The Use Of Literary Devices And Other Techniques In Orwell's "1984"

The horrendousness of the truth is often masked by the distortion of the reality that is present in truth. The purpose behind George Orwell’s 1984 was to expose this truth of the world in a manner that would not take away from what was plainly real. Orwell exemplified his hatred for dictatorship in his work, which stemmed from the rise of leaders like Adolf Hitler. Being alive during this time, Orwell saw his window of opportunity to express his distaste for the prevalent form of government that he felt was negatively affecting the people in the nation. The timeline plays an important role due to the fact that Hitler came to power in 1933. In response, Orwell’s 1984 came out in 1949. Orwell presents the idea that totalitarianism is a prevalent threat to society and would lead to nothing but the empty-mindedness of the people under the control of the silencing form of leadership. In George Orwell’s 1984, he analyzes that the dangers of totalitarianism pose a threat to society through his use of literary devices.

George Orwell used a lot of repetitions in his book 1984 he does this to entertain the reader and make us think more about why he wrote this book. Repetition is an action of repeating something that has already been said or written. An example would be “War is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is a strength” (Orwell 169). Winston always continues to say this in the book and the words always come back to him. These words are a slogan to the party to promote double thinking. The purpose of repetition is to show how they are brainwashing everyone by saying and always having these words in posters and TV’s which is how totalitarianism works because it is controlling the people. The meaning of them is basically that the government can change their emotions all the time according to how they want the people to feel and they all must follow because its Big Brother and he rules Airstrip 1. It’s also used to make the people feel as constant war is peace and they shouldn’t worry about it. Another phrase he repeated was “Who controls the past controls the future who controls the future controls the past” (Orwell 200). This means that what big brother wants is a single political party that rules everything and that he knows that everything is bad but wants people to think that it's okay living a bad life because everyone is. He’s already accomplished this but he’s trying to stop all the people who know what type of government is wrong and wants to brainwash them into thinking that a totalitarianism government is correct, like O’Brian did to Winston and Julia and after letting them free since now they loved big brother because they got brainwashed.

George Orwell also showed us irony in his book, 1984. Irony means the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. This was when he said “Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life, he has possessed- AFTER the event: that was what counted-concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification” (Orwell 95-96). The irony in this is how Big Brother says everything that he had changed everyone believes it all, but the reality is that he just lying to them all straight to their faces, but no one can do anything about it because he has the power and the members in his party like O’Brian. Also, he even admits that the lie became the truth and that the truth isn’t even existent anymore. This also symbolizes how big brother gets every truthful and normal thing in the world and completely changes it to his own and acts like its all true like “4+4=5” (Orwell 120). Which shows how totalitarian affects the community and to show the reader how if they live in this world this could happen to them. Also, how easy the government can complete lie straight to our faces and brainwash us into thinking what they want us to think by posting it multiple times.

George Orwell shows the reader how Winston foreshadows in the book. Foreshadowing means be a warning or indication of (a future event). Orwell does show the reader when Winston says “From over scrubby cheekbones eyes looked into Winston’s, sometimes with a strange intensity, and flashed away again. The convoy was drawing to an end” (Orwell 146). In this scene Winston sees the prisoners staring at him and from the glares he gets this assumption he foreshadows that has probably going to end up in the prison with the prisoners if he keeps on risking himself by continuing having a sexual relationship and having an affair with Julia. This shows how having a totalitarian government affects not only him but everyone since he received so many glares, so he had this assumption about his further. That means that there were many prisoners there so he wasn’t the only one committing thoughtcrime and many other rules they shouldn’t be allowed to break like writing a diary or turning off your tv.

Lastly, this book shows us that this will be our future if we decided and let happen to a totalitarian government. Some of the things that happen in this book are already happening now, so we show all encourage people to read this, so they know the dangers of this. An example of how what is happening in the book in slowly becoming the reality is how over a million of Muslims are being held in concentration camps in chins and how there being tortured, raped, brainwash, forced to drink acholic beverages, eat pig, lose their religion, and many other horrible things. This relates to 1984 by how they also being brainwashed. I believe that this book was written to show us the dangers of totalitarian government. The way Orwell got affected by this was from many different ways too like him going to war and getting shot twice and still surviving to notice the rise of dictatorship leaders. Finally, Orwell also believes that totalitarianism does threat society even though it doesn’t happen quickly, but it still happens.