"1984" Citizens Victims of Government Psychological Warfare Analysis

1984 Reveals Methods of Government Psychological Warfare Upon Citizens to Maintain Hierarc.

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1984 Reveals Methods of Government Psychological Warfare Upon Citizens to Maintain Hierarchy System

Within the gray, gloomy civilization of Oceania, where the powerful Party of pure good battles pure evil, silent turmoil flooded within its citizens. The constant power struggle between Winston Smith and Big Brother was tensely ever-present. The novel represents reality’s constant battle of power dynamics between a government and its individual civilians. 1984 stresses the political power’s manipulation of deep psychological warfare upon its citizens as a means of suppressing individual enlightenment.

Children, known for their purity, honesty and energy, were one of the main objectives the Party targeted to inflict psychological warfare upon Oceania’s inhabitants. Families with their tight-knit bonds “could not actually be abolished” (Orwell, mid 133). Parents would continue to love their children, made from their flesh and blood, and vice versa. Before Big Brother, there lived “the ancient time…when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason” (30). However, Winston’s use of the term “ancient” indicated these trustworthy, strong familial ties have diminished to the brink of extinction. The Party saw children as an opportunity to obtain information, loyalty, and corrupt families. Government indoctrinating schools, clubs and organizations “systematically turned [children] against their parents and [were] taught to spy on them and report their deviations” (bot 133). Sons and daughters would listen in on parents’ conversations, pretend to play spies and jokingly accuse adults of rebelling against the Party. If the children heard something, they would say something. This was what led to Mr. Patsons arrest on thoughtcrime charges, the accuser being his own daughter overhearing her father saying in his sleep, “Down with Big Brother!” (mid 233).

Not only were these children an effective government implementation to obtain secretive anti-Party information, but they were a form of fear mongering. After some time, it became “normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children” (bot 24). Parents lived in a psychological torment of fear, not being able to speak honestly and openly with their own offspring. There was an establishment of distrust, not knowing if their children were fully instilled into the Party’s brainwashing program or not. The children, in essence, “had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police” (bot 133). Collapsing the roles of the nuclear family, children were in essence the head of the household. Such a tactic of psychological warfare scared adults into suppression and submission from the children’s overpowering authority and constantly threatening presence.

Aside from turning the family and its associated emotional ties against its members, the political power controlled economic goods as a form of psychological warfare. Tangible necessities such as food, clothing and literature were bound tight under the control of the Party. In the novel, food was the main regulated economic good due to its major thought provoking and memory evoking effects on individuals. Whenever Winston was given real, whole, quality foods, some faint memory was revisited.

When Julia produced real chocolate illegally obtained from the black market, and offered a piece to Winston, “[t]he first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling” (bot 121). The scent of pure cocoa evoked memories tied to it like experiencing déjà vu when staring at a landmark. Later in time, Julia smuggled more quality foods such as fresh bread, tea and coffee grounds. Before the coffee was even brewed, the initial scent was “a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation from his [Winston’s] early childhood…” (top 141). The emphasis on scents alone caused people to reminisce on the past, something extremely frowned upon by the Party. Remembering means practicing keeping records of what was. Considering the Party was notorious for altering history and it is was Winston’s profession, natural food’s scents were eradicated to suppress memories.

Not only scents of foods, but the acts of dispensing or even simply staring at certain foods evoked memories. The Outer Party’s selection of alcoholic beverages was limited to gin, cheap “oily-tasting stuff…” (mid 50). It wasn’t even authentic gin but rather genetically modified substances they called gin, a new form of alcohol that’s never been distributed in “ancient times.” Once Winston secretly met with O’Brien and was offered wine, simply the act of watching the liquid being poured into the glass “aroused in Winston dim memories of something seen long ago on a wall or a hoarding…” (bot 170). The explanation of Winston’s memory continued with the vision of “a vast bottle composed of electric lights which seemed to move up and down and pour its contents into a glass.” Simply the action of pouring wine from a decanter into a glass sparked a remembrance from a life prior to the Party. A memory of color, technology, alcohol that wasn’t distributed by the government and most importantly, the act of training the brain to remember what was.

Winston’s thoughts on wine continued throughout the scene, and he hadn’t even smelled or sipped it yet. However, the wine decanter in front of him simply evoked a multitude of thoughts, hence the reason wine was illegal for the Outer Party. It was revealed “[w]ine was a thing he had read and dreamed about…it belonged to the vanquished, romantic past, the older time he liked to call it in his secret thoughts” (mid 171). The mere presence of wine brought about remembrance, thinking, dreaming, historical reading, romantic emotions and being secretive. These are all elements Big Brother wanted to control considering one of their two main aims was to “extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought” (bot 193).

The Party decided to make economic goods cheaper, of lower quality and harder to come by. Things such as “bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs…a sourish composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes,” along with, “bread dark-colored, tea a rarity, coffee filthy tasting, [and] cigarettes insufficient…” (mid 59). Everything was in lower quality, blander taste and dimmer color as to not induce thoughts or memories. The reason for this tactic was because “an all-around increase in wealth threatened the destruction…of a hierarchical society” (bot 189). Keeping the caste system established with the powerful rich and the weak poor kept the flow of power active, just what the Upper Party wanted and needed to thrive

The last weapon of psychological warfare Big Brother inflicted on its captives was torture. Through brutal pain over extensive periods, the political power messed with a freethinker’s mind to brainwash them. When Winston was held captive in the Ministry of Love they tortured him to the point of completely changing his appearance: missing teeth, severe balding, malnourished limbs, little muscle strength. Winston became aware of “his ugliness, his gracelessness…” (top 273). After demolishing the physical, they placed the blame on the victim, stating, “ ‘No, Winston, you reduce yourself to it. This is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the Party’ ” (mid 273). Brainwashing the tortured into believing the person at fault is themself. The rebel needed to understand his faults and succumb to love for Big Brother. Then and only then “the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself” (298). The torture wasn’t the issue; the political power was doing no wrong. The rebel was because he knew the consequences associated with stepping out of line, but he persisted anyway. Only the rebel was to blame for digging himself into a deeper hole. These reverse psychology tactics caused severe mental trauma for the Outer Party.

Not only did the torture psychologically trick victims into blaming themselves, but it brainwashed civilians into believing they were no better than the Party. Demonstrated in Room 101, the ultimate fear-inducing test was given to break someone entirely. When rats, Winston’s ultimate fear, threatened to burrow into his face, he abused his power to betray Julia and have her endure in his place. As Julia later revealed, “ ‘…they threaten you with something --- something you can’t stand up to…At the time when it happens you do mean it…You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself’ ” (mid 292). The Party tried to justify its own actions by revealing how when it comes time, everyone will sacrifice anyone for their own benefit, no matter what the cost. The abuse of power lies in everyone. No person is different from the political party because they would hurt others just the same.

When evaluating 1984 and seeing Big Brother’s suffocating grip on its citizens, the powerful political party’s methods of psychological warfare are successful in suppressing individual enlightenment. Via controlling and restricting elements, the Party thrives in its powerful spotlight as those kept hidden behind the curtain suffer straining hardships. The Party’s implementation of psychological warfare proves victorious in prolonging the lifespan of the hierarchy.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Penguin/Signet Classics, 1977.