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Political Dystopia in Orwell's 1984

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George Orwell’s 1984 uses a political dystopia to demonstrate the true horrors of a big government motivated to control personal lives. The novel follows Winston Smith as he discovers the evils of the fascist government, Big Brother, while trying make contact with the Brotherhood, a rebel organization lead by the infamous Emmanuel Goldstein. Upon being captured, O’Brien, a powerful member of the Inner Party, tortures Winston until he conforms to the ideas of Big Brother, thus destroying the rebellion. The government needs to trick their citizens into believing the false identity Big Brother has created. They did this by outlawing many of the basic luxuries, like writing a journal. Big Brothers deception of individual thinking demonstrates how a large government can destroy the basis of society. Big Brother’s mission is to maintain total control of Oceania; to do this, the government creates a language called Newspeak. The language only contains words and ideas that the government has deemed unthreatening towards Big Brother’s power. Newspeak limits the citizens of Oceania’s intellectual capacity; this lack of knowledge allows the government to take full control of the citizens, manipulating them to think of Big Brother as a protector. Syme, an intelligent man who works with Winston, discovers the governments control of language as he is creating a new edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Upon discovering this, Syme tells Winston, “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it” (Orwell 53). Syme discovers that every generation will have less knowledge than the last until the citizens will have no memory of resistance; only of their protector, Big Brother. Similarly, the government tries to emphasize positive concepts by destroying any negative connotations. Syme explains that,

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