1/16 Oceania and North Korea: Societies Alike In 1984, George Orwell describes a dystopian society where the people are completely controlled and kept in a narrow mindset. When creating this faux society, Orwell most likely did not intend to predict the future. However, Orwell may not have been too far off in describing some societies today, one of which including North Korea. The censorship, propaganda, and secrecy coming from the North Korean government are nearly identical to that of The Party, the government in Oceania. Typically when one thinks of North Korea, they think of how blind the people are to the real world. This blindness is due to the massive amounts of censorship all media in the country goes through. The North Korean government …show more content…
The Party does not allow any negative articles to be written about their country and even changes previous articles to correlate with the present situations. For example, Winston’s job in 1984 is to rewrite articles that conflict with what the Party is saying. Winston even creates a new person out of thin air to distract from a previous statement from Big Brother and the Party which is no longer true. This falsification of media proves to be in both Oceania and North Korea. Both countries control their people’s mindsets by pushing false news and propaganda down their throats. Another similarity one might find between Oceania and North Korea would be the massive amount of propaganda shown throughout the countries. The way both countries push love for their leaders are absurd. The Party pushes the love of Big Brother upon their society while North Korea pushes the love of Kim Jong Un onto their people as well. Propaganda can also be used as a fear factor for the population of each country. In Oceania, one cannot walk anywhere in public without seeing a “Big Brother is Watching You” poster. This poster is a reminder about the fact that a citizen cannot do anything without being watched in their society. No matter where they are they can always be seen, even when they think they have eluded surveillance. This also stands true in North …show more content…
One of which would be what goes on in the Ministry of Love. There are no windows in the building and it is intensely guarded. One only goes in if invited, which already strikes one as odd. The Party also keeps the reasoning for why they hate Emmanuel Goldstein so much a secret as well. As a reader, we never find out the reasoning, or even if Emmanuel Goldstein exists. He could be just a made up figure to keep the people guessing and to draw out traitors. The same could prove to be true with Big Brother but the government does not release very much detail on anything. North Korea does the same thing. Most North Koreans have no idea what is going on outside of their country because the government keeps it from them. The citizens of North Korea are living a blind life and just going with what the government says at all
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are household names, but what about the more obscure individuals Muammar Qaddafi, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un? George Orwell used 1984 as a prediction of what could happen if the fascism in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia persisted. The dystopian, fascist government that exists in 1984 resembles the governments in the real-life, modern-day countries of Libya, China, and North Korea.
In my opinion North Korea's government is currently the most similar to the government portrayed in Orwell's novel. Just like Oceania, North Korea is run by a dictatorship that is cult like. Just like Big Brother in 1984, Kim Jong-un censors information and keeps most of it from his citizens. He punishes people for criticizing his government, and he constantly puts out propaganda pretending that North Korea is the best country in the world. The citizens of North Korea have no choice but to believe the information their leaders feed them, because they don't have access to any other news sources. The Big Brother of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, is the ultimate decider of what is real and what is fake in his country. It's as if he's erasing a part of his country's history by keeping so much information from his people. And in the other direction, he's keeping information about his country from the outside world.
North Korea and China’s geography, mutual history, and ideology proved to make them similar in many aspects in terms of reforms and revolutions; however, it was not until death of Mao Zedong and the rise of Deng Xiao Ping in the mid-1970s that drew the distinct line between North Korea and China communism. In similarity, North Korea began practicing communism when its land was divided between North and South due to the 38th Parallel. In August of 1945, the Soviet Army ruled North Korea until a domestic regime could be formed. Hence, the land of Korea was divided between Soviet forces and American forces.
In 1984, individuality was also limited by the party. The subjects are not allowed to choose who they marry, but instead are given a random partner. They also lowered standards of craftsmanship to eliminate beauty, which drives individualism to grow. Both North Korea and the 1984 governments provide the people with false news, making their country or nation seem greater than any other thing in the world.
Although the methods used by Oceania in 1984 to maintain control of their citizens are much more violent and fear inducing than those practiced by the World Government in Brave New World, they both seek to maintain power in an industrialized world.
The Party also manipulates the people by making them believe that they receive more than what they actually get. For example: when the news said the chocolate ration increased when it actually decreased. This also shows how the Party makes everything seem right and just. Oceania to many, is a society that is not perfect due to how much they control and manipulate the people. The people are used as puppets by the Party.
Techniques used by the Party in George Orwell’s 1984 can be best compared to tactics of the government of North Korea. This can be seen in the methods the government of 1984 uses to control its citizens,
A government with control over the media is an all-knowing one; that government has the power to make their own truth and ultimately implement their own reality and make it universal. If such a fictional piece of evidence is not enough, then North Korea should be more than enough to provide evidence. North Korea had to start from somewhere, and now the citizens of that nation worship their leader like a
North Korea and Oceania? “Totalitarianism is a form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of the individual’s life to the authority of the government.” (Britannica) The dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell creates a time where government has total control over the people of Oceania. Only the most privileged live a happy life and do not have to deal with being vaporized or killed. On the other hand Winston Smith and his middle to lower class citizens have to worry about being executed constantly.
The author also explains the censorship North Korea has on state-run media organizations of China and Russia. It also discusses the use of propaganda in the North Korean government. On a scale from 1 to 5, the author of this article was given a 4.5. Her score was so high because not only is she a student at Harvard, but her article was posted on the Harvard International Review making her article pretty credible.
If the society described in the George Orwell novel 1984 truly depicted a time, it would be the year of 2017. The novel written in 1948, almost seventy years later holds a vivid description of a totalitarian government that would not only surpass the year of 1984 but extend all the way to the twenty-first century. (More Junk; Elaborate) In 1984, Orwell’s foresight of the future society is much similar to that of the third world country, North Korea that stands today.
Secondly, in both 1984 and North Korea there is a branch of government who control all the news and entertainment in the country. Finally, both societies are experience a war with no end in sight. People who want to gain or remain their power over the population use all three of
Communist North Korea continues to be an underdeveloped country while South Korea continues to prosper in all areas such as technology, and agriculture. These two countries have vast differences with their political and government views. North Korea at one point was influenced by the Soviet Union but no longer. However, North Korea continues to be influenced by and receive aid from China. South Korea continues to be influenced by the United States of America. North Korea is governed and controlled by a dictatorship, which has complete control over media and social
Throughout the global media North Korea’s isolation and Harsh rule has become increasingly secretive, although some facts have been detected (“North Korea Profile”, 1). According to data collected from The Guardian, eighty-one out of one-hundred people in South Korea have access to the internet, yet in North Korea around .1 out of one-hundred people have access to the internet . Not only is the greater population of North Korea disconnected from outside sources, yet leaders in North Korea are also isolated from outside sources; putting themselves at a disadvantage. North Korea may launch a war, but they are unaware as to what they are up against because of its secrecy . Around one million are serving in the North Korean Army, but when South Korea’s army; combined with the U.S’s army (their ally), the ratio of the North Korean Army is signi...
Due to the harsh differences between the peoples of Korea, and especially due to the onset of Communism, the Korean War erupted and the nation split in half, with the Communist-supported Democratic People’s Republic in the north and those who favored democracy in the Korean Republic of the south (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000). The two separate countries of North Korea and South Korea have gone their opposite ways, and each has experienced different fortunes in the past half-century. The South Koreans managed to recover from the turmoil of the 1950s and 1960s to become an economic power and a democracy supporter. On the other hand, North Korea can be viewed as a retro country, based first on a Communist ideology, laid down by leader Kim Il Sung and inherited by his son, the current dictator Kim Jong Il, then evolving into a totalitarian state (Pacific Rim: East Asia at the Dawn of a New Century). Today, North Korea holds the distinction of being one of the very few remaining countries to be truly cut off from the rest of the world.