Government Equals Power In George Orwell's '1984'

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Alexander Pavlo Professor Boyd English Comp 111 December 5, 2013 Government Equals Power What would it be like to have no freedom? What would it be like to have no privacy? What would it be like to live in a world that pulls your strings like you are a puppet on a stage and the only thing you can do is go along for the ride? In George Orwell's "1984," this is the life you can expect to live thanks to the power of government to control your life day and night. "1984" is a book about power, hope, and the suffering that goes along with living in a totalitarian government. "1984" is a clear example of how government would be if it had too much power and control. The way Orwell describes this dreary fantasy is something to which…show more content…
One factor that keeps being brought up is the constant war between the three nations: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Eurasia was created when Russia took over all of Europe, Oceania was created when the United States absorbed the British Empire, and Eastasia is made up of the remaining nations. War is simply a fact of life that enables the ruling powers to keep the masses ignorant of life in other places, which gives the real meaning of the phrase, "WAR IS PEACE." "The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed" (Orwell, 256). Having the citizen direct their hate everyday for two minutes at a nation in war, helps keep them distracted and blind to the Party's ability to keep them oppressed. "Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." (Orwell,…show more content…
The torture, and what Winston does to escape it, breaks his last promise to himself and to Julia, never to betray her. The original intent of threatening Winston with the rats was not necessarily to go through with the act, but to force him into betraying the only person he loved and, therefore, breaking his spirit. "Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing" (Orwell, 276). Hope for the reader is finally destroyed when Winston claims to love Big Brother and betrays the only thing he truly loved,
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