How Real Is George Orwell’s 1984? Essay

The late president Abraham Lincoln once said, “no man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.” Political viewpoints have always been unstable throughout history, due to class distinctions, inequalities, and the unwillingness to relinquish power. However, in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, all political dissent has been eliminated from a world which is governed by three massive superstates. The novel is a glimpse of a totalitarian world locked in a chaotic state in which government is absolute and people have no freedom. The primary country known as Oceania has a uniform political ideology called “Ingsoc,” which is strictly enforced by the Party and Big Brother, or the governing body and its leader, respectively. Winston Smith, the “insane” protagonist, is a mentally unstable Outer Party member who resents Big Brother. He writes disorderly thoughts in a diary and “rebels” against Big Brother and the Party by enjoying sexual intercourse with Julia, a hypocritical Outer Party member prostitute. Orwell’s novel serves as a warning against totalitarianism and throughout the book, there are many portentous themes which are relevant today.

One striking similarity between reality and 1984 lies in the untold reason why war is fought. The objective of war, according to Goldstein, is to “destroy not human lives, but the products of human labour” (Orwell, 157). Indeed, war is economical in any world; the cost of war is tremendous and should be avoided unless the end results are significantly greater. Goldstein describes Oceania’s perpetual war in The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism “to keep the three superstates in balance” (Orwell, 157). He also asserts that no one country can win the war due t…

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…gh education. As witnessed during the Cold War, the US increased, almost forcibly, STEM education, to stay ahead of the USSR. In both 1984 and our world, Incentives are offered to children to conform to the social norm by assimilating behavior favorable to the government. In the book, children are taught to be “junior spies” (Orwell, 24) while in the US, pacifism is crushed with propaganda to join the armed forces. Another example of the government’s influence in citizens’ lives lies in the media: the government cannot forcibly impose a way of thinking upon citizens, but it may convince them of certain ideology through the news. Presidential campaigns, a form of propaganda, coerce the masses through persuasive statements including slanders. This may even be viewed as doublethink, because people are trusting towards the government and are willing to believe untruths.

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