Ensayo De 1984

What is freedom? Freedom is defined as “the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint from a despotic government. The novel 1984 by George Orwell follows the life of Winston Smith, a man living in a dystopian land governed by the despotic leader, Big Brother and the party. It follows his struggles to rebel and to understand more of the inner workings of hisgovernment. In the novel 1984, a major theme is freedom, and a lack thereof. Orwell wants us to realize and to cherish and protect the freedoms we have.

The party tries to limit the freedoms of its citizens by removing their freedom of speech and thought. “Freedom is the power to say that two plus two makes four, if that is granted, all else follows.” Newspeak is a language invented by theparty to replace Oldspeak, also known as English. The whole idea of Newspeak is to reduce the number of words in the language giving the citizens a limited vocabulary. Winston is eating in the cafeteria next to Syme, a citizen working on the newest edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Syme says “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall makethoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it.” Thoughtcrime is a Newspeak word meaning thoughts against the party and Big Brother. Thoughtcrime is illegal and will get you arrested. The government of Oceania is a totalitarian government; they want to control everything including freedom of speech and thought. By creating a language and limiting thevocabulary, the government is effectively able to control the thoughts and speech of its citizens.

The government of Oceania dislikes “unknowledge” or not knowing what is happening at all times with its citizens. To combat this, the party severely limits the privacy of its citizens. Besides most of the proles’ houses, every house and building contains a telescreen. A telescreen is a large screen witha camera and microphone capable of spying on you at any time. The party controls what is played or displayed on the telescreen whether it is music, propaganda or videos of confessions by enemies of the party. Anywhere you go there could be microphones and cameras, whether it is down to the store or out into the countryside. When Winston goes to the country to meet Julia he is very cautious of hisactions while traveling, he is nervous about showing suspicion or being caught by the party. When he finally meets Julia in the woods, she says, “Yes, look at these trees… There’s nothing big enough to hide a mike in.” The party even uses the children to spy on the parents and to help turn in thoughtcriminals. The Junior Spies is a club that all children join when they get to a certain age; theparty uses propaganda to get the children eager to be in the club. Parsons’s children are in the Junior Spies and his daughter turned him in for thoughtcrime in his sleep. “It was my little daughter, she listened at the keyhole. Heard exactly what I was saying and nipped off to the patrols the very next day, pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don’t bear her any grudge for it. In fact, I’mproud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway.” The party is able to know everything that is happening and being said thanks to the telescreens, microphones and Junior Spies. These things also help to catch thoughtcriminals. In our current society, any one of these things would be considered immoral and an invasion of privacy. The party, by spying and watching its citizens 24/7is severely limiting the privacy of its citizens.

The leader of the totalitarian government is Big Brother. Big Brother must always be right. The party and Big Brother do have some instances when they are wrong and where they contradict themselves. The party members who work at the Ministry of Truth have the job of changing the past and present historical records so that Big Brother and the...