Examples Of Propaganda In 1984

Forms of Propaganda in 1984 by George Orwell

1984 by George Orwell, portraits a dystopian society, lead by a totalitarian government which uses many different forms of propaganda to control the populous. These forms of propaganda include psychological manipulation, including destroying facts of the past. Another form of propaganda is fear, including constant surveillance. There are also more typical forms such as euphemisms and transfer. Through these forms of propaganda, the government controls the actions and thoughts of the populous, but also their lives and how they live them.

One of the forms of propaganda used by the totalitarian government of 1984 is transfer. Transfer is when feelings or ideas are shifted to a person, from another

Emmanuel Goldstein is explained as “...the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party…” (p. 11). This shows how the government in trying to blame everything on Emmanuel Goldstein, so that their loyal followers will not question them, and rather hate Goldstein as much as they do. You can see an example of Transfer on page 11, in which the Two Minutes Hate just began. Here Orwell wrote: “As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the People had flashed onto the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust.” (p.11) This shows again how the oppressive party of 1984 uses Goldstein in a way, that nobody will rebel against them, because they aren’t aware of the fact that they are angry at the government, not Goldstein. The next form of typical propaganda is euphemism. Euphemisms are more polite and indirect ways to say something that may be seen as harsh or impolite or suggest something unpleasant. Euphemisms are not used in a conventional way here and are used more as an opposite of euphemism or an ironic form of it. An example of this