George Orwell, a large figure of literature, was an anti-communism, and against totalitarian tendencies.
Therefore, in 1949, he published a book, 1984, warning about the future. A prediction of the future? Fear is a characteristic built within the human being, which at the time was the future and in whose hands it would be?In this novel, George Orwell’s vision of the world is deeply shocking, as domination of a certain ‘Party’, controls everyone and everything. They control what we (the public) see, hear, touch, smell, and even think about. History is a vital part of human existence and as illustrated well in the book, the past is ‘nature alterable’, and if done so, will be true ‘from everlasting to everlasting’.
The re-creation of history by these white males conveys the world, as they want it to be, in order to attain control over the public i.e. the World. By rewriting books, as they wanted them, and confiscating any unwanted material, they had full control of the past, therefore they were control of the current time (present), and hence the future!The motto of the Party is ‘Those who control the past, control the future; Those who control the future control the past.
By manipulating all forms of information available to us, they have full control over our beliefs, and therefore are forced to be innocent followers of ‘the Party’. And by manipulating the views of the people, they had the power to do anything, as by gaining a great deal of manpower, they may as shown in the book, undergo military action, and overthrow the world, in order to obtain a single ruling dictator, which will continue to rule, therefore controlling the future.The party did control the present at the time therefore they had the capabilities of oppressing it as they wished. Every piece of literature, rewritten every photo reproduced, in order to fit their fictional stories of economical success, and military victory.
By creating a positive and successful image of the party, they gained the back of the people as the only version of the passed accessible to them is the parties biased fictional, false past. Moreover another idea brought into the novel was ‘doublethink’ this was that 3 + 3 = 7. This was convenient for the Party, therefore the party manipulated the human mind, body, and spirit, in order to agree that this was an agreeable answer.Therefore in general terms, Orwell, wanted to illustrate the great bias resulting from history, as it would be from a white, wealthy, educated, European, male’s point of view.
These persons inscribed history, according to their ethical way of thinking, and as to whether or not it would agree to their future objectives or not. Moreover, many mistakes could have resulted from recording history, as there was great difficulty was found in finding the full detailed story of a certain event, therefore leading to gaps, which will have to be made up, by these people, who could, intentionally, or unintentionally include a bias into their version of the story.Similarly, this is the case at present, in the 21st century, whereby one dominating nation, controls, the media, including subliminal messages, two-way television, newspapers, computer viruses (which cause a threat to all information systems). These could have a global impact, and cause us (the public) to abide by that nations rules, regulations, and follow all views of that nation.
This manipulation of the human mind, is a very dangerous concept, as world domination, could result easily, through the influence of the people’s political and ethical views, in order to win them over to their side, or in other words brainwashing. Therefore, Orwell was warning from the effects that could result from the totalitarian policies arousing at the time post World War II, which are still in the process of completion. However, Orwell, did add a great deal of exaggeration within the book, as in reality, the effects and beliefs will not be as embellished as stated within the novel.
