1984 warns us of control and manipulation strategies today.
In 1984, George Orwell presented a chilling depiction of a society under the absolute control of a totalitarian regime.
Each line and narration resonates with profound insights into the nature of power, control, and the human condition.
1984 Control Theme Analysis
The theme of control is prominently explored in George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” where it manifests in various forms:
Psychological Control: As the predominant theme, the novel highlights how the totalitarian government, represented by The Party, exerts psychological control to maintain authority over its citizens.
They apply this control to prevent any possibilities of revolution or rebellion, controlling the minds and thoughts of the populace.
Control through Language and Communication: The Party uses language as a powerful tool to shape the thoughts and behaviors of its citizens. They manipulate words and phrases to limit thought and suppress rebellion.
Control of Past, Present, and Future: The Party’s motto, “Those who control the past, control the future: who controls the present controls the past,” showcases another facet of their strategy.
They control the past by altering and manipulating historical records and ultimately control the present and the future. In the novel, Winston Smith is explicitly employed to rewrite and falsify past records.
Control through Power: The Party secures its control by promoting loyalty and rewarding those who display it. The narrative shows that power is rewarded to those loyal to The Party, further promoting their ideologies.
Control through Technology and Modernization: The novel vividly depicts how the Party leverages advanced technology to monitor and control citizens.
Surveillance tools like telescreens watch the populace, keeping them under control constantly.
Control of Memory: In “1984, ” memory is considered a threat because it enables individuals to compare the present with the past.
Hence, The Party goes to great lengths to control collective and individual memory. Any person who breaches their laws is completely erased from all records and people’s memory, effectively rewriting history to fit their narrative.
The in-depth analysis of Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” reveals that control, whether psychological, through language, power, technology, or memory, is a critical device for The Party to rule unopposed in a totalitarian regime.
By controlling all these facets of society, The Party wields power over the present, the past, and the future, creating an atmosphere of omnipresence, fear, and obedience.
1984 Control Quotes
“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.”
~George Orwell, 1984, A Poster of Big Brother with eyes that follow you, Part One, Chapter 1, Page 2
“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guess work. It was conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement was scrutinized.”
~George Orwell, 1984, (The Narrator), Part One, Chapter 1, Page 3
“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The three slogans of the party, Part One, Chapter 1, Page 4
“Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Control, Part One, Chapter 2, Page 24
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts, Part Three, Chapter 4, Page 277
‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” repeated Winston obediently.
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 248
“Who controls the present controls the past,” said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien, Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 248
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 34
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Winston, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 35
“Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Syme, Part One, Chapter 5, Page 53
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
~George Orwell, 1984, Winston Smith, Part One, Chapter 7, Page 80
“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Winston Smith, Part One. Chapter 7, Page 81
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts, Part One, Chapter 7, Page 81
“May I see your papers, comrad?”
~George Orwell, 1984, The patrols, Part One, Chapter 8, Page 83
“If you kept the small rules you could break the big ones.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Julia to Winston, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 129
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
~ George Orwell, 1984, Winston Smith, Part Two, Chapter 5, Page 155
“In a way, the world−view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator, Part Two, Chapter 5, Page 156
“Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Winston to Julia, Part Two. Chapter 7, Page 166
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 191
“The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 207
“It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same–everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another’s existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same–people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator about Winston’s thoughts, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 220
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien and Winston Smith, Pages 250-251
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien to Winston, Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 253
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien to Winston, Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 266
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien to Winston, Part Three, Chapter 3, Page 267
1984 Quotes About Controlling the Past
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
~George Orwell, 1984, The Narrator, Part Three, Chapter 4, Page 277
‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” repeated Winston obediently.
~George Orwell, 1984, (Winston), Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 248
“Who controls the present controls the past,” said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’
~George Orwell, 1984, O’Brien, Part Three, Chapter 2, Page 248
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
~George Orwell, 1984, Winston’s Thoughts, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 34
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”
~George Orwell, 1984, Winston, Part One, Chapter 7, Page 80
How does 1984 show control?
In George Orwell’s 1984, control is exerted through psychological manipulation, fear, and technology. Psychological control is portrayed through the vagueness and flexibility of laws such as Thought Crimes, Double Think, and own life, inducing uncertainty and fear among citizens.
Technology, represented by omnipresent telescreens, serves as a powerful surveillance tool, provoking paranoia and contributing heavily to the atmosphere of absolute control.
What are examples of control in 1984?
In George Orwell’s “1984,” examples of control include manipulating the economy by controlling all products, instilling fear through the threat of death or ‘vaporization,’ and using ubiquitous telescreens as surveillance devices.
Another significant example is the government’s crafting of vague and ever-changeable laws — such as those against ‘thoughtcrime,’ ‘doublethink,’ and ‘ownlife’ — which contributed to a pervasive sense of paranoia and self-censorship among the populace.