1984: The Control Of Reality For Control Of The Masses

1984: The Control of Reality for Control of the Masses

3 KEY POINTS:

1. The Party Controls History

2. The Party Controls the Conditions of Human Psychology

3. The Party Controls god.

How The Party Controls Reality:

How does the party controls history?

How does it affect the present?

How does scarcity affect human psychology?

What role does Big Brother play?

Outline:

Introduction:

State Topics: The Party Controls Reality to control the people

It controls History, Psychology and god.

Paragraph 1: History: Explain Revisionism

Its Process

How it affects the present

Paragraph 2: Psychology: Artificial Scarcity: Affects human behavior

Maslow Theory of Human behavior

Paragraph 3: God: Big Brother has taken the place of God: Omnipotent and

Omniscient, and under the control of the party

Among the many themes express in the novel 1984 by George Orwell the most interesting and frightening is the concept of creating an alternative reality to control a mass population. The Inner Party stays in power by shaping the thoughts and opinions of the masses and it does this by creating a reality where everything suits whatever it is the party needs to be believed. This is accomplished in three ways. The first is revisionism or the act of changing facts such as history so that the Party is always made to look good and mobilize popular opinion against its enemies. The second way the party creates an artificial reality is through artificial scarcity. There is no need for the constant warfare but if the need no longer existed for the construction of the tools of war that productivity would instead be put towards the manufacture of goods which could actually raise the standard of living. Finally the Inner

Party controls the masses by creating an all powerful omnipotent being whom they contr ol and can say or order whatever it is they need.

Much of the success in creating the Parties artificial reality and thus controlling the people was due to the Parties ability to control history through a process called revisionism. This work is done in the Ministry of Truth, in the

Records section, were Winston is engaged. Daily, people like Winston, destroy old documents and create new ones to cover policy changes. In addition, everything printed before 1960 has been destroyed by the Party. A good example of this is the work which Winston has to do ...

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...g Brother will never die and is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. Big Brother is a god under the control of the inner party. He can be made to say anything and what he is made to say directly propagates the Party's own agenda. Big Brother also acts as a focusing point for love, fear and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization. Big Brother is also effectively omnipresent. "Big

Brother On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet- everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed - no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull." (29) This further creates the illusion that Big Brother is god and who would try to usurp the divine?

The nightmare reality or irreality that Winston must face is under the complete and utter control of the party. They control history, the mind and even god and there is simply no way that their hold on reality can be broken.