1984 blog

I am reading, 1989 by George Orwell. This book is based in a futuristic communist society. The world is at war. Winston's life, and everyone elses life is ruled by Big Brother. Big Brother and the Thought Police are always watching you. They can basically read your mind. When someone is thought to be a traitor by the Thought Police they disappear into the night without any trace of existence. This book shows how important memory and thought is. The Party tries and succeeds at controling people. They do this through memory.

Big Brother and The Party control people using fear and memory. They use fear by having a pair of eyes on you at all times. There are eyes in the television. The thought police can practicaly read your mind. this scares people into not doing anything out of the ordinary. They control using memory to. Winston's job is to take past files and change them. For example, Big Brother predicted that "the South Indian front would remain quiet but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in North Africa. As is happened, the Eurasian Higher Command had launched its offensive in South India and left North Africa alone. It was therefore necessary to rewrite a paragraph of Big Brother's speech, in such a way as to make him predict the thing that had actually happened." This shows how Big Brother controls people with memory. He changes all the documents to prove that he was right so people would still be loyal to him.

With all the control, and everyone being scared, people are afraid to be different. Everyone is the same. No one knows anything about their past. I think that when Big Brother shields the past and changes the past, he is turing everyone the same. The past is what makes you, you. By making everyone's past the same, Big Brother makes everyone the same.