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Language and Power in 1984 Exemplar Essay
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An exemplar essay on George Orwell's 1984 exploring how composers use language to convey the complexities and dangers inherent in the human experience.
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1984 Human ExperienceComposers use language to convey the complexities and dangers inherent in the human
experience. Through 1984, George Orwell describes the role of language in controlling and
subverting individuals into collective conformity and prevent freedom of thought. In doing so
Orwell also elucidates his own political context and worldview.
1984 explores the relationship between nuanced language and truth, describing how these two
aspects of the Human Experience are powerfully connnected. Orwell also gives insight into the
way language can be used as a weapon of totalitarian regimes to enforce conformity and limit
individual expression. By highlighting these dangers inherent in the control of language, Orwell
also elucidates his own political context and worldview.
These concepts of language, power and politics can be further explored below.
Orwell uses 1984 to describe truth and logic as inextricable elements of a nuanced language
system.
George Orwell famously wrote in an essay title “Politics and the English Language” that “if
thought can corrupt language, then language can also corrupt thought”
This manifests itself in 1984 through the concept of doublethink, which is defined by Winston as
“to hold simultaneously two opinions, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of
them” who goes on to note that the “that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce
unconsciousness” and that “Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of
doublethink.”
Here, Orwell demonstrates the way in which nuanced language holds power by highlighting how
the ascription of a title “doublethink” to the illogical idea of believing contradictory notions also
validates that notion, elucidating how “language can corrupt thought”.
This idea of linguistic nuance validating itself is also presented in Winston’s thinking that
“Freedom is the freedom to say two and two make four” who goes on to explain that "if that is
granted, all else follows", this immediately conveys to a reader that the relationship between a
thought and its outward expression is a crucial precursor to the expression of truths.
By establishing the ways in which the expression of a fallacious concept - “doublethink” - as
well as an accepted proposal - “Two and two make four” - validates each notion, Orwell
effectively presents nuanced language and truth as inextricably connected and able to reinforce
and subvert each other. In doing so Orwell concludes that freedom of language is integral to
freedom of thought and expression.
Orwell depicts language as a weapon of totalitarian regimes, emphasising its effectiveness at
enforcing conformity.
George Orwell used stories to criticise the world he lived in. Famously, Orwell wrote in an essay
titled “Politics and the English Language” that “Language is an instrument we use for our own
purposes”
In “1984” Orwell forwards this assumption by establishing a world in which “The Aim of
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