Dystopian Journal # 1

Topic A: Choose a passage that reveals something important about your society.

"The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen. As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more cooking pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more babies- more of everything except disease, crime, and insanity," (Orwell 52).

The Telescreen
-The telescreens are a video monitor placed on walls all around Oceania, inside of buildings, outside, and pretty much everywhere that party members ever would need to go.
-They both display information and play music, but monitor what happens inside the areas where people are.
-Video cameras are within every telescreen, and big brother can watch the party members at any time.
-This allows the government to control and view every action ever taken by anyone within view of the telescreens.
-Creates a constant awareness in the party members that they could be watched at any moment, and so disables them mentally from doing anything wrong or frowned upon.
-Suppresses the urges and basic instincts of all party members.
The Manipulation of Media
-The moment anything happens in Oceania, all media that is or was ever written contradictory to the event is destroyed, and new media is written immediately after to replace the old.
-The government manipulates all statistics and anything that is told to the public is alterable, and probably untrue in the first place.
-This allows the government to make it appear as if the society is going perfectly well when, in fact, it is not going well at all.
-This puts most people in the party under a mental idea that what is happening now is what has always happened and is the best thing that could happen.
-The government also uses thist power in choosing enemies. For instance, in the beginning of the book, Oceania is at war with Eurasia, and allied with Eastasia and most of the society believes that this is how it has always been. However, Winston recalls a time when they were at war with Eastasia, and allied with Eurasia. The government does such a good job at altering history, that anything that is currently happening is seen as the only thing that matters, and all other history is either erased, or is irrelevant.


Word count~250