1984 Reading Journal #1

In the book 1984, the people that are in charge of the government, who, in reality, are in charge of everyone living in this "utopia", have done many major things to create a society in which everyone does what they want them to do. Led by Big Brother, the Party monitors everything that everyone does, whether it's having a simple conversation or eating lunch, through the monitors and the Thought Police. The people have been taught that the Party is right, always has been right, and always will be right. If someone disagreed with this, they would easily get rid of them in the middle of the night by some means, and they would never be seen again. This is how they created "equality". The equal people were the ones that obeyed the laws and regulations that they were given, and whoever broke these were the "unequal" people and, as I said before, they were dealt with. To be more specific, in the story, everyone was supposed to call each other "comrade" instead of "friend" or something of that sort, so that everyone is treated equally. To reduce conflict dealing with religion, relationships, and individual rights, the Party has erased anything in the past that they do not want their people to know, and even altered it to make it seem like the Party is better than it really is. They use methods like doublethink to confuse the people and make them think exactly what they want them to think, even if it isn't true. The Party has created "hapiness" of the people by making everything seem perfect. The government has special workers, like Winston, who work for a living on altering the media so that everything that Big Brother does or says seems correct. If the people think they are living in a perfect society, they will be happy and not question it. Through these methods and the things that the Party does to get into the minds of the people and make them believe whatever they want them to believe, I think that the society in 1984 is definitely a distopia.