Julia Ann Roberto
13 April 2014
Mr BARRY
Research Paper
WHAT DID YOU SAY?
There’s no better way to gain control over someone than to get inside their head. George Orwell was an English writer who wanted to show how governments were able to become so powerful and how they were able to commit all the social injustice once they obtained said power. Throughout his novels, Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell establishes that there is a correlation between those who control the language and flow of information, and those who are able to control the population.
Orwell constructs the idea that absolute power and corrupt power are one and the same. He draws a parallel between the distinct ways of creating such powers in both novels and the effects they have on the populations. The Big Brother organization, in 1984, and the pigs, in Animal Farm, are both similarly set-up mock governments that share a tool around their belt that allows them to hold sovereignty: manipulation. The regimes have found ways to maneuver their language and information, destroying the two most valuable things a strong person must have: freedom of expression and freedom of knowledge. By the government abolishing these freedoms, they're able to completely brainwash the people, and therefore subtly compel their given populace into submission.
In Animal Farm, the animals of Manor Farm were doomed to be laborers without any sort of compensation, forever. Once enlightened of this fate, the animals began to seek equality, which they could only do by gaining freedom from their oppressive owner: Mr. Jones. The pigs took this and successfully proposed that they were the ones that could do the the job! After ousting Mr. Jones out of the farm, the pigs were able to get themselves e...
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...ve any courage, and therefore lack the ability to even try questioning or disputing anything their government does or says. Because the regime constantly forces fabricated information into their society, the people have lost the sense to do a double take.
In one of his essay's "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell wrote: "If the thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." This theory of his shines through his two novels, Animal Farm and 1984. In both novels, each government was able to keep complete control over its populations. They held this absolute power by controlling the language and the flow of information inside their said communities, Manor Farm and Oceania. By getting into the heads of their people, and distorting the realities of the world around them, the two governments were able to reign supremacy with no questions asked.
Orwell presents the view that ‘language is of central importance to human thought because it structures and limits the ideas that individuals are capable of formulating and expressing.’1 In his novel1984 he maintains a keen focus on language and how it is restricted and manipulated by the regime in order to achieve complete control over the thought of the Party. This inspired Atwood - who considered Orwell a ‘direct model’2 - to similarly explore language as more than just a literary form, but a mutable tool used
This collective whole is easily controlled and manipulated. Society has always been troubled by the idea of overpowering control. In George Orwell's 1984, humanity is dominated by an extreme government whose intent is to abolish all aspects of freedom. Orwell indicates that when subjected to mass propaganda and intimidation, the ignorant majority’s memory and concept of truth are distorted, making them extremely malleable and subservient. The Party employs slogans to convince the ignorant that what they want is what they already have.
The book “1984” by George Orwell is a fictional work that was penned as a discourse on Orwell’s views of what it would be like to live in a totalitarianism society. It is my belief that his views were based on his personal life experiences as he witnessed first hand many of the violent crimes perpetuated by those in positions of authority. Often, these crimes against one segment of society were carried out by other members of the same society in the name of political advancement or at other times out of fear for one’s life. Due to his experiences, Orwell began to write of his hatred of political power and the concept of a totalitarianism society. “1984” serves as a warning to readers of how a government can become abusive when seeking total control of it’s population. Furthermore, it showcases in great detail how a society can allow itself to be controlled through a series of psychological abuses and manipulation of historical information.
The saying “history repeats itself” is used quite often, but how many times have you actually seen it happen? The book Animal Farm portrays the idea of history repeating itself. The character Benjamin and the pigs in the story show history repeating itself throughout the book. In addition to these characters within the book, North Korea displays history's repetition outside the book.
How would you handle being underfed, overworked, naive, unequal and absolutely controlled? Would you feel like all your work was being done for the good of someone else? What if you became trapped by an absolute and supreme leader? The animals of Manor Farm know all these feelings. They want a community for the animals, by the animals, where all are equal and work is done for the good of the animals.
Total governmental control is what countries have been seeking since the beginning of civilization. With the complete control over governmental affairs a totalitarian government can function to an exemplary degree of efficiency. The people are left out of the decisions and they are not to be worried about worldly affairs because the government makes all the decisions and gets objectives completed quickly and without hesitation. In George Orwell’s “1984” the dangers of a corrupted totalitarian government are illustrated through the plot of Winston Smith, the main character whom decides to challenge The Party’s power and authority after he commits a thoughtcrime. Also when Orwell published his novel he released this statement to protect his intentions, “My recent novel is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions to which a centralized economy is liable and which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism” (Bloom 44). As Orwell states, he is not attacking any forms of government or countries that seem similar, he is simply alerting us to the dangers of a totalitarian government and the effects it can have on society. George Orwell uses contradictions throughout his novel and these contradictions seem to be the very backbone of The Party. The totalitarian government in the novel, otherwise known as The Party, achieves the goal of absolute power of their kingdom at the expense of the attributes that set human beings apart from animals. The Party achieves this goal through the destruction of history, language, and intimacy.
" The fact that the pigs receive more food than the other harder working animals, shows that the farm is full of inequality. This type of governing is wrong, and Orwell wants it to stop. Less power should be given to the leader, so that the leader and his followers can be more equal. Once a group or an individual obtains power, it is impossible to manage it correctly. & nbsp
In his novel 1984, George Orwell illustrates a society in which language is politicized and used by the totalitarian government to control its citizens. Language is a system used by all humans to communicate ideas and thoughts, and society would be impossible without the culture that is stored in language (“Discuss the Nature…”). However, while language can be used to increase our understanding of the world, when left in the power of the political leaders, it can be used to control people’s thoughts. Language can be used as mind-control to create a society in which the people obey and believe the government’s propaganda without question. Therefore, language structures—and limits— what humans are capable of thinking and expressing.
There is a substantial amount of conflicts that occur in this satirical story. Often these conflicts are between the pigs and the rest of the animals. Only a minute portion of the animals didn’t really have some sort of conflict with Snowball, Napoleon, Squealer, or the rest of the dominating pigs. Overall, Snowball was a better leader than Napoleon, yet the animals reacted differently to Napoleon than to Snowball.
The novel 1984 by George Orwell presents the readers an image of a totalitarian society that explores a world of control, power, and corruption. The main idea of government control presents itself in the novel by protecting and listening to the people of Oceania. However, Orwell suggests giving too much power to the government is a mistake because eventually the decisions they make will not be about the people anymore but rather themselves. In 1984, the power and corruption the party has is overwhelming for the people. There are no ways around the beliefs of the Party, the party attempts to control and eventually destroy any mental or physical resistance against their beliefs. The agenda for the party is to obtain mind control over its people and force them to adore their leader. The methods the Party uses to achieve its goal are: the use of constant propaganda and surveillance, the rewriting of history, and Room 101.
The pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm use specific laws, use unknown vocabulary and excruciating detail, implement scare tactics, and create and manipulate law to successfully attain the other animal’s trust, acquire certain luxuries unavailable to most animal, and establish themselves as the dictators of a totalitarian-like society. Through using detail, unknown vocabulary, specific laws, and scare tactics, the pigs acquire the ability to drink alcohol, sleep on beds, eat and drink the milk and apples, destroy Snowball’s credibility, and establish a trust between themselves and the other animals. From Orwell’s Animal Farm, one realizes how leaders with absolute power use carefully manipulated language to abuse their power.
Citizens then cannot have their own critical thinking, and only do what they are told to do, they become gears in a society which functions like a machine, and in doing so lose whatever individuality they had. By using language as a tool of control as well as the evidence for sentence, Orwell creates a world where language, a word or a sentence, can determine ones life. Through language plays the key role in the Party’s propaganda, strict laws and surveillance, total physical control as well as psychological manipulation is achieved. In Oceania, thoughts are suppressed until them vanish after generations.
George Orwell, the author of 1984 was well known for his blatant political views and his ability to “make political writing an art” (“The Political Ideas of George Orwell”). His two most popular novels, Animal Farm and 1984 are both satires on totalitarianism, something that Orwell was famous for. In the novel 1984, Orwell portrayed the effects of a communist society through the fictional character Winston Smith. Winston makes it evident throughout the novel that the government has total control and is able to keep each citizen under constant watch. The main literary component, “Big Brother” was used to show the control that the Party had over the people of Oceania through constant surveillance. By establishing the perfect totalitarian society
Pigs walking on two feet, horses and sheep talking. This is how George Orwell satirizes human nature in his classic novel Animal Farm. Animal Farm is an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917. The title of the book is also the setting for the action in the novel. The animals in the story decide to have a revolution and take control of the farm from the humans. Soon the story shows us how certain groups move from the original ideals of the revolution to a situation where there is domination by one group and submission by all the others. The major idea in this story is the political corruption of what was once a pure political ideal. Orwell uses satire to ridicule human traits in his characters such as Napoleon and Squealer. There are several different characters in the novel utilizing animals as symbols of people in real life during the Russian Revolution. Napoleon is the leader of the pigs that ultimately come to dominate the farm. The characteristics that we associate with pigs , lazy, greedy, and pushy are meant to symbolize the characteristics that the leaders of the Russian Revolution exhibited. Napoleon is admired by all of the animals because he is their leader. All of the animals believe that their leader wants to fulfill all of their needs. They also are convinced that Napoleon’s decisions are made the best interest of the animals. Napoleon’s piglike qualities are shown throughout the story. He exhibited greediness when he sold the dying horse, Boxer to a slaughterhouse for money so that he and the other pigs could purchase whiskey. Orwell ridicules human nature through Napoleon in the sense that he is trying to show how the greedy and power hungry eventually end in corruption.
As a result, if the pigs are not allowed to do what they want, then Animal Farm will not prosper or function well. The effectiveness of propaganda is evident through the rise of a despotic and tyrannical government in Animal Farm. Used as a successful, manipulative tool in the story, Animal Farm depicts the dangers of propaganda to an ignorant and gullible society. Orwell’s story describes the actions that brought about the eventual collapse of an ideal utopian society.