1984 Geroge Orwell

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1. Why doesn't the party simply eliminate members that do not agree with it? The Party doesn't simply eliminate members that do not agree with it because that was the old, traditional way of doing things, which caused the persecutors to look evil and the victim to appear as a martyr, and that the Party cures it's victims before killing them. O'Brien states, “We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them.” He says how there are no “martyrdoms” in this place. O'Brien speaks about how Inquisition was a failure because they, “set out to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it.” For every heretic that they burned, thousands more would rise up in defense and anger. The reason behind this was that the Inquisition killed its enemies in the open while they were still unrepentant. “Men were dying because they would not abandon their true beliefs.” Because of this, “all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the Inquisitor who burned him.” O'Brien states how the Party makes all confessions coming from the mouth of the heretic true, which leaves the so-called martyr looking as if he or she is actually the wrong-doer. He says that Winston is “a stain that must be wiped out.” That, “we (the Party) are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will.” So long as the heretic resists the Party, he/she will never be destroyed. He or she is converted, their inner mind is captured, and finally reshaped. The Party goes to such an extend to rid them of their supposed evil and illusions, that in the end, the heretic is on the Party's side not by force but by heart and soul. They make the heretic like themselves before killing h... ... middle of paper ... ..., and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.” The government must have complete and utter control of not only your liberty or freedom(s), but your thoughts as well because with them, you will always be free no matter how much you are tortured, etc. You will die as a free person. Winston states, “To die hating them, that was freedom.” Given too much power and control to the government(s) will destroy political freedom and intellectual freedom. In the appendix it states, “ It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.” Basically, if we continue in our ways then eventually we will live a totalitarian life without even knowing it. Works Cited 1984 by George Orwell

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