in. Similarly, with fear for her

life, Mildred betrays Montag by turning him in. Mildred fearing that one-day mechanical

hound or Beatty would find the books in the house tells Montag several times to burn them

and finally turns him in to not to be caught and burnt but instead she prefers her husband to

be burnt or arrested. Thus, family as an institution is eradicated by the government through

fear as well. So, the people start to turn their backs against each other and care for their selves

but not anyone else. That is why, fear brings selfishness with it. As in the case with Mildred,

when Montag tells her about an old lady who decided to be burnt with her books, she says

“she is nothing to me; she shouldn’t have books” (Bradbury 48). The fact that she had

committed suicide through a very excruciating way does not affect her even a little bit

because she is not in danger and the rest does not bother her. Similarly, when Winston faces

the threat of torture through his worst fear, while he was refusing to betray Julia before that,

he screams “do it to Julia! Not me!” and adds that he does not care what they are going to do

to her even if they skin her, he does not care (Orwell 300). So, under the influence of fear

everyone can be selfish and betray their most loved ones. Selfishness also brings blindness to

people as they always think that horrible things happen only to strangers but not to them, as if

they have a privilege over the others. That is same with Montag when firemen come to his

house to burn it. While he was also one of the firemen who used to start fires and finding

pleasure in burning, when it is his house this time, he cannot believe that such a horrible

incident is also happening to him. So, Beatty says, “for everyone nowadays knows,

absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on” (Bradbury 108-

109). It is always better to watch people who are suffering than suffering yourself; that is why

people tend to think that they will always be happy and do not ever suffer like the people they

had watched suffering.

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 As a conclusion, fear is a natural part of the state of mind. What makes fear dangerous

is the governments taking advantage of it. Through the creation of agonizing environments,

peoples’ fear is abused and manipulated while, at the same time, it is fear that makes the

governments practice such traumatizing incidents on the citizens. Through conditioning and

manipulation, the governments play with the realities and minds of the individuals so that

they will fit in the environment with their submissive beings that the government have

created by erasing the awareness in them. What makes a person submissive and

unquestioning automaton is the absence of content in the mind and soul. That is why by

taking the content from people, the government lessens humanity and promotes mechanized

individuals with desensitization. Thus, like the Party in 1984 uses as one of its slogans,

ignorance is actually a strength; however, only within the dystopias. The environment where

the governments want people to fit is also manipulated through completely changing the idea

of policemen and firemen. While they are supposed to protect the citizens; in totalitarian

governments’ reality, it is policemen and firemen who harm the citizens. By transforming the

environment into a suspicious and unsafe place, the governments try to take advantage of

peoples’ fear. Even though the individuals are turned into a submissive and unquestioning

mass of people, their fears are promoted with the fear hegemony that the governments have

established, and the fear turn them into more hateful, violent and alienated therefore, more

selfish people. Therefore, by exploiting the peoples’ emotion of fear which is an impulsive

response and turning it into a practical tool for their selves, the totalitarian governments of

Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 use this abstract tool of fear, both visibly and secretly, to strictly

dominate their subjects.

Work Cited

Atchison, Amy and Shauna L. Shames. “Strategies and Tactics of Dystopian Governments.”

Survive and Resist: The Definitive Guide to Dystopian Politics, Columbia University Press,

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 New York; Chichester, West Sussex, 2019, pp. 63-90. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/atch18890.9. Accessed 20 May 2020.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. E-book, London: Harper Voyager, 2008.

Burke, Edmund. The Works of Edmund Burke, With a Memoir. E-book, New York: George

Dearborn, 1835, p.55.

Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. E-book, New York: W. W. Norton and

Company, 1962.

Green, Linda. “Fear as a Way of Life.” Cultural Anthropology, vol. 9, no. 2, 1994, pp. 227–

236. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/656241. Accessed 16 Mar. 2020.

Orwell, George. 1984. 1949. London: Secker and Warburg, 2008.

Smolla, Rodney A. “The Life of the Mind and a Life of Meaning: Reflections on ‘Fahrenheit

451.’” Michigan Law Review, vol. 107, no. 6, 2009, pp. 895–912. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/40379842. Accessed 16 Mar. 2020.

Thorp, Malcolm R. “The Dynamics of Terror in Orwell's 1984.” Brigham Young University

Studies, vol. 24, no. 1, 1984, pp. 9–17. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43041004. Accessed 17

Mar. 2020.

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