Victim Of The Government's Mind Control example essay topic

Soon after the conclusion of World War II in 1945, Communism posed a threat in the United States. This threat, also known as the Red Scare, was triggered because of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. The tension between the two superpowers led to the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940's. Because the Soviets were a communistic country, many Americans feared Communism because of the influence that it had in America. Many intellectuals supported Communism in the U.S. which led to more concern within the country. The communistic threat presented by the Soviets in the war led to the spread of Communism within the U.S. It was a fear that many Americans spoke out against in attempt to save the American society.

George Orwell spoke out against it in 1949 by warning people in his novel 1984 that the spread of Communism would affect the country negatively. In this book, he portrays how a totalitarian dictatorship corrupts and has the power over citizens through technology, psychological manipulation and mind control, physical control, and the alteration of facts about history. Big Brother, the head of the Inner Party in 1984, uses technology to control the middle-class citizens, known as the Outer Party. The government places telescreens and hidden microphones across the city in order to monitor their citizen's behavior.

The members of the Outer Party have telescreens inside their houses because their intelligence creates a threat against the government. However, the Proles, who make up the lower class, do not obtain much attention because they are hopeless and ignorant and do not pose a significant threat against the government. The government uses telescreens because they want to prevent their citizens from committing thought crime. Thought crime is the law against thinking and is punishable by death. If the government charges someone of thought crime, they use machinery to torture them. If they do not follow the rules of Big Brother, the government kills them.

However, if the torture forces them to give in and follow Big Brothers' laws, they usually survive as in Winston Smith's case. Winston is the protagonist of the novel who becomes a victim of torture. As the novel begins, Winston keeps his thoughts secretive because of the fear of getting caught. He has to hide in a secret room in order to write his thoughts in his diary. In public, he abides by the rules of the government in order to survive, but yet, his private thoughts haunt him in the end as he becomes a victim of technology. O'Brien, an agent of the Inner Party, is suspicious of his activity and tricks Winston and his lover Julia into expressing their thoughts.

When Winston and Julia meet with O'Brien, O'Brien says, "I think it is fitting that we should begin by drinking a health. To our Leader: To Emmanuel Goldstein". (141) Goldstein is the leader of the Brotherhood, which is the Inner Party's enemy. Winston and Julia agree with O'Brien and swear loyalty to the Brotherhood.

Since O'Brien turns off his telescreen, they think that the government is not watching them, but the government is examining their behavior by means of hidden microphones and cameras inside the room. By swearing loyalty to the Brotherhood and drinking wine, which the government does not allow, they become enemies of the Inner Party. A couple days later, they finally realize that the government has been watching them when a voice repeats them from a secret telescreen saying "You are the dead". (182) Mr. C harrington, the owner of the antique shop where Winston and Julia meet privately, enters their room revealing that he is a special agent for the Thought Police. They are now "dead" because they are caught committing thought crime.

Winston and Julia are found guilty of thought crime because of the machinery that the government uses. George Orwell is showing how technology is a dominant way of controlling people's lives. The government also shows their authority by controlling the minds of their citizens. The government uses a new language known as Newspeak, which gives new meanings to words with the purpose of preventing citizens from having rebellious thoughts and expressions. The new language destroys the connotations of each word so that each word has only one meaning.

For example, an "unperson" is a person who has been politically disgraced and has been purged. Newspeak is a way to prevent people from expressing their thoughts with English words. In order to control their citizens' thoughts, they do several things. Firstly, they have signs across the city stating "Big Brother is Watching You" which is a warning to citizens not to commit thought crime. They also manipulate and form children into spies so that they can watch over their parents' thoughts and actions.

If someone is suspicious of thought crime, the government will mentally torture that person to free them of their thoughts as they do to Winston. Winston is once again a victim of another control. After the regime convicts him of thought crime, Inner Party members question him under glaring lights. It is a mental torture that makes Winston confess to numerous crimes that are serious in the government's point of view.

He confesses that he is "a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism, and a sexual pervert". (200) He also confesses that he is a follower of Goldstein and that he murders his wife although his wife is still alive. With the exception of his wife's murder, these confessions are true. In most democracies, none of these acts are criminal. He never murders his wife, which makes him innocent. He is obviously a victim of the government's mind control.

Winston's friend and co-worker, Mr. Parsons, is another victim of the government's manipulation. His daughter is a spy for the government and tells on him for committing thought crime. Winston and he are indeed victims of the psychological manipulations that the government has over their citizens. In this novel, mind control proves to be another frightening supremacy that the government possesses. Physical control is another power that the government uses to persuade their citizens to abide by their laws. The government makes it mandatory for their citizens to undergo grueling days of exercise.

The citizens are constantly tired, which makes it hard for them to control their thoughts. Their minds are unable to think when their body is in a state of exhaustion. If the citizens do not participate in these exercises, the administration physically tortures them. Although Winston goes to the exercises, he is a victim of physical control. He only goes because a woman always reprimands him about what will happen if he does not go to the exercises.

He has to do something for which he has no desire. He also is brutally beaten at the end when O'Brien and other Party members interrogate him. When he goes to the brutal Room 101, he faces his greatest fear. He confronts a helmet-type cage full of rats. Because of his fear of rats, he confesses one final thing before they kill him. He says, "Do it to Julia!

Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me!

Julia! Not me!" (236) After he betrays Julia, the government realizes that he is no threat to them. They let him live because his relationship with Julia is over. The government does not approve of the relationship, but when Winston betrays Julia, they know that the relationship is over. Because of torture, physical control illustrates that citizens will admit their sins and accept the government's policy. The final government control that has an influence on the citizens is the alteration of information about history.

The Party alters the past in order to control the present. They believe that citizens will approve of the government if history only shows positive events. The Party destroys anything that makes the government look bad. They also prohibit any records from the past that an individual possesses. Winston works for the Ministry of Truth and is responsible for rewriting history to make the Inner Party look superior. The government controls what he writes in order to assure that the citizens will support it.

One example of an altered fact that he writes about is the life of Comrade Ogilvy. Big Brother tells Winston what to write by saying: At the age of three Comrade Ogilvy had refused all toys except a drum, a submachine gun, and a model helicopter. At six... he had joined the Spies; at nine he had been a troop leader. At eleven he had denounced his uncle to the Thought Police...

At seventeen he had been a district organizer of the Junior Anti-Sex League. At nineteen he had designed a hand grenade... At twenty-three he had perished in action... (42) This character is totally fictional, but the government forces Winston to make it factual. The government goes to the extreme to satisfy their desires. The alteration of history is no more than another significant power that the Inner Party exerts on their citizens to influence their thoughts.

The dictatorship in this novel portrays how fortunate the United States is to be a democracy. Americans have freedom under a democracy while the citizens under dictatorships have no independence whatsoever. 1984 depicts how hard it must have been to live under the past autocracies of the fascist Germany and Italy or the communistic Soviet Union and China. Thanks to the brave Americans and their Allies, America maintains its democracy.

Americans are lucky that they are not under the control of a fascist or communistic regime. Because of George Orwell's portrayal of the average citizen's life under a dictatorship in 1984, it is truly a privilege to live in the great country of America as opposed to a totalitarian domination.