Language Use to Control People in Literacy - Book Report/Review Example

In both Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1986), the power structures use language to control people. In Atwood's story, it is the language of religious scripture appropriated to political purposes. For example, the naming of the new center of power as "Gilead" calls upon a Biblical reference. Beyond this, new language is invented to justify the mechanisms of control. For example, Offred and the other handmaids are divested of their birth names and with that, a large portion of their identities. They are given instead names simply derived from the masters they come to serve; names that will change as their assignments as sexual surrogates change. Another example is the use of the term "salvagings," a political euphemism with religious echoes, to refer to executions of political prisoners. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the political manipulation of language and the manipulation of people through the control of language is far more pervasive. With the advent of Newspeak, the Inner Party sets about defining the limits of reality to suit their own purposes. They seek to systematically eliminate all troubling concepts from the language, for example, by restricting various senses of the word "free." By careful control of the language, the Inner Party of the government hopes to prevent people from questioning Party actions or the officially sanctioned outlook upon events. This includes revisionist history, and is instantiated through a deep form of thought control, brought about principally by the control of language, but enforced ultimately by secret police, disappearances, and torture. In contrast to this absolute despotism, Offred and Winston both use language in ways that reinforce the continuity and individual truth of their own lives. For Winston this begins with keeping a diary, in itself a subversive act. His first effort at individual thought is barely coherent, but becomes progressively better. At first he is able to do little more than denounce Big Brother in a way that is almost as given to slogan as the programming he wishes to overcome. Later, his thoughts become more articulate and organized. He also makes a secret alliance with Julia. For Offred, it's little moments with her own thoughts, such as the moment in the garden when she thinks: "A Tennyson garden, heavy with scent, languid; the return of the word swoon" (Atwood, 153). Here, Atwood hints at words lost from an earlier, more romantic time, words not forcibly ejected, as in Orwell's Newspeak, but currently held in distain; words that express forbidden feelings for those divested of status and power. It's also those moments when she is able to communicate with others in the "mayday" alliance against the new established order. This requires codes and secrecy and facing the risk of deportation to a chemical waste-dump colony or even immediate execution. Orwell and Atwood both raise interesting issues about language, especially the extent to which language may be bent into service as a tool of political control. Orwell perhaps goes furthest in raising metaphysical and epistemological questions about the relationship of language to reality. In the debates that ensue toward the end, between Winston and O'Brien, Winston expresses the view of English analytic and empirical philosophy, that language should be used in an honest effort to apprehend and communicate our experience of reality; that statements may be proven false by evidence, even when those statements issue from one in power. O'Brien counters with the magical and solipsistic view that language shapes reality and those in control of the language are thereby in control of not only life, but the very nature of what is real. O'Brien's megalomania provides one line of insight into how deeply the power structures are invested and concerned with how the people speak. The reigning belief in these novels, particularly in Nineteen Eighty-four, is that careful control of language is the necessary precursor, or perhaps even synonymous with, the control of thought. With the perfect control of thought, control of behavior is a given. One issue with language this raises is the extent to which such control and manipulation are possible. More significantly, perhaps, it raises the issue of whether such manipulation is already present in the world we know. It may be more illustrative to read these stories as dark parodies of the cultures we can see in the world around us, rather than as apocalyptic predictions. For example, to what extent does the neo-Victorian subjugation of women found in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, accurately reflect prevailing trends in contemporary societies, particularly those in which religion and politics are intertwined; i.e., all of them Certain aspects of resemblance are uncanny. Another issue with language that is raised: the vital importance of the way people use language to form bonds within their own groups, often in opposition to the dominant culture. As Atwood puts it: "This is something you can depend upon: there will always be alliances, of one kind or another" (Atwood, 129). Note the way Offred and Moira are afraid to openly rekindle their friendship in some of the early passages of Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. When Moira arrives to live at the gymnasium and be trained as a handmaid, they must whisper to each other on their walk, when they happen to be paired together. "This is a loony bin," Moira said. "I'm so glad to see you," I said. "Where can we talk" said Moira. "Washroom," I said. "Watch the clock. End stall, two-thirty." That was all we said. (Atwood, 71) This surreptitious plotting seems to set a tone for the piece. All of the real communication between friends is fleeting, furtive, and carried out under threat and duress. In even earlier passages, we see Offred, without her friend, disaffected from her situation and surroundings. "The door of the room - not my room, I refuse to say my - is not locked" (Atwood, 8). Perhaps she no longer views herself as someone who possesses things, or perhaps this reaction has more to do with her somewhat prison-like environment. Either way, she seems dispossessed and devoid of any sense of having (a personal identity, or anything at all to call her own.) This dispossession is lessoned when her friend arrives, but not completely alleviated. It is interesting that Offred finds it possible to think of her room as "my room" after she goes to live in the Commander's household. Even though she must fulfill a closely regimented role as a sexual surrogate, s nonetheless finds small ways to make herself at home in this new environment. Her capacity for this new identification seems to arise, at least in part, from her discovery of a message scratched into the base of the bureau in her room. The previous occupant has left behind an obscure inscription in schoolboy Latin: "Nolite te bastardes carborandorum" (don't let the bastards grind you down.) This bit of code represents one of several subversive uses of language that provide a tiny haven for the narrator. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston's journey progresses from repetitions of "Down with Big Brother" scrawled in his diary, to subversive conversations with his illicit lover in remote places where they feel safe from the Party's microphones. He also begins to search after traces of history, real history, uncorrupted by the manufactured data from the "Ministry of Truth." Winston interviews a commoner in a bar on one occasion, hoping that the old man will be able to shed light on how things really were in the past. Unfortunately, the man does not possess the intellectual wherewithal to speak on a theoretical or broadly comparative level. Winston rents a room above the old shop where he first purchased the diary, and he and Julia begin to have their secret love affair within. This place provides a solace and safe-haven, away from the spying telescreens (or so they think.) Even though the accommodations are less than lavish, this room provides the comfort of being with each other, and a greater opportunity to speak their minds freely. Winston tries to interest Julia in the past, in unraveling the nature of the untampered past, but it holds little interest for her. Her own rebellion is more a thing of the moment: so long as she gets away with doing her own thing, she can dispense with seeking any greater understanding. For Winston, this is not enough. His principle subversive use of language is the effort at reconstructing the largest picture he can manage to develop of something like an accurate past. Even the fragments of a child's nursery rhyme sustain his interest. Again, language is here used as a tool in questing for a truth that is outside the Party's control. In one memorable encounter after Winston and Julia are both captured, Winston argues with O'Brien that "truth is not statistical." This echoes Thoreau's statement in Civil Disobedience that "a man who is more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one." O'Brien, of course, is not convinced; arguing instead that reality can be defined by a forced agreement to spurious facts. By the implementation of pain and tremendous cunning, O'Brien eventually brings Winston around to the same warped point of view. Under duress, Winston learns to suppress and retrain his thinking to accept anything handed to him by authority, no matter how non-sensical. The overall tone of both novels is dystopic and overwhelming. Both protagonists face seemingly insurmountable odds in their quests for freedom and autonomy. In this cause, they are united. Both find the means toward liberation in memory and language, and in using language in a way that preserves their own sense of reality and individual identity. In both cases, they fight against unreason and totalitarianism. In both cases, the powers that be find these private and subversive uses of language unacceptable. The depth of unreason goes further in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The special oppression of women goes further in The Handmaid's Tale. The exacting control of speech, language, written and televised communications and ultimately, thought itself, as a special tool of political oppression, perhaps enjoys the fullest treatment ever in Nineteen Eighty-Four. As psychologist Erich Fromm points out in an afterword to the 1977 edition, we should be willing to apply the lessons learned to our own societies, and not to only the most extreme and obvious historical cases of political despotism. References Atwood, M. (1986). The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Random House, Inc. Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Read More