The genius of George Orwell's 1984

In George Orwell’s 1984, the protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in a world where truth and reality are manipulated by the Party, leaving no verifiable proof of the present or the past. Everything is under the control of Big Brother, and people exist in a state of constant surveillance. Even relationships are false, with loyalty to Big Brother the only true allegiance.

Apart from the absolute absence of the “objective truth”, constant surveillance through telescreens keeps the actions of the majority of the population in check, whereas learned practices such as “Newspeak” and “Doublethink” contribute to self-inflicted censorship of spoken words (as well as all literature) and one’s thoughts respectively, making sure that Big Brother’s is omnipresent and no inch of its subject’s world is private.

Which leads me to my first highlight, key to the Party’s control are the two most important forms of learned submissiveness - Newspeak and Doublethink, which are not explicitly mandated by law but are ingrained in society to suppress independent thought. Newspeak eliminates complex language, while Doublethink forces people to accept contradictory beliefs. - these two together led to the abolition of complex thoughts as there were no words left to describe anything nuanced. In practice, there was no law that forbade people from not following these two practices. That is, of course, in theory. These practices were ingrained in one’s mind and the minds of all “comrades” in such a way that due to the fear of betraying the party with these not illegal actions, one would either self report or fear be reported by the people surrounding them to the Thought Police. Fear cocooned as strong feelings of patriotism acted as the glue in the society, which made independent thoughts almost impossible to conceive and, in turn, led to censorship that existed on all levels of a person’s existence.

While fear, one of the very primal feelings that humans have carried through centuries of evolution and has led to our survival, could not be suppressed by the Big Brother and had to be redirected, other feelings such as love, hatred, hunger and lust also had to be taken care of. That was the brilliance of the party, that its success was not by chance but was the result of meticulous and scientific plans crafted specifically to turn humans’ complex needs into simpler goals of pleasing the party, where failure to do so meant a visit to the Ministry of Love.

While the Big Brother was the savior and everything good and right with the world, it needed a villain to cast a clear contrast and solidify its positioning. Coming to our second highlight - This is where Emmanuel Goldstein stepped in, a saving grace for the party to be used as a tool, an “evil” figure on whom the people can direct all their pent up hatred. While it is never confirmed whether this person even exists or not - no one has ever even seen him - so for a person who might not even be real, why is Goldstein hated to this extent? In the 2-minute Hate where people scream and cry and throw objects on a mere screen displaying this potentially-fictional character’s image, is all the hate truly due to the existence of this evil man? More importantly, is it even hatred that is making people act this way? Drawing from the paragraph above this, primal feelings can not be killed and had to be suppressed into submission. The urge to live a life of abundance and freedom, access to satisfying meals, to have a family and a dependable community - all things that the Party intentionally deprives its people of - turned into weapons for the Party to harness as there existed no method to achieve these. Living a life where no one can be trusted, not even your own wife or kids, the food is always just edible and the water just tepid, with absolutely no opportunity to practice self-expression - anger and frustration was bound to be an eruptive emotion. The party can not afford to be hated, and hence, the figure called “Emmanuel Goldstein” was invented to be the absorbent of all the negative emotions.

Whether people hated him because he wasn’t obedient, submissive or a servant to their “common cause” or some suppressed part of their brain loathed him because if he had done done his work well and had succeeded, their lives would have been astronomically different, there is no way of telling. No one can tell the difference between a hate risen out of animosity or one caused by the failure of a legend that was supposed to be your savior.

With everything that the party did to control their subjects, the protagonist’s brain absorbed the party’s propaganda in a much different manner than the rest of the population. While he hated everything that the party stood for, he himself falls into the trap of “loving” the party - even though in a completely deranged way.

Winston forms a bond with O’Brien, an Inner Party member, based on a few fleeting glances that give him the sense they share the same disdain for the party. This sparks a deep trust in O’Brien, who pretends to support Winston and Julia's rebellious ideas, promising a future change—one that won’t offer immediate relief but could improve life for future generations. This hope resonates with Winston, who’s long sought something to believe in, especially coming from someone like O’Brien, with whom he already feels a connection.

Before O’Brien, Winston had only trusted Julia, his love interest, whose rebellious spirit didn’t extend to full political defiance. But O’Brien’s shared views and his potential leadership in the rebellion offer Winston something he’s been desperate for—a genuine ally in his struggle against the party.

When O’Brien leads Watson’s arrest and is the primary officer handling his case, Winston still fails to let go of his fondness of O’Brien and throughout his torture at the hands of O’Brien he still believes that O’Brien is on his side. In this way, O’Brien acts as a personification of the party, who even while being the one having full control over the lever of the torture device, acts as if the entire process is being done for the welfare of the subject and in the end, succeeds in brain-washing Winston.

Other notable highlights:

• Goldstein’s book “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” mentions that there are more than enough resources in the world and the poverty that the society faces is more intentionally planned by the ruling party than a result of any depletion of any sort. A constant state of war is maintained, where even the cause or the final goal is unknown, but this warfare maintains a state of fear and danger, while also dispensing off the resources (or at least justify the lack of them). “By harnessing the hysteria of war and demand for self-sacrifice, each of the nations declare war not on each other but on their own populace, who are kept ignorant, on the brink of starvation, and overworked. Permanent limited war also allows for The Party to divert attention away from domestic concerns and their failures.”

• While scientific advancements are being worked upon to establish complete mind control or mass genocide, anything that can contribute to improving the quality of life of the party’s subject is not allowed. The top priority is always to maintain a state of absolute control.

• Under the party’s rule, the social systems of marriage and family do not exist in the conventional sense. Marriage and childbearing is done as a contribution to the party, while the family in itself does not harbor any sense of warmth or trust. Children are exposed to the regimen from very young ages, where they are more likely to report their own family at even a mere suspicion of a thought crime. Hence, no individual enjoys any sense of safety that a community provides, meaning he lives alone and dies alone, left to find purpose and solidarity only with the Big Brother.

Final note: The success of the Party’s totalitarian regime hinges on two factors: the absence of objective truth and the constant surveillance of every aspect of life, including private thoughts. These practices ensure that the Party’s control is unshakable.

Orwell’s 1984 serves as a powerful warning about the dangers of erasing truth and stifling free expression. It shows that without objective truth and freedom of speech, society can descend into a dystopian nightmare where total control is maintained at all costs. The novel remains an essential read for understanding the importance of preserving these fundamental rights to avoid the dark fate depicted in its pages.