Notes on 1984 – Common Module Texts and Human Experiences

Resource Description

LANGUAGE

● Way to express and share ideas and emotions
● A tool of manipulation that can induce a state of unconsciousness and confusion
● A tool for control
● Orwell represents how crucial language is to the human experience
● Can be used to strip individual and collective identities
● Compare and evaluate

● Dialogue our present existence and experiences
● Can be distorted, shaped, reshaped, to satisfy our particular agenda
How did the party manipulate and erase the facts and language of cultural and historical
heritage?
– Through the manipulation of the Ministry of Truth BB was able to control the past,
present and future of human language, thoughts and history.
– The reduction of language through newspeak reduces the ideas that people are exposed
to and limit their expression of thoughts and emotions
– “In the end, the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six
words— in reality, only one word.” – Symm, p60
– BB using language as a form of emotional control
– People are unable to express hatred against the party
– Through the manipulation of language and expression people are unable to think of the
deceptions that big brother might be pulling
“He who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”
Language prevents the individual from transcending the misery of their current condition
by entertaining hopes of a better world:
– Imagination/curiosity and urge to rebel in every human experience
– Language is a tool for control in 1984 and can be used to strip individual and collective
experiences by manipulating people’s minds and limit their thoughts in order to make
sure they have no sense of hope in them and no imagination of a better world, as they
want people to believe that they are living exactly how they should be and there is
nothing else outside of the Party and its agenda.
How does Orwell consider and explore the power of memory and the human experience?
How does Big Brother control collective and individual memory? Looking at Winston, his
dreams and the diary-Where can you find specific evidence of this?
1984 shows us how distorted language, as well as the overpowering authority the Party has,
can be used to strip individual and collective identities, reduce people’s capacity for critical and creative thought and independent reasoning. Big Brother controls the collective and individual memory through acts of brainwashing in telescreens that invade people’s personal lives, 2
Minutes Hate and preventing one from keeping written records of their lives. The Party aims to eliminate freedom of expression, independent thoughts and one’s curiosity of the past.
By reconstructing the past, the party is able to control the present and future. People would
become more emotionless, have confined thinking and subjected to ideas the party induces on
them. They would be unable to experience happiness, unable to compare their memories with
something else.