Alex Utopia/Dystopia

So O'Brien's a bad guy. I didn't expect that.  It sort of makes me wonder if the Brotherhood is a figment created by the Party to weed out those who might stand against it. Since they already have so much control and already instill fear in everyone so that they don't rise up, it might be unlikely. But they certainly seem paranoid to do something like that. The Party already embraces the suspected existence of Goldstein and the Brotherhood for its two minutes Hate. Just like the constant warfare against Eur/Eastasia, having a set enemy of the state helps to exert control. He is another enemy to use in order to bring people together in support of Big Brother. I wouldn't put it past the Party to have O'Brian's job be to find "heretics" and lull them in so that they can be persecuted as we saw with Winston and Julia. I guess this is what Orwell is trying to do to the reader. We have no concrete knowledge of what is going on in society. It is all so am...

 We hear about doublethink early in the book, and it's evident very early with the ministries of Truth, Love, etc doing the opposite of what the name suggests. However, after reading the excerpts from Goldstein's book, we see how everything in society follows doublespeak. The Party, in its early stage, claimed to be Socialist. Yet the Party evolved to a society in which it has deviated from the socialism it claims to be. In line with socialist ideas, they took away private property. However, the class divide still remains and the Party members still are more privileged than the proles. It is Socialism and Anti-socialism, in line with the doublespeak it promotes.  The whole basis of the system is based on opposites. Nothing truly is what it claims to be. War and peace in society would have the same effect. War is against Eurasia, though it is also against Eastasia. Even the act of using doublethink is doublethink. It seems perfectly fitting that the first member of the Thought ...

 We keep hearing about the war that is going on between London and Eurasia, yet besides the bombs dropping in the city, there is no proof that there actually is a war. Seeing that the government has complete control over the media produced and can twist anything to their liking, they absolutely have the means to fabricate a war. They are even able to switch the name of the enemy from Eastasia to Eurasia without people remembering. As Julia brings up to Winston, it is possible that they could be dropping the bombs on their own people. As we've seen the Party doesn't really care for anything but their own control and survival, so killing innocent civilians does not seem out of sorts for that kind of government. Even the POWs that get carted through the streets when Julia and Winston are meeting could just be random people from elsewhere, rather than Eurasian soldiers.   When you think about it, it's not that farfetched. After all, what better way to promote compliance and a...

 I'll make the enemies of the state DISAPPEAR! There are a lot of disturbing elements in 1984, to say the least, but the fact that you can be whisked away without a trace would be terrifying. It's made even more terrifying that a single nervous twitch could essentially condemn you to torture and death. The scary part is that it is probably one of the more realistic dystopian elements that could, given the right circumstances, be possible in our world.  The most notable examples would probably be Russia and North Korea. Every once in a while you might hear about the disappearance or death of some political figure who stood against the government in power. It's safe to say that normal people who are vocal enough against the government are equally in danger of not only being arrested, but essentially erased.  Of course, this fear further strengthens the regime since people are forced to keep their opinions to themselves. We see the full extent of this in 1984, where Winston ...

I found it interesting in the first part of the book that the Party can completely rewrite all of history without anyone noticing. While they are able to strategically edit and redistribute all written texts so that it fits their narrative, they'd still have to recall all of the "incorrect" versions. After a while you'd think that it would be suspicious.  The Party consistently changes their statistics in order to falsely lead the people to believe that they are successfully helping them. They can completely edit anything that is written to eliminate anything that would stain the Party in the view of the people. Since there is no evidence to tell them otherwise, the people believe the new propaganda.  I don't think it is possible to brainwash to the extent we see in 1984  where no one has any memory of the past many years and unquestioningly follows what is put out in front of them. Over the past few years we have seen how misinformation and editing information to...