Examining the

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Professor
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07 December 2016
Classic English Literature: Nineteen Eighty-four
George Orwell’s novel depicts life, as it would be under totalitarianism. This version of totalitarianism government is one that rules with all-encompassing control of the populace. This type of rule controls what every person thinks, breathes, eats, lives, and works. The people are at the mercy of the ruling party. The ruling party controls everything. When people fail to comply, the result is torture, brainwashing, and death. Orwell’s masterpiece spotlights state abuse of power, especially in an age of unprecedented technological advance. His futuristic dystopia portrays to a nightmarish extent the consequences of unbridled political authority. The story of protagonist Winston Smith, Nineteen Eighty-Four inspires fear of a terrifying future for in mandating subservience and outlawing individuality; totalitarianism fundamentally challenges what it means to be human. These next paragraphs will detail this horror.
The location is London but known as Oceania. It is a war-torn area, where the people of Oceania live in dilapidated buildings previously bombed by the war. The takeover of London by the group known as the Party, whose leader is Big Brother, who is always hearing and watching these humans through what Orwell calls a telescreen (4). Big Brother’s picture is splashed everywhere in the city, but no one has seen him in person. The people are living in horrible conditions. They are ill and starving.

The Party controls everything. The oppression is complete. The people know resistance is pointless. They follow the path laid out for them. They have nothing and the Party has everything. The people have brainwashed everyone into thinking their lives are great. When they complain, they disappear. The worst part is that their children are brainwashed into turning against their parents. They spout the same garbage spewed from the telescreens. The children become the new soldiers in the Party’s army.
“The people are subjected to propaganda called the Two-minute Hate video,” (Orwell, 4). The Party feeds the people lies about what is happening at the war fronts. Everyone must be present and accounted for. They must shout the right words at the right time, or be punished. This takes the form of torture for those who rebel. The broadcast names of those who do not comply and erase them from the world (Orwell, 53). The party uses fear to keep the people in line.
The government provides everything, and all of it is either unappetizing or unfit for intake. The people are in poor health, dying, and fearful of any act of stepping out of line because the result is certain death. The Party even supplies the rotgut cigarettes and alcohol that display the brand name of Victory. They live in a world that indoctrinates them into compliance. They know only what the Party wants them to know. Winston Smith is becoming more and more disenchanted. He secretly writes in the diary he bought from a junk dealer. Something thing he knows is not allowed and knows in his heart he will be condemned for doing so. Smith has fantasies of having great sex with women. Deep down he knows the Party will catch him and torture him, but it does not stop him.
It is hard work subjugating rebels. People disappear every day and Smith knows this personally. He suspects his mother died, because of the Party. He remembers standing in darkness with a man known as O’Brien. “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,” (Orwell, 18). Little did he know how prophetic that would be years later.
The people eat, drink, and work together. Everybody knows everybody’s business and will inform on others to protect themselves. This propaganda is driven into their brains via the broadcasts. It is everything for them. The people under totalitarianism rule receive the poorest of quality in food, clothing, smokes, and alcohol; all with the Victory logo emblazoned on the packages. Everything supplied by the government is substandard. The people are subjugated by the Party. They live under the radar until they make a mistake. The punishment for a mistake is torture and death.
Everybody works for the ruling party. They are authors of the propaganda the others see and hear every day. Big Brother is watching, all the time. War prisoners march through the streets, past the people who rant and yell disgusting things, a form of brainwashing that comes from the “Thought Police,” (Orwell,5).The art of Doublethink is all about mind control and reality control “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH,” (Orwell, 6). These slogans are contradictory in nature. Fear of retribution keeps the people in line. They do what they are told, always. Totalitarianism is total control; no one deviates from the plan, or risk torture and vaporization.
Winston Smith is the protagonist is the book. He is paranoid, just like all the others. Along comes a girl named Julia who pulled him into rebelling, when she offers him sex. The Party tells the people that sex for pleasure is wrong. It should be only for the procreation of new party members. Totalitarianism arrived because of people like Hitler and his minions. Hitler never tortured anybody he had people who loved to do that. Smith falls for the girl. They spend time appreciating each other until the Party is on to them. “Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.” This rhyme foreshadows the connection between the picture (behind which a telescreen is hidden) and the termination of Winston’s private rebellion,” (Orwell, 184). Both are taken into custody. Smith blames the telescreen for listening and seeing them. They both knew life would not get better in the service of the Party. Resistance is pointless, and all the people know it to be true. O’Brien tells his men to torture Smith. The Party tells Smith that “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four, “(Orwell, 1). The torture team wants Smith to acknowledge that two plus two equals five. He gives in after hours of torture and agrees.
Totalitarianism is total mind control. Give in or die, those are the choices. Brainwashing and torture did happen in all the wars. It gave the Party a right to torture those who refuse to join the cause. Orwell’s’ book laid out the horrors of all the World Wars. The party projected a perspective about what was is acceptable to do when nations are at war to those on the losing end. The Party believed torture an acceptable form in which to control the people. This book brought the horror of war and suppression to the front. Propaganda draws a fine line on what is acceptable in war. Feed the people enough garbage and they will believe it, there is no such thing as freedom even if the wars finally end. There is always another tyrant waiting in the wings to inflict more pain and terror on the working classes.
To the people of Oceania, the world is without color, happiness, and self-worth. Everything looks dingy and gray. This is what Totalitarianism is. Only the ruling party gets all the good stuff and the people get the bottom of the barrel. This happened throughout history. The winners in war get all the spoils. Millions lost their lives in the pursuit of the finer things in life. Prisoners are always expendable. The people of Oceania were casualties of a war they were never really part of. They live in these awful conditions because there is nowhere to go that is safe from totalitarianism. The Party controls everything. Rebellion is not an option until the people choose to work together to overthrow the party. The situation is bleak in Oceania. This is how it could be is totalitarianism is the rule of the world.
Orwell’s book is a party-political original written with the determination of cautioning bibliophiles in the West of the hazards of totalitarian rule. Orwell personally witnessed the horrendous extent to which Spain and Russia went to keep power and control. Orwell intended Nineteen Eighty-four to sound the alarm in the Western nations who were hesitant on how to handle the rise of totalitarianism. In 1949, the war had not yet intensified and some American intellectuals supported totalitarianism and the state of discretion between democratic and Totalitarianism nations was still ambiguous. Orwell is deeply troubled, by the widespread brutalities and subjugations, he witnessed in totalitarianism countries and seems to have been chiefly troubled by the role of technology in allowing totalitarianism governments to observe and control their inhabitants.
In Nineteen Eighty-four technology plays a huge role in keeping an eye on the populace. Orwell shows that Big Brother is truly watching every person in the city. No one can hide from the telescreens. O’Brien meets with both of the lovers; they discover that the telescreen can be turned off. This only occurs in O’Brien’s group of the government. O’Brien dupes them into believing he is on their side. Totalitarianism is all lies and propaganda designed to coerce the people to turn in their neighbors to save themselves. Imagine having your face eaten by rats. Who thought that up? It takes a twisted devious individual to plan that. The Party places no value on human dignity. The brainwashing turns everyone against each other. The people trust no one.
Conclusion
Totalitarianism is the main theme behind Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-four. The Party rules with an iron thumb. It puts pressure on the people to spy on their neighbors in the mistaken belief that their miserable lives will become better as a result. The situation is bleak in Oceania. This is how it could be if totalitarianism is the rule of the world. This describes nightmarish living for anyone not inside the inner party. The Party lives in the lap of luxury, while the little people languish. Totalitarianism, called feudalism in the early historical records, was the practice in the middle ages. Only back then, royals ruled the people. Some of them were totalitarians. The Party is just a larger group involved in the same practices. Brainwashing and mind control is nothing new. They have perfected the terror with technology. The technology in the book pales in comparison current standards. The thought that comes to mind that repression and torture could obtain levels never thought of by Orwell. The big fear of Orwell was that it could happen in the west if the totalitarianism rulers were the victors in the world wars. Life could have been very different is the Allies lost. One thing all people can learn from Orwell’s book is that just when people thought life could not get any worse, wait a little while and some serial killer will think of a new way to torture and main people who refuse to follow the rules. Totalitarianism is bad for people, no matter where they live and breathe. Orwell wanted to make sure the western powers never let totalitarianism take hold of the world. Democracy is a much better plan where regular people are concerned. Those who believe in democracy must always band together to protect the rest of the world from people like Hitler and those who would rule the world through torture and brainwashing. Eventually, someone gathers the people and urges them on to resisting the status quo. It will be someone that thinks life, as they know is bad. The people will be inspired by this person to stand up for what is right rather than what is easy. Hitler was very charismatic and so was O’Brien. This power works in both directions. The oppression happens if one lets it. They just need to work as a team to stamp it out forever. No one deserves torture.
Work Cited
Orwell, George. Nineteen and Eighty-four, New York: The New American Library, 1961 Ebook