Assignment 2 : The Imprisonment of Individual Freedom in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four' : 22400 Paper 107 : The Twentieth Century Literature : From World War II to the End of the Century
Introduction : George Orwell's famous political dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four' has been the magnum opus of his works. It was written in 1948 and published in 1949. The novel links the bridge between the rulers and people being ruled, here it would be polite to use the government and people being governed. How the dictatorship comes into existence and what the factors are which entail such kleptocracy. In the novel, emphasis is given on the imprisonment of the individual freedom by repressing the voice of people, especially those who are little aware of the autocratic dynamics going on in their country. 85 percent are proletariat, who even do not know by whom they are being ruled, 13 percent are government officials who know everything about corruption but are unable to speak even a single word against it, if they try to do so, as the protagonist Winston Smith once attempted, then they will be taken to 101 room where horrific and lacerating punishments are given.
The Newspeak Dictionary : I have taken ‘Appendix’ of ‘The Principles of Newspeak Dictionary' which makes the way clear to understand the purpose of Newspeak Dictionary which is to curtail the speech of people by “destructing" or removing certain bitter words which can be used to make a fine critique of any of government’s policies which people do not cherish.
》Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in The Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here.
》The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of ' politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
》Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words, would be barely intelligible to an English-speaker of our own day. Newspeak words were divided into three distinct classes, known as the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary (also called compound words), and the C vocabulary. It will be simpler to discuss each class separately, but the grammatical peculiarities of the language can be dealt with in the section devoted to the A vocabulary, since the same rules held good for all three categories.
The Four Ministries : The Ingsoc government of Oceania runs four statutory bodies which are allotted different tasks. These are the four ministries :
The Ministry names and functions are as follows: The Ministry of Truth, which regulates all forms of media, entertainment, and arts; the Ministry of Peace, which presides over all aspects of war; the Ministry of Love, which is a form of judicial system; and the Ministry of Plenty, which governs economic affairs.
(1) Ministry of Love : The Ministry of Love gives the mental image of a place where positivity and love are prominent, but that is not the case. The Ministry of Love, referred to as "Miniluv" in the Party's language Newspeak, is ironically the ministry responsible for torture and fear tactics. If someone acts against Big Brother or the Party, like Winston does in the novel, they are tortured back into submitting to the totalitarian government again. The Thought Police, which are secret police that punish people for thinking negative thoughts about the Party, are located in this ministry. The infamous "Room 101" is located here as well. This is a torture room that makes the person's worst fear come true. Winston is brought here near the end of the novel by O'Brien because he has resisted all other torture tactics before this. O'Brien is Winston's coworker who tricked Winston into believing that he was against the Party also. Since Winston's biggest fear is rats, O'Brien makes a contraption that locks a cage full of rats over Winston's head so that they can eat away at him. This is the tactic that finally gets Winston to cave.
(2) Ministry of Plenty : The Ministry of Plenty, or "Miniplenty" in Newspeak, is the ministry responsible for the economy. With "plenty" in the name, one would expect that the government has lots of money and food to supply to their citizens. Unfortunately, however, they have the exact opposite. To fit with the overall irony of the Party, the ministry actually oversees the rationing of foods and other goods, and it is responsible for keeping everyone in poverty and scarcity. The idea is that poor, ignorant citizens are easier to govern and take advantage of than wealthy, educated ones. The Ministry of Plenty also runs the state lottery, convincing the proles to spend all of their money on tickets, even though the money is never actually paid out. Since the proles are the poorest members of Oceania, they are the easiest targets of this governmental scam. The ministry is given this name for a reason, though. The name "Ministry of Plenty" communicates that Oceania is in a constant state of prosperity. This makes the citizens feel that they should be thankful for what the Party does for them.
(3) Ministry of Truth : The Ministry of Truth, also known as "Minitrue," is the ministry that the reader learns the most about, because this is where Winston Smith works. The Ministry of Truth is ironically responsible for propaganda and rewriting history, and is thus really focused on lying to the people. This ministry is also the one that creates and spreads Newspeak to the people. In doing so, they actually create a world where their name makes sense, because Newspeak defines "truth" as whatever the situation calls for. This means that, depending on the day, 2 + 2 could equal 5.
Winston's entire job is taking pieces of writing, such as articles, from the past and rewriting them to fit the Party's current ideas. This means that Big Brother is always right, and the Party can never do any wrong. One of the most common ideas that is changed is the enemy of Oceania; sometimes it is Eastasia, sometimes it is Eurasia, but it has never changed from one to the other according to the records. Any records that suggest the opposite of the message that the Party is currently trying to promote are put down "memory holes" and promptly destroyed.
There are many departments in the Ministry of Truth that deal with different topics, but the three that are mentioned in the novel are:
• the Records department (where Winston works)
• the Tele-Programmes department
• the Fiction department
The pornography section is also mentioned, but this section only produces materials that are consumed by the proles.
(4) Ministry of Peace : The fourth ministry is the Ministry of Peace, or "Minipax." While this may sound like a nice and peaceful place like the Ministry of Love sounds, it is actually the ministry responsible for all activities related to war. War is extremely important in Oceania, and it is always against one of the other nations: Eurasia or Eastasia. While it may seem odd that war would be so important to them, it is this way because constant war keeps the country poor and resources scarce. As discussed earlier, the poorer the people in Oceania are, the easier they are to control.
Conclusion : The psychological entrapment of the people even in real world is one of the signs of propagandist government. People are lulled into believing whatsoever being thrown to them; generally, the harangues are prepared in a way which can cause people to feel euphoria and have subjects that the listener mass like to listen to. This way the propagandist government succeeds to rule over the mindless mass rather than governing them with expected forthrightness.
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