language distortion in 1984
...s. I think that the goal of Newspeak is to remove words that describe a particular thought from a language, so that that thought would be extremely difficult to think of and communicate. When you take words from a vocabulary, you take away the ability to think. Newspeak has the ability to make people’s range of thought much narrower, and also shorten people’s memories. In a totalitarian government, the civilians are needed to be passive and not have much independent thought. If the civilians cannot vividly think they are not as much of a threat as those civilians that can criticize the government. These people cannot even protect themselves from harm if they cannot think. Memory is also affected in this word cut down. People cannot remember what happened when they spoke in Oldspeak, when they have to replay it in Newspeak. If you do not have words to describe things then it is much harder to use your imagination. If you do not talk about your memories then you start to forget about them. Someone might wonder why the people in 1984 did not really object to the new language that Big Brother was trying to get them to accept. I think that if Big Brother had actually enforced the new language that the people would not have accepted it as well. In order for the people to communicate with each other and the government, they have to be on the same page as everyone else. Orwell tells a story of the totalitarian government gone to the extremes. I believe that this novel is one that is more about being psychologically controlled more than being physically controlled. Newspeak is a very creative way to control people’s minds through their language. The people who truly use Newspeak correctly are the people that are controlled by the Party, such as the media. I think that the Party wants to cover up the truth, and the only way to do so is by making the media send distorted messages. The telescreens are a good example of this. Whenever there is “good news” the people all cheer, and when there is “bad news” the people all rant and rage. The media is always talking about all of the Ministries, but what actually goes on in these Ministries is totally opposite from what they are called. I do not really understand how people can just believe everything that they hear. If I were living in Orwell’s book, I think that I would probably be a lot like Julia who just likes to live for the moment and let things be as they are. The thought police would definitely get me in trouble for doublethink. I would just act as if I went a...