Totalitarian Regime in Nineteen Eighty Four and the Party's Methods of Control

1984, written by George Orwell and published in 1949, follows the life of Winston Smith and his attempts to rebel against the totalitarian state in which he lives. Winston lives in London in the country of Oceania, led by Big Brother, a strict party which maintains power and control by censoring everyone's behaviour and thoughts and trying to recreate people in the party's image. Throughout the book, the party attempts to gain complete control over Oceania in many different ways, some, similarly used, currently.

In many ways, 1984 could be described as reflecting many political issues in reality, for example, the nazi regime and Hitler's way of controlling the country. This is quite likely as the book is written at about the time that Hitler was in power, and some say that 1984 is a depiction of how life would be like, if the world had continued to be run in a totalitarian way. The description of Big Brother, himself, is very similar to Hitler's appearance - a man of about forty-five with a heavy black moustache and like Hitler, big brother has an idea of what people should be like and how they should behave. The fact that Big Brother targets young people, in particular, and tries to brainwash them into loving the party, is similar to Hitler?s attempts to get young people on his side and to get them involved in his conquest. This is one of the main ways in which Big Brother gains control over Oceania. By targeting the younger generation, they can be sure that they don?t have many previous thoughts and aren?t as logical as adults, to work out when Big Brother has twisted the truth or tried to cover up the past. They also make the party appeal to the children, by having songs, processions, banners and celebrations and even tur...

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...ting in books or reading, is forbidden as you can not express yourself or show any individuality.

The language is being replaced by ?newspeak?, a language where there is no variation in words and the only way to exaggerate something is by using plus on the front of the word so that the only purpose of language is for communicating and it can no longer be enjoyed.

All of these methods which the party has used were successful in 1984, in gaining the power. If the party were to continue to be in charge of Oceania after 1984, no-one like Winston would exist any more, and everyone would believe what Big Brother was saying from day to day, without getting any enjoyment out of life. It is easy to imagine that in the end, there will be no separating man from woman, the war would continue on forever and the only purpose of the human race would be to serve Big Brother.