English Language and Thought in Orwells 1984 - Essay Example

Private loyalties are cut because it is one of the best ways to ensure loyalty to the state. In connection to the loss of privacy, the Party can make it easy to undermine their enemy by connecting rebellion to the idea of perpetual war. The Party calls it a distant war that happens all the time to stress that the war has no essence and direction. By focusing on the individual and the perpetual timeframe of war, the Party shows the people that it is senseless to support a war that has no specific meaning and outcomes.

1984 further notes that doublespeak propaganda slogans such as “War are Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength” is meant to clutter the language and make it less effective in attaining its impact of changing people’s mindsets and behaviors. In “Politics and the English Language,” Orwell argues that the fall of the English language roots in economic and political causes, and not literary causes (1). He shows that people use vague and imprecise language to deceive people.

In 1984, doublespeak propaganda is meant to deceive people. . .” (Orwell “Politics” 3) because they do not stand for anything clear and specific. He adds the example of “democracy,” which is automatically seen as something positive when its usage has potentially misleading purposes (Orwell “Politics” 4). The same goes for doublespeak- they sound nice and rebellious, but they are vague enough to be unreliable and meaningless. Doublespeak propaganda is propaganda, the propaganda of using language to lie to people and to shape their minds into thinking that these lies are truths.

“The Two-Minute Hate” broadcast and its reliance on images of Goldstein and foreign-looking individuals running around with guns have something to do with language manipulation once more. Politicians manipulate language for their selfish purposes, and not for the good of the people. “The Two-Minute Hate” encourages people to see Goldstein in a bad light, bad enough to be hated. It is an example of subverting language by using images and words that pollute people’s capacity to think about what is being said to them.

“The Two-Minute Hate” helps the Party condition the minds of the people by controlling their emotions. The Party knows the right language to use to evoke the right emotions, which can lead to better control of their thoughts and actions. As for the idea of the all-knowing Big Brother (government) and a total lack of privacy in a technologically advanced society, the government does Newspeak, Doublespeak, and Thoughtcrimes to decrease people’s thinking practic es and content. Newspeak decreases people’s thinking processes. Syme says: “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?