Theme of Control in 1984 by George Orwell Literary Analysis Essay Sample

In 1945, George Orwell published the book 1984. Considered one of the greatest books ever written, 1984 tells the story of a man living in a twisted version of the United Kingdom. One that is under a crushing totalitarian regime, headed by the political entity known as The Party. They keep people from performing almost any form of self expression or protest against themselves , making it near impossible for them to be pushed out of power. 

One of the key themes of this novel is the idea of control. The Party holds a crushing grip on the civilians of airstrip one and Oceania by using the media, fear and access to knowledge to control them.

The Party uses media as a way to brainwash people into believing what they see fit. You can see this in the use of telescreens throughout the story. Telescreens are large screens that display pictures and videos, allowing the Party to show whatever propaganda they want across the entire nation. An example of this is a weeklong event inside of the book called Hate Week. Hate Week was designed by the Party to infuse anger into the civilians of airstrip one against whichever superstate they are at war with (Eastasia or Eurasia). During one Hate Week, the Party was spewing it’s propaganda as per usual, this time directed against Eastasia. Midway through a speech, all the telescreens changed, saying that Eurasia was the power they were at war with. Instead of people questioning it, they started tearing down the original paper posters that said Eastasia on them and began blaming Emmanuel Goldstein (The alleged leader of the resistance) for putting up fake posters to confuse people. The reason that they instantly blamed Goldstein and didn’t question the change is because of previous propaganda played about Goldstein, making him a scapegoat for anything bad happening within Oceania. This entire event is embodied perfectly by the quote “Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia”. The Party is a group of evil geniuses, able to play with people's emotions and thoughts to distract them from the bigger picture, turning them into a grand herd of sheep. The reason that civilians of Oceania follow everything that is displayed on the telescreen is fear.

Fear is one of the strongest and most destructive emotions a human has. As Paul Atreides said in Dune; “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.” The Party was excellent at instilling fear in their citizens. One method of fear induction they used is information about the thought police and the punishments for thoughtcrimes a secret. The thought police are the secret police of Oceania, who use criminal psychology as well as intense surveillance to catch people thinking outside of the Party’s mindset. The thing that makes the thought police so scary is that you never see them. They only appear when someone commits a thoughtcrime and usually wait until the night to strike. This secrecy of what they look like and the fact that they are always watching drives people from rebelling or even thinking about going against the Party. Same can be said for what happens if you get caught committing a thoughtcrime. A thoughtcrime is when a person displays an unorthodox or differing opinion to the one that the Party has tried to force into peoples minds. The Party has never presented information on what happens if you get caught, leaving civilians to speculate what kinds of horror will befall them when they are. All that citizens know is that most people don’t return after being arrested, or as Winston said; “Thought crime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death”.The Party also did something truly evil, something you wouldn’t believe to be possible; they made people fear their own families. From a young age, children are taught to tell the police if they catch anyone committing a thoughtcrime. And since Big Brother's brainwashing was so strong, people didn’t look at their families with unconditional love and loyalty, instead with more of a business-like relationship and a lingering sense of insecurity in between one another. The Party was successfully able to create an environment where you are constantly tormented by fear, but you are almost oblivious of it and most likely love the thing that fabricated said fear. Just like with the thought police and thoughtcrime examples, another way The Party controls the population is through accessibility of knowledge.

Knowledge is a key part to a human being's strength, letting them think for themselves, make decisions and change their lives for the better. The Party doesn’t want any of this to happen, so they created the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Truth is one of 4 subsections of The Party whose job is to control the information in the news and in literature. They don’t just filter what people can read, they also change what's inside of these pieces of text. A perfect example of this is the aforementioned example during hate week, in which the Ministry of Truth changed all the posters in the city to show that Oceania was at war with Eurasia instead of Eastasia. Behind the scenes, the Ministry was also changing old newspapers and books that had mentions of Eastasia as the enemy to say Eurasia, rendering this the new indisputable truth. Before this, Winston stated “Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished?” This perfectly illustrates what the Ministry of Truth is doing, changing the past to what they see fit and the most advantageous for them. And because of the fear that the Party has instilled in the population, there isn’t a chance that people will question any changes publicly. As the party slogan says; “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” The Party’s firm grip on Oceania allows them to execute this ideology to perfection, controlling everybody's view on the complete history of the human race and setting them up for a lifetime of oppression.

Looking back on the novel, it is very clear that there is no escape from the grip of the Party. They have created way too strong a hold on the population and have developed a hyper-effective strategy to keep said hold for a long time. The use of media to pound their propaganda and ideals into peoples brains is hyper effective, even more so with the filtration of knowledge to make everything they say the truth through changing what the written truth. This is all packed together neatly with the ribbon that is fear in the hearts of the civilians, either consciously or unconsciously. All this allows the Party to keep an airtight grip on their power and keep all of Oceania under their ruthless dictatorship. As Winston Smith said “If there was hope, it must lie in the proles.” If hope lied in the proles, then there was no hope.