Book 1 Chapter 7: Interpretation of reality

            In chapter seven Winston comes to the conclusion that the part can not be stopped from the within. The thought police is to strong even for the brotherhood itself. The proles are those outside of the party which make up the majority of the population, an 85 percent of the population. Due to the form of government everyone has been tricked in to believing a lie. Everyone believes that the party has increased the literacy rate, reduced the infant mortality rate, and given everyone better food and shelter. All of the latter is false everyone lives in poverty and fear of being falsely incriminated of committing a thought crime. Majority of the population lives by a set of rules that enslave them and make them follow a group which lies to them. This is easily understood by the readers of the book that know that the party has re-written history so that no issues come up, this way everyone is raised to believe a false history. Events such as this occur now a day as well. Maybe not to the same extremity but similar. As the project we have been doing in our english class on communism and socialism along with ingsoc are examples of governments in which the majority of the population is controlled by one person or a small group and put full faith in to their leadership and follow them despite all of the problems that follow later. A prime example of this is Cuba, Cuba is ruled by Raul Castro at the moment who makes all the decisions. Sadly due to the latter Cuba in a bad economical situation where everyone lives in poverty and due to the form in which everyone is raised things do not change. If the population stood all together against the group as Winston believed or individual in this case the people would be able to change and overtake. Even though some people argue that doing that it would leave a population with no leadership which would cause issues and conflicts, I personally believe that it could not be worst than living in poverty and fear with no real freedom. We are all tricked in to believing that the leadership to the country in which you live in makes the best choices for you, but sadly thats not always true, the seek benefits for the country specially for themselves. The people of a country should have a voice and allowed to live freely. Every form of government has negative parts to it, every form of government lies and makes decisions to benefit themselves despite whatever effect it really has on the people who live in that country. Why live and fear and with no freedom when people can stand for themselves and truly be free.

Communism V. Socialism V. Ingsoc

This is the link to my presentation on Communism, Socialism and Ingsoc. Check it out.

http://prezi.com/rgl4syj3fkqh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Character analysis: Tom Parsons vs Winston Smith

Tom Parsons
             Tom Parsons is Winston's neighbor, part of the working class. Mr. Parsons is a "sweaty, fat, pink-faced and fair-haired" person who Winston despises for his non-questioning acceptance of all that he is told to do by the party. Parsons has two kids and a wife of which the two kids are like spies that belong and work for the government in finding those who commit thought crime. Tom is not very smart but if there is one thing he is sure about and believes in fully is in the party claims and its doctrine. Parsons is active in his community groups and is Winston's coworker.

Winston Smith
             Winston Smith is a 39 year old character in the book named after Winston Churchill withe the common last name of Smith. He is very brave and loving character who takes plenty of risk with the party despite the dangers. Winston risk getting caught by the party plenty of occasions: with his "diary" or journal, with his love for Julia and the rent of a junk room above a junk shop to use to spent lovely time with Julia. The latter makes Winston a brave man and full of love taking a risk so great to be able to spend it with Julia. Winston works with the Ministry of Truth and despite his belief in the party at first comes to open his eyes and realize all the lies the party has as a government on it people. His job in the Ministry of Truth is to correct so called "errors" to trick the people into living an enormous lie. There are time when Winston has felt lonely as a cause of the knowledge of reality as expressed in the following: "He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure forever?"

C&C
            Tom Parson is a "foil character" to Winston Smith. A foil character is a character that exhibits opposite or conflicting traits to another character is called a foil. When an author uses a foil, they want to make sure that the reader is picking up on important attributes and characteristics of a main character. In this case Tom Parsons and Winston Smith have several differences but share a common fait as well as certain ambitions. Despite the physical features, Winston is more agile and smarter, he is able to realize and see the reality of what the party is doing while Tom is blind to all of the latter as well as anything in general. Tom belief fully in the party while Winston does not. On the other hand though The both are ambitious to stay on faithful to their beliefs. They share a common fait of incarcerations although for different reasons. In the end both characters share the characteristic of denial. They know that they are at risk of having issues with the party one for his secrets and the other for his kids, but both life a life in denial of a change they maintain their life the way it is which lead them to the incarcerated fait.

Book 1 Chapter 4: Totalitarianism and its reality control

            A process called "rectifying" is used by the Totalitarian government in chapter four. The process of "rectifying" is called so to hide all of the barbaric practices of the government. The government hides, modifies, and adjusts everything before it can may be released to the people. This way the government seems as if it is always correct and never had any issues with the people. Through this the language is deteriorated which Orwell seemed to relate to the decay of moral values. By controlling all of what they read, see and speak the government can control how the people think and how they will respond to the government. Jobs in the process of "rectifying" consisted of eliminating the names and records of those whom have been vaporized, altering poems to make them comply with party ideology, even propaganda as well as the creation of pornography to entertain and distract the lower classes to maintain them unaware that they are victims of oppression. The party does the later to assure that the lower class never becomes aware of how poor and powerless they are; tis way they can prevent the lower class from reacting in any way that may cause further problems for the government. There are many ways in which the government assures that people do not realize they position in comparison to the government such as drinking, gambling, and even fornication. Winston's job in the process of "rectifying" consist of rewriting articles of which in this occasion is about an inner party member whom was vaporized named Comrade Withers. The article spoke greatly of Comrade Withers on his loyalty as a party member, but that was unacceptable because he was executed as an enemy of the party. Therefore Winston made up a name, Comrade Ogilvy, who replaced Comrade Withers. Comrade Ogilvy is an ideal party member who apposes sex, is suspicious of everyone and devotes his live to hunting down thought criminals. Winston realizes though that someone else is covering the same article as him and that his story will be the version that becomes recorded in history. This shows how serious the government takes the process of "rectifying" and how important it is to them. In most marxist governments this is how the government functions. In order to control everything they must make themselves seen as superiors and make the people not see how powerless and poor they are as a result of this form of government. Sadly in todays society not only marxist governments seek to control what media is released or how much knowledge the people have, this occurs in the majority if not all forms of government in most countries if not every single country.

Book 1 Chapter 3: Reality

             Part of this chapter has to do with Winston and his dreams. One of his dreams had to do with a memory of his family. Winston dreams that his mothers dies about twenty years back in a political purge by sinking in a boat. He feels responsible for the disappearance of his mother in a way. In some way that has to do with guilt. Even though he is unsure of what really happened in a way if that is what happened guilt makes someone repeat the mistakes they have done in their own head. Guilt is something so strong that it can tear you down and eat you up. The second dream had to do with a woman whom cause the annihilation of a whole party. This shows that a singular persons actions can and most likely will impact others; no matter how small something done wrong it will always impact others as well. This relates to the second part of the third chapter which has to do with government. As a result of several individuals actions all of society has to pay a price. The government seeks to have control, every government does. In the second part of the chapter as Winston thinks of of countries relationships he comes across the idea of how the records have been changed by the government. He places an example of how records show that stories of Big Brother began in the 1930s but reality is that nobody had heard of the party leader Big Brother before the 1960s. This is a big issues and despite the little knowledge most of society has it is true that the government bends the information that comes out for the public society to know. The government desires power and for them to be able to maintain the power they need to assure that the information that goes out to public society wont cause issues. A prime example of this in todays society is that of scientists. Scientist have to submit their research before publishing it to the government for approval for the publishing. It is claimed that the reason in which scientist have to submit their work to the government is to assure it is correct. Reality is that the government needs to assure that what  goes out for public society does not ruin their reputation and cause issues that the government wont be able to resolve in the future. Society is blinded and are raised in accordance to what the government wants it to believe. The reality is hidden and children are raised to believe a lie and are blinded to the reality. In the end society is merely puppets in which the government controls, do not allow the government to blind you.

Book 1 Chapter 2: The hiding

              In chapter two Winston hears a sudden knock on the door. He becomes anxious because of his writings in the "diary" and opens the door fearfully thinking it was the Thought Police. This brings to mind how humanity is. Every person has a moment when they do something knowing it is wrong and shouldn't be done. As time passes society tends to do worst and worst. Children learn from what they see on a daily basis and when elders do what is wrong specially in from of children they tend to do so when they are older. The latter also relates back to chapter two when Mrs.Parsons kids follow societies obstruct ideas of what makes the world a better place. The government in the book has a monthly public hanging in which the Mrs.Parsons was unable to take the kids making the kids agitated. Every single person has something that they hide from society. As evidence a great example consist in social media; everyone has some sort of social media account. In their social media account they publish personal event  and more for the public to know, but yet there are still passwords to hide what is not put out for the rest of society. As Gleen Greenwald (in a ted talk) said in a to those who believed society should not have a problem with being supervised, "send me your passwords to all your emails, social media and etc. for met to see what you have." Not a single person followed up and sent the email with the latter information. What does that have to prove? Every person has something in which they do not want other to find out. Winston felt the same way, he did not want the Thought Police to fine his "diary". He took precaution to assure if anyone opened it by putting some dust in a corner to know if anyone opened the "diary", similar to society. Every person takes precaution when they hide something to assure that it is not discovered or not attainable by anybody else. Winston knew he was a deadman the moment he wrote of his ideas as clearly stated in the end of the chapter. The reason in which Winston feared was because of the way in which the government acted as a consequence of such actions; he feared he would be considered a political enemy. For those who believe that the government should be allowed to supervise society let me ask you the following. Do you have anything to hide? Are you sure that nothing of what you have will bring you negative consequences? If you truly believe so and your answers are yes, then you are willing to render all to be a puppet of the government.

The only way to prepare for peace is to be prepared for war.

            I agree, to prepare for peace on needs to be prepared for war. Despite the desire of peace, it is impossible for a country to be at peace for an eternity; at some point every country has had several occasion in which peace is but an aspiration. A country that is not prepared for war is a weak country. Reality is that there is always going to be at least one country desiring to control more land and who better than those who are not prepared and are not expecting war to occur. A country that is prepared for war shoes power which therefore creates fear in other countries. When a country fears another rarely will it attack that country. War is inevitable, humanity tends to envy and desire what others have despite whether it is land or just something small. Whether you expect it or not war will occur at some point, why be an open target when you can prepare for war and allow the people in that country to regain peace despite the possibility of it being temporary. This can be related to an even more common saying "always be prepared for the worst." Peace is not eternal what so ever; peace in a country is not determined singularly by war but within its own boarders. Peace can be altered whether it is because of a country declaring war or even the countries own people. The possibilities of a country staying at peace are very small. being prepared for war means not only war against other countries but being prepared to settle any issues within ones own country. This related back to the saying "always be prepared for the worst" because peace can be seized in multiple ways. War can bring peace. One example of a war that brought peace is World War 2. During World War 2 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and America responded with nuclear bombs; after all the chaos and blood shed, Japan and America conserved peace through trade. The latter shows that war can bring peace in many ways. History has a tendency to prove its point, in this case that point is that peace can not be preserved without war or some sort of conflict. Peace is but a momentary object in which a country can hold. Every country has gone through some form of war to obtain peace afterward. The reason why peace is not possible without being prepared for war is due to society itself; society has illogical motivations due to illogical desires. As long as society desires what others have there will always be some sort of conflict whether it is within people, cities, countries or even possibly the whole world. Another example would be the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was a very strong empire that conquered plenty of land. The only way in which the Roman Empire maintained their empire in peace was through their strong army. The Roman empires army maintained peace within its boarders by assuring tranquility between the people and maintained peace out of its boarders due to their strength. The prepared army of the Romans caused fears in others which allowed the stability of peace for the Roman Empire. As stated in the dictionary the definition of peace is "an agreement or treaty between warring or antagonistic nations, groups, etc., to end hostilities and abstain from further fighting or antagonism." Due to the latter definition of peace, what do you say? Do you agree that being prepared for war is the only way to guarantee peace or is peace possible without any for of war?