1984 - help!!!

[Morgan]

Can somebody please explain to me how "power is manipulated" in Orwell's 1984?
From what i understand, Big Brother manipulates everything, but what is the power that is manipulated in this book?

[Eric, son of Chuck]

BB IS a manipulative little bugger, isn't he? Basically, the power being manipulated is that of the working class. 95% of the population is being exploited by the other 5%. Wait a minute, that seems just a little to realistic... o Eeek. That Orwell, quite a visionary.

[Vronaqueen]

But Orwell also manipulates free will, by "programming" you to believe that what you're doing was for the good of the country, and through the Ministry of Love by beating you into believing what you should.

[apstudent]

Power is the ability to do work. Big Brother controls the power by controlling the past. Like the quote says, "He that controls the past, controls the present, and he who controls the present controls the future."Or something like that. I don't remember it exactly, but it is to that effect. The power theat Big Brother controls is the power of thoughts. By controlling thoughts, he can control the past, consequently controlling the present and future. Great Book by the way.

[be_paz]

Can somebody please explain to me how "power is manipulated" in Orwell's 1984?
From what i understand, Big Brother manipulates everything, but what is the power that is manipulated in this book?

Above all, I think the power that is manipulated in this book, is the capacity of human beings of loving, besides having your mind controlled you don't also have the freedom TO LOVE, TO HATE, you can't express your feelings, in other words they obliged you not to feel. They take your heart from you.

[DumbLikeAPoet]

I agree with be paz. BB manipulates emotions. The only emotion that is really allowed in 1984 is fear.

God Bless,
JonUs

The kind of power manipulated in 1984 is absolute power. And its more like the Party seeking power. BB is only part of the Party. The Party seeks power for the sake of it, the object of the party is to maintain an oligarchical society (i.e. a class society).

The Party achieves these aims by monitoring the Party Members. The members are given no freedom. Even when Winston thinks he has escaped from the telescreens, the fact that in the end O'Brien knows almost all his thoughts leads the reader to believe otherwise.

Control of the party is not hereditary, unlike monarchies (for example). Outer Party members may be transferred to the Inner Party if they become a threat, and children of Inner Party members are not guaranteed a place in the inner party. People who show tendencies of individualism and intelligence may be vaporized (eg Syme). Thoughts are discouraged by the use of crimestop and doublethink. Thoughtcrime is punished by the thought police. Additionally, Newspeak, with its ever shrinking vocabulary, aims to rob individuals from the ability to express themselves, and so these individuals cannot express hatred towards the Party.

For further analysis of 1984, I recommend www.classicnote.com

[soccerdawg]

what changes in the pattern occured in the nineteenth century?

[Diadem]

Above all, I think the power that is manipulated in this book, is the capacity of human beings of loving, besides having your mind controlled you don't also have the freedom TO LOVE, TO HATE, you can't express your feelings, in other words they obliged you not to feel. They take your heart from you.

I really don't think hate exists. "Hate" is to "love" like "darkness" is to "light".
What is darkness but an absence of light? What is hate but an absence of love?

Big Brother manipulated power by controlling the Party by invasive monitoring and a violation of our modern Constitutional rights as provided by the Bill of Rights. Some Party members, like Winston, knew of the manipulation, but were so oppressed by Big Brother that they could never foment a rebellion. The All-Seeing Eye (same thing found on the dollar bill) essentially kept them in bondage and oppression.

The proles who represented the majority, and were the theoretically probable origin of a rebellion by sheer numbers alone, were simply too complacent, ignorant, and apathetic to warrant any concern of Big Brother. He never bothered allocating resources to control them because they simply didn't constitute a threat. It was the intellectuals who Big Brother controlled, and in doing so, he used those same people to exploit the prole majority. He controlled the history, and therefore he controlled the present and the future. He did this by using the Party members to alter history and the truth.

In addition, by allowing the people to believe that endless wars were being waged against neighboring countries, the public complacently allowed Big Brother to strip away all their freedoms in the guise of security. As Benjamin Franklin stated, "Those who trade their freedom for security deserve neither security nor freedom."

If you go back to Part 1, when the 2-Minutes of Hate is introduced to the reader, you get a firm grasp of just who the enemy is. By using intense propaganda, brainwashing, and the comprehension of assimilated conformity, Big Brother is capable of deceiving the public into believing that Emannuel Goldstein is the true enemy. In our modern society, Goldstein represents everything we stand for by way of the Constitution: free speech, right to bear arms, right to assembly, freedom of religion, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and others. Yet, Big Brother has manipulated the society so much through war alone that they now believe Goldstein is the enemy of the State although it really is Big Brother.

The Party members believe that Emmanuel Goldstein is the entity responsible for their current crisis. Yet, nobody can verify where Emmanuel Goldstein is, let alone if he has ever existed. In other words, Big Brother conceived a fallacious entity in order to oppress the people and keep them in bondage by fear-mongering. The modern incarnation of Emmanuel Goldstein is al-Qaida. Will the modern poles ever "shake the flies" off long enough to interrupt their apathy to finally realize this?

"In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less susceptible to Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, 'just to keep people frightened'. This was an idea that had literally never occurred to him."
- George Orwell, 1984

On that note, I will cut this short for sake of brevity.

(I neglected to mention that "pure" communism has never existed. It has remained theoretical. What has existed are many socialism/communism mixture societies whose leaders ruled under the guise of a "Communist Party" which leads many people to believe that it was in fact communism when it actually was not. 1984 involves fascism. One may be disappointed if one were to investigate how probable it is for a Capitalist/Socialist mix nation like the United States of America to fall into fascism just as easily as a Socialist/ Communist mix nation.)

[kaka]

Excellent post, Diadem - and very enlightening. Many thanks.

[Diadem]

Hey thanks, kaka! I wanted to write so much more, but I thought I should keep it relatively brief for everyone's sake. I am very passionate about our Constitutional rights and the current state of affairs of our country which I see going down the drain. 1984 is simply a brilliant book by virture of its prophecy and foreshadowing alone. Highly recommended and it's no wonder it's a bestseller.

If anyone has yet to watch it, please watch Equilibrium. It seems to be a loose interpretation of Orwell's 1984.

[doublebubble08]

The manipulated power is thoughts! The proles are being manipulated by Big Brother throught lies. They are being brainwashed. Their knowledge becomes "damaged" with every lie with every passing day. Newspeak makes them even more easily manipulated because people that remember the old language wouldn't be able to communicate to the rest of the people. IF the proles have thougths then Big Brother isnt in control anymore. Then Big Brother would have something ot worrie about.

[Neziar]

I really don't think hate exists. "Hate" is to "love" like "darkness" is to "light".
What is darkness but an absence of light? What is hate but an absence of love?



Hmmm... isn't the absence of love apathy? Hate is still a feeling -towards- the person. The opposite of love is therefore the lack of feeling anything for the other person.

---

But other than that, I agree to everything you said.

[Man-In-Training]

I'm going to have to agree with Diadem about the hate-love issue. But I believe love depends on the kind of the person that's having the emotion. You can't simply "love" someone because they appeal to you more often than others. You must have an emotional bond to that person; both of them have to hold desireable traits the other likes, like a great personality. Winston, I think, has the wrong impression of what love is. He "loves" Julia because they think alike about BB. I believe if he really loved Julia he would have stayed away from her and ignored her because he would care about what would happen to her when they got caught. By not associating with her, he would be "saving her" from BB for a time being.

[tfwelch]

Only a white person would post that hate doesn't exist :lol:
Trust me, hate is real. O'brien's speech isn't that far fetched. I think many governments rule just to step on the face of the common man. :goof:

[ahscat88885]

Does anybody know where I can find online literary criticism on 1984 by George Orwell? Please help!!!

[JAMMERXT]

oops wrong place to post!

[JAMMERXT]

Too bad it goes the other way around too...not! "Love" is to "hate" as "light" is to "darkness". What is light but an absence of darkness? What is "love" but an absence of "hate". Does this make sense? No way! This is because light and love are made by the presence of something when darkness and hate are made of the absense of something...or are they? No! Dark is a comparative term just as hate is. When there is barely enough light to see would you not call this darkness!? When there is barely enough love to be called love what would you call it? An absence of love!? No! You would call it the word that was made for it!! HATE! Hate does exist. Im sorry to bust your bubble but it definitely does. Trust me and tfwech here, hate is real