Metacognitive Journal #4 (1984)

TOTALITARIANISM

Totalitarianism is one of the major concepts in the novel 1984.

          First of all, to discuss this topic, we need to know what totalitarianism is.
Totalitarianism is a form of government where the dictator, aka. the leader, takes charge and controls everything.

          It is clearly seen in the novel that the form of government in 1984 is a totalitarian dictatorship. "The Party" has many characteristics similar to a dictatorship, judging from the way the control the country and they way they treat their people.

          In the beginning of the novel, it is mentioned that "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU" is one of the captions on a poster in Oceania.Winston describes that The Party watches and records down every move a person makes. This is the act of a dictatorship because The Party controls everything the people do. The rights of the people are stripped, making them unable to do anything they wish, and could only follow orders. The people of Oceania couldn't do whatever they wished to or say whatever they want. They couldn't even think their own thoughts, or else they would be punished. The Party wants to plant an idea into the heads of the people and want them to believe in the things they tell them to. They do not want thought process going on in the minds of the people so that there would be no one capable of rioting against them.



The slogan of The Party:

          
"War is Peace
   Freedom is Slavery            
    Ignorance is Strength"




shows that The Party is trying to manipulate the people of Oceania to believe in ideas that are wrong. The slogan is very contradicting and is made of antonyms. The Party wants to control the minds of the people and turn them brainless, meaning that the people only obey what they are told but have no thinking process of their own. This is probably one of the propaganda used by The Party to brainwash the people of Oceania.

          Even all the things in Oceania are named with the word 'victory'. There is VICTORY mansion, VICTORY gin, VICTORY cigarettes, which is probably one of the ways to promote nationalism and patriotism in a totalitarian government.

          The last piece of evidence that proves to us that Oceania is governed by totalitarianism is the government. The government is suppose to improve the lives of people and create a good society, however, it is ironic that the government in 1984 is used to threaten and harm people. Oceania is controlled by 4 ministries: the Ministry of Peace (Minipax), which deals with issues of war. the Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty), which deals with rationing and starvation, the Ministry of Love (Miniluv), which deals with torture, and finally, the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), which deals with propaganda. No democratic government of republic would deal with the country using torture and manipulation. It is clearly shown that the Party governs the people through fear, manipulation, and violence to make them obey the rules.

          Looking from what The Party has done, I think that they are trying to turn the people into thoughtless robots, only ready to listen to orders or what is programmed into them. As mentioned in my earlier post, I believe that people should have freedom and rights. By The Party controlling the people in this way, the people would be unhappy and would one day try to create a revolution to destroy the government. Unhappy people will rebel and the government won't stand a chance. In the case of 1984, The Party control Oceania, but are only a very small percentage, while the civilians make up most of the population. Oceania is made up of:

• Inner Party (The upper-class) - the elites ruling the minority
• Outer Party (The middle-class) 
• Proles (The lower-class/proletariat) - uneducated working class that make up 85% of Oceania's population.

          If one day all the people revolt and protest against The Party, then The Party would stand no chance against them because there is a significant difference in number and if they were to revolt and would probably succeed easily, but the problem is that the people of Oceania are SO manipulated by the government because of the propaganda and everything else, making them unable to think of ideas and plans such as a revolution.