1984: A Controlling Government

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A Controlling Government In George Orwell’s 1984, his dystopian world portrays how government control dehumanizes society. In the novel he displays causes for this government control and also how it affects the world around them. These basic causes brought severe effects to the people of Oceania. Society in the novel has parents battling their children, citizens being punished for thinking, and corrupt and evil members of the ruling class. The reader is able to dissect the causes of a totalitarian governments rise to power and the everlasting effects it has on its people in order to be relatable to future societies. Children have become dehumanized in 1984, due to the severe government control. Children are brought up as Junior Spies, an …show more content…

Orwell uses the principle of Ingsoc in Oceania to portray his own experiences with a totalitarian government. The setting in England shows that whether in a Communist state or a Democratic one, absolute power will always result in autocratic and infringing rule, going back to the saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In this case, when the lies of a government become truth, nobody will oppose, and it will become fact. His words, “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth” (Orwell 77) embody his own feelings of the Nazi Germany environment that surrounded him. This socialist satire shows how much power a controlling government demands. These principles go back to the founding of the United States. In Federalist 10, it discusses the importance of liberty, and in 1984, there is none. James Madison, whom wrote Federalist 10, talks of liberty involving political life and how both coincide. He says; “There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests,” (Madison Fed. 10) Orwell used this as a basis for his overbearing and socialist government. The book creates a realistic model of what was avoided in the past, and what can be in the

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