Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Compare capitalism to communism
Compare capitalism to communism
Compare capitalism to communism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Compare capitalism to communism
Soon after the conclusion of World War II in 1945, Communism posed a threat in the United States. This threat, also known as the Red Scare, was triggered because of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. The tension between the two superpowers led to the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s. Because the Soviets were a communistic country, many Americans feared Communism because of the influence that it had in America. Many intellectuals supported Communism in the U.S. which led to more concern within the country. The communistic threat presented by the Soviets in the war led to the spread of Communism within the U.S. It was a fear that many Americans spoke out against in attempt to save the American society. George Orwell spoke out against it in 1949 by warning people in his novel 1984 that the spread of Communism would affect the country negatively. In this book, he portrays how a totalitarian dictatorship corrupts and has the power over citizens through technology, psychological manipulation and mind control, physical control, and the alteration of facts about history. Big Brother, the head of the Inner Party in 1984, uses technology to control the middle-class citizens, known as the Outer Party. The government places telescreens and hidden microphones across the city in order to monitor their citizen’s behavior. The members of the Outer Party have telescreens inside their houses because their intelligence creates a threat against the government. However, the Proles, who make up the lower class, do not obtain much attention because they are hopeless and ignorant and do not pose a significant threat against the government. The government uses telescreens because they want to prevent their citizens from committing thought crime. Thought crime is the law against thinking and is punishable by death. If the government charges someone of thought crime, they use machinery to torture them. If they do not follow the rules of Big Brother, the government kills them. However, if the torture forces them to give in and follow Big Brothers’ laws, they usually survive as in Winston Smith’s case. Winston is the protagonist of the novel who becomes a victim of torture. As the novel begins, Winston keeps his thoughts secretive because of the fear of getting caught. He has to hide in a secret room in order to write hi... ... middle of paper ... ...trict organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand grenade….At twenty-three he had perished in action…. (42) This character is totally fictional, but the government forces Winston to make it factual. The government goes to the extreme to satisfy their desires. The alteration of history is no more than another significant power that the Inner Party exerts on their citizens to influence their thoughts. The dictatorship in this novel portrays how fortunate the United States is to be a democracy. Americans have freedom under a democracy while the citizens under dictatorships have no independence whatsoever. 1984 depicts how hard it must have been to live under the past autocracies of the fascist Germany and Italy or the communistic Soviet Union and China. Thanks to the brave Americans and their Allies, America maintains its democracy. Americans are lucky that they are not under the control of a fascist or communistic regime. Because of George Orwell’s portrayal of the average citizen’s life under a dictatorship in 1984, it is truly a privilege to live in the great country of America as opposed to a totalitarian domination.
One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity. However, what made communism so dangerous can be succinctly described by Eisenhower who compared the spread of communism as the domino effect. As his secretary of state, Dulles, put it, the propagation of communism “would constitute a threat to the sovereignty and independence” of America (Doc B). In addition, the Cold War also planted the seeds of rational fear of a global nuclear war. As Russia caught up to the United States in terms of technological advancements, they successfully developed the atomic bomb as well as the hydrogen bomb, which caused Americans to believe that the USSR would use these weapons of mass destruction to forcefully extend their ideologies to the USA. In fact, Americans were so frantic about a potential nuclear disaster that it...
George Orwell’s novel, 1984, is a dystopian literary text that illuminates the tenets of totalitarian and authoritarian governance in most areas where the leaders seek total loyalty and near hero worship. It was published in 1949, but has since remained relevant because its details promoted authoritarian political constructs and the political leadership concepts that evolved in the globe over time. Set at Oceania province in Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, the book displays an omnipresent government that institutes constant state surveillance on the people that it suspects to be a threat to its regime and agitators of rebellion. It infringes on human rights
The Party and its leader Big Brother play the role of authority in 1984. The Party is always watching the citizens of the Republic of Oceania. This is exemplified in the fact that the government has telescreens through which they can watch you wherever you are set up almost everywhere. Even in the countryside where there are no telescreens, the Party can monitor its citizens through hidden microphones disguised as flowers. The Thought Police are capable of spying on your thoughts at anytime, and can arrest or even kill you on a whim. Not only does the Thought Police find and hunt down felons, but it also scares others into being good citizens. The Party strives to eliminate more and more words from people’s vocabularies. Thus, the Party can destroy any possibilities of revolutions and conspiracies against itself. Its ultimate goal is to reduce the language to only one word, eliminating thought of any kind. The Party makes people believe that it is good and right in its actions through the Ministry of Truth and through the slogans printed on the Ministry of Truth:...
The novel 1984 is one that has sparked much controversy over the last several decades. It harbors many key ideas that lie at the root of all skepticism towards the book. With the ideas of metaphysics, change, and control in mind, George Orwell wrote 1984 to provide an interesting story but also to express his ideas of where he believed the world was heading. His ideas were considered widely ahead of their time, and he was really able to drive home how bleak and colorless our society really is. Orwell wrote this piece as a futuristic, dystopian book which contained underlying tones of despair and deceit.
Through out the course of history there have been several events that have been a pivotal point which has molded the behaviors and thoughts of this century. A lot of notable activist and authors wrote stories and speeches about how they believed that this day and time would be like. A lot of these views were very accurate surprisingly. In the novel 1984 author George Orwell gives his vision on how he believed that the countries would be like if they kept going the way they were.This report will give you a brief rundown of the characters, theories and principles of this novel along with some of my personal insight of the novel.
When writing his novel 1984, George Orwell was conveying his disapproving thoughts about the actions of the fascist dictators that were attempting their rise to power during World War II. The dystopian society created in the novel was created as a warning to those who supported the dictators at the time, including Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, and the negative effects that their power would bring. Although Orwell’s intentions were not to prophesy what the world would be like, society today is beginning to closely resemble that of 1984. The similarities between George Orwell’s novel 1984 and society today are becoming increasingly more significant because of an excess use of technology, a lack of privacy, and the extreme measures taken by the government.
These examples display the inevitable fact that all over the world subtle but significant events are taking place that appear to signify a shifting toward a totalitarian government, much like the one present in 1984. This is extremely disturbing because most people will agree that the life lived by the characters in 1984, is not one of any value. Though they are “protected” from several of the problems that many of the free world citizens and officials face, they have no control over their thoughts or actions. This leads to unbearable uniformity. It is chilling to know that though George Orwell’s book was written as fiction, portions of it are becoming factual.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell portrays a dystopian society that is controlled by a totalitarian dictatorship. Through his book, Orwell describes many aspects of society that existed in the late 40’s when he was writing. He used his book to make statements about the serious problems that people were facing in countries that were living under actual totalitarian rule. Through the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell clearly depicts the negative aspects of the post-war period and what totalitarianism would look like when taken to its absolute extreme.
To accomplish this, Orwell utilizes the theme of individuality versus tyranny, foreshadowing, and irony, in order to fully extract all possible motives behind Winston’s actions.Many countries, such as the United States, are founded on principles of individuality reigning over tyranny, more specifically, the freedom of choice. However, in the futuristic Oceania, run by “Big Brother”, such freedom and individuality is, for the most part, completely suspended. To act impulsively, or choose to oppose Big Brother, is a “thoughtcrime” of dire consequence. This is the basis behind the Inner Party’s control of Oceania. Winston however, from the commencement of the novel, showed that he was not willing to conform to such a tyrannical society. From his writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” in his diary as the novel opened, to his relationship with Julia, which was considered sexcrime in Oceania, Winston proved his thoughts were antiparallel to those of the Inner Party.
This essay is about a story named “1984”, written by George Orwell. Winston Smith Is living in a dystopia society were everyone is being monitored and controlled by their superior big bother. Winston Smith is rebelling against Big brother. The society Winston is living in is, is somewhat similar to the word we live in today. The government spy on their people and invade their privacy in ways that big brother does.
“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” Part 1,Chapter 1,pg. 6. These three principles were repeatedly emphasized throughout the book and helped lay the foundation of the dystopian society George Orwell imagined in his novel 1984. Fear, manipulation, and control were all encompassed throughout this dystopian society set in the distant future. The freedom to express ones thoughts was no longer acceptable and would not be tolerated under any circumstances. Humankind was rapidly transforming into a corrupt and evil state of mind.
Every part of life is regimented and controlled, but the only crime is ‘thought crime’: independent thinking and individualism. Big Brother is the figurehead of the Inner Party, and throughout the book, it is heavily implied that he may not really exist. The people are divided into Inner Party members, who control the government, Outer Party members, who make up the middle class, and Proletarians, or Proles, who make up the uneducated lower class. He utilizes strong but vague descriptions of the world around Winston to hint at the state of the world without directly saying it. He describes a bright cold day, which seems to perfectly depict the world's bleak state in a sort of indirect way (Orwell, 1948).
Winston works for 1 of the 4 government agency’s, The Ministry of Truth. In his job he re-writes old news articles so they show that The Party has always been and will be in control. By re-writing everything in print, The Party effectively changes history. The only proof of actual history is in the minds of the people who were there. Winston realizes that there is something wrong with this, yet he doesn’t know what. The re-writing of history is all he has ever known. It is most likely Winston’s job that leads him to rebel against The Party.
The year 1984 has long passed, but the novel still illustrates a possibility for the future of society. It still remains a powerful influence in all sorts of literature, music, and social theory. George Orwell envisioned a nightmarish utopia that could have very easily become a possibility in 1949 ? the year the novel was written. He managed to create such a realistic view of humanity?s future, that this story has been deemed timeless. There will always be the threat of totalitarianism, and at some moments civilization is only a step away from it. Orwell hated the thought of it, and 1984 shows that. From his work, readers who live in prevailing democratic society have a chance to consider about these very different political systems, democracy and totalitarianism.
In this case, the government has to use severe actions to ensure they will never act in this way again. Winston Smith, is a minor member of the ruling Party and is aware of some of these extreme tactics. Since Winston is not completely brainwashed by the propaganda like all the other citizens, he hates Big Brother passionately. Winston is one of the only who realize that Big Brother is wiping individual identity and is forcing collective identity. He is “conscious of [his] own identity”(40-41) . Winston continues to hold onto the concept of an independent external reality by constantly referring to his own existence. Aware of being watched, Winston still writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER”(21) in his diary. Winston believes whether he writes in his diary or not, it is all the same because the Thought Police will get him either way. Orwell uses this as a foreshadow for Winston's capture later on in the novel. Fed up with the Party, Winston seeks out a man named O’Brien, who he believes is a member of the ‘Brotherhood’, a group of anti-Party rebels. When Winston is arrested for thought crime by his landlord, Mr.Charrington, who is a member of the Thought Police. Big Brother takes Winston to a dark holding cell, to use their extreme torture strategy to erase any signs of personal identity. Winston's torturer is O’Brien, the man he thought to be apart of the brotherhood. Winston asks