The Party in 1984 Essay

The Party

1984 is a novel published in 1949 which talks about an imaginary future and displays an absolute force called The Party. The Party controls every aspect of peoples life and their thoughts by putting them under surveillance through telescreens 24 hours a day. The Party controls reality by manipulating the thoughts and words of its citizens and also by manipulating texts from the past that dont match with the present. The leader of this Party is Big Brother who is regarded as divine and sacred and worshiped by the citizens rather than God himself. This absolute force would do anything such as violating any kind of human right to gain total control.

The Party is psychologically manipulating peoples minds. They believe and accept whatever the party announces even if it contradicts with something simple and basic which they already know. The Party members live in a dark and unfair world because they have no control over their minds and notions. They live in a world where they are manipulated and obliged to accept everything stated by the deceptive, untruthful Party. Everything produced by the party is a lie. Apparently the only person aware of this is Winston, the protagonist of this novel who rebels against the party because he is unhappy with the way it functions ,and that is why he says, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows. This quotation proves to us how dominant the party is over its members. If they said that two plus two equals five, it would be accepted without question and anybody who argues about it would be immediately vaporized. This leads us to the fear a vaporization because it plays a big role on why people chose to believe in what the party says even if it contradicts with something they already know. Like Winston, for example, he is aware that he committed thought crime by writing DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER on his diary which would cause him to be vaporized. He is terrified and the only question he is asking is how long it would take them to come and vaporize him. Still, psychologically manipulating the members is the fundamental success to the absolute power the Party has.

Psychologically manipulating the members was not the only way they obtained their absolute power. The Party also manipulated the past by modifying any proof that shows fraud and dishonesty in the Party. Winston works at Records department in the Ministry of Truth where they recreate the past. Winston was ordered to rewrite a misreported speech by Big Brother in which he addressed to the FFCC, an organization which no more exists. Winston created a fake and completely new character, Comrade Ogilvy, to replace the FFCC. Ogilvy was supposed to serve as a hero from the past despite the fact that he never existed. Yet as soon as the Party would release this speech about Comrade Ogilvy, he would become a famous hero from the past and just like Winston said he would become a historic figure just as real and upon the same evidence as Julius Caesar or Charlemagne. This is ironic because The Ministry of Truth is composed of lies and fables; it has no truth to it. Its more like The Ministry Of Lies than truth. Truth is a noun which means undisputable facts while all the facts announced by the Party are disputable and false. The Party itself is a lie it messes up with innocent peoples minds. Winston is disturbed by the fact that the Party can change the past into events that never happened.

The Party slogans state that who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. This would make no sense to a human being with a functioning mind but it would make sense to the Party because its how they work. By controlling the past they can control the future because they can edit events that occurred in the past which would change the future. By controlling the present, they can control the past because they have absolute power and during the present they can control events that occurred in the past which dont match with the present. In other words the control of the past guarantees the control of the future because the past encourages future aims. For example if the past was horrible then the people would do something to change it and if it was good then they would do something to keep it good. The present can control the past because the Party had supreme power during the present which allows them to change facts and the way people understand the past.

Throughout this novel, The Party used its own ways and techniques to change the past and psychologically manipulate its members leading to reality control. This proves to us that reality can be controlled if we can control the minds. The reason why the Party had the ability to control the present by controlling the past was because it had absolute power. This power enabled them to change the past as much as they want to the degree where they invented fake characters and still, they stood among the historic figures as true and solid as any one of them. Both of these techniques gave them their supreme power to achieve all their aims without difficulties.