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... ending well back... being able to remain outside the range of the tele screen" trying to avoid being seen writing in the diary even though "nothing was illegal since there were no longer any laws." Winston thinks about how dangerous it is to allow your thoughts to wander when you are in public or facing the tele screen. Your facial expressions are watched closely and the wrong expression can have dire consequences. For example, looking disbelieving when a victory is announced would be face crime. This proves that even though an act is not illegal, people are scared of acting with their own inner instincts and committing a crime that "would be punished by death or at least by 25 years in a forced-labor camp" (p. 9).
They resort to acting the way they believe the government wants them to in order to Salazar 5 comply with it. One can't forget the intimidating voice running over and over in their heads: "'BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU'. It is hear that language is of central importance to the citizen's thought because it structures and limits the ideas that each individual is capable of formulating and expressing. If controlling the language was centralized in a political agency for instance, the party could possibly alter the very structure of language to make it impossible to even conceive of disobedient or rebellious thoughts and actions, because there would be no words with which to think them. This happens when Winston embarks in a day dream and to his return he finds written all over his diary, "'DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER'. By "automatic action" Winston had been writing it (p. 19).
This proves how each individual has been physically and psychologically manipulated. As Winston is grasping at freedom, it illustrates the terrifying extent to which citizens are not in control of their own minds and actions. Even greater is Winston's fear when Mr. Parson come to knock at his door, he is terrified and assumes that the Thought Police have arrived to arrest him for writing in the diary. Furthermore, "The Party" uses children to keep tabs on their parents. In Mrs.
Parson's apartment, Winston is tormented by the fervent Parsons children, who, being Junior Spies, accuse him of thought crime. Through the "Spies", children are trained to be devoted Party followers. The children are ferocious towards thought criminals and most adults over the age of thirty are afraid of their own children. Children are encouraged to eavesdrop. 'Your worst enemy, he reflected, [is] your own nervous Salazar 6 system. At any moment, the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom. ' (p. 64).
Stalin's Russian society behaved in the same way. Every element of society was under control of the state. Many of Stalin's personal tastes became the law. The people of Russia had to read what the state allowed, see what the state allowed and listen to what the state allowed. The state's control of the media was total.
Those who attempted to listen and / or read etc. anything else were severely punished. Everybody knew of the labor camps (alike the ones in 1984) and that was enough of a deterrent. Stalin developed what became known as a 'personality cult'. Artists painted pictures glorifying Stalin and he dominated many pictures. It was not unusual for Stalin to be in a white suit so that he stood out from the crowd.
He gained the nickname 'Uncle Joe' which was an attempt to develop an image of a kind, homely man who was the 'father' of all Russians. This was all called 'Social Realism'. Those who wrote poems and novels had to do the same - write about Stalin in a manner which glorified him. Some artists and authors were so depressed by all this that they committed suicide rather than do what the state ordered them to do. Many others tried to leave the country. However, Stalin's threat of punishment and torture caused panic and fear in the lives of the Russian society.
They were literary physically handicap and subject to the "pup-petering" of the regime. (Soviet History: Culture and Society - website) Thousands of people merely suspected of opposing Stalin's regime were killed or imprisoned. Any one who "acted or spoke distinctively" to the regime was never seen again. Stalin is said to have personally signed 40, 000 death warrants of suspected Salazar 7 opponents of the regime. During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture, and imprisonment or execution without trial of anyone suspected by the secret police of opposing Stalin's regime became commonplace. Thousands of people merely suspected of opposing Stalin's regime were killed or imprisoned. Stalin is said to have personally signed 40, 000 death warrants of suspected opponents of the regime.
During this period, the practice of mass arrest, torture, and imprisonment or execution without trial of anyone suspected by the secret police of opposing Stalin's regime became commonplace just as "vaporization" took place in 1984 (Jeffrey p 225 - 230). Therefore, Big Brother's regime and Stalin's regime are similar. In each scenario, each party implements a psychological and physical manipulation over society through the control of information and language with the help of technology. George Orwell's 1984 psychologically and physically manipulate society through the controlling of language and information. The Party controls all the activities and all the information reaching the people. Through the use of the telescreen's they are able to "spy" on people and get inside their minds in order to see what they are doing, acting, and thinking, and manipulate them.
In Stalin's regime, the use of "posters", newspapers, and spies force society to act and behave a certain way. The posters convey a sense of trust while the news paper serves as a source of a manipulative acceptance to the regimes actions. It is important to remember that in each case, the use of language plays a key ingredient in being able to convince and manipulate the way people act, think, and execute. Salazar 8 Works Cited Based Brian.
Soviet History. Brooks, Jeffrey. Thank You Comrade Stalin! Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey, 2000 Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classics, New York, New York.
July 1950 Russia Under Stalin. May 2002.
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