1984 Journal #3: Topic C

In 1984, Orwell creates a very powerful vision of a society in which the amount of governmental control in the everyday lives of its citizens is overly exaggerated. Orwell uses this powerful exaggeration as a wake up call to demonstrate what can happen if our government obtains too much power, and if we, as citizens, allow them to maintain so much power. While the society of Oceania that Orwell has created conveys a powerful message of warning to the reader, I do not find it to be very believable. Some of the things the government does to control its citizens would be impossible in today's world. For example, one of the main ways the government abuses their complete power is through their manipulation of history. They erase events, make up new ones, and alter others, recording all changes in the history books that only they can write. In today's world, however, there are way too many places we look for historical facts for the government to shut down or destroy every last one of them. I also don't think that the people of our society today would allow for so much government control without rebelling, simply because we have experienced freedom and will never settle for living oppressive lives. The only sort of hope I was able to find in the book is what Winston discovers - that if there is any hope of overthrowing the government, it must come from the proles. In other words, it is up to the common people of a society to come together when they recognize any sort of abuse of power happening in the government and to take action against it before it is too late.