A/N:
Have you read the dystopian book 1984 yet? If not, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the book, otherwise some of the concepts would not be understandable.
For those who read the book, or have an idea of what the book is about, good, you'll be able to understand my story! Until then, I present you my story.
Have you ever spent a night alone, locked up in a hospital room?
It's not incredibly unlikely, as most people do spend some time in a hospital at some point of their lives. And I tell you, sleeping in those rooms, alone, is one of the most vexatious experiences you can have. An uncomfortable bed, curtains that, quite literally, block out all the light of the outside, and, if you're like me, an ECG monitor, beeping in rhythm with your pulse. Now, the sound of an ECG monitor can be turned off, but I guess everyone must have a safety totem, no matter how annoying it is, and that sound is mine while I'm in a hospital. A child won't let go of that stuffed animal you give it, because the child feels protected, even if it is inconvenient to have it in the bed.
Now, let me tell you about a time spent in a very... peculiar, hospital room. You see, I happen to have severe paranoia, and as of the time this story takes place, I will have had level three (moderate persistent) paranoia, which basically means that I had to regularly be in access of my atypical drugs. The ones that are given to the delusional, the insurance, the troubled.
Now, the question that must be drilling through your mind, is who? Who are they? What do they want?
I desire to say, but am unable to.
I suppose I shouldn't say; the punishment is too far great to be bear, but I have become accustomed to it.
Of course, the moderations they apply me to, the so boring schedule, the routine check-ups, (which I can assure you are not proper,) are just the many tests that they give me.
The doctors, oh those devious bunch, say that I need it. That it will make me feel better. That they are the only way I can heal myself from my rantings, as I quote, of 'Dark Overlords with subliminal propaganda'.
I try to inform them that it is not delusions, nor drunken ramblings. Big Brother does exist. He controls every aspect of our lives!
But of course, they disregard me. They anti up the doses, and my shouts of pain and fear fall death upon my hosts' ears.
They only watch the medicines put me in states of sleep.
Though I do not see or hear them, I feel their relief that they do not have to bother with me once more.
Perhaps it is Big Brother's new trick.
Disturbing.
That was they said.
No, my case wasn't unique. It wasn't ordinary. It was simply disturbing.
I hate that word. Disturbing. The word-finder that issues annually has scrapped that word.
Before, it used to be a word that was an anomaly. A fine strand between insanity and individuality, as they called it.
Heinz and Kaplan, if they were still alive, would have called this method of rehabilitation as evil. But of course, Big Brother would see that they were 'forgotten'.
This rehabilitation is said that the user will need it daily. The cruel method was chastised by none- who would want to go against Newspeak?
If I was not in the clutches of Big Brother, I will freely say that they are the ones that need it more than me!
But whose is the hostage now?
There are several reasons why Big Brother hold me here. There are many offenses that I aspired against them, but that is not important.
There are several other specifications, so many that I wish I could name by word, but am unable to; They are slowly readjusting my memories, nerve by nerve.
But that's not important; what's important for this chronicle of mine is the fact that I, while having gotten used to hospital rooms, found them incommodious, and that that has not changed since my stay in room 101.
Based on the premeditated rules that my overseers have given to me, I can now conclude with great certainty, that if you're in a hospital, it's not strange if a person has died in the room you're in without your knowledge.
If you stay frequently in hospitals, that's something you end up accepting.
You'll probably even acquiesce the fact that you, personally, have a high risk of becoming one of those unknown deaths one day. Now, as I said, most people accept it, and I like to think of myself as a pretty ordinary person, at least mentally, but I do have to opine that what happened to me in room 101 is far from anything any ordinary person would regard normal.
As of the day I first entered the room, I had just had a rather major flare-up, one of a high enough degree for me to be put in a hospital for four nights. At first I was registered into the emergency ward, but I stayed there for only a few hours before they decided that I could be moved to another ward for people in less imminent danger. It wasn't the sure-to-die ward, but it was neither the happy-go-lucky everyone-lives ward. It was probably completely random that I happened to be registered there at a time during which room 101 was the first unoccupied room of the first hallway of the ward I just-so happened to be assigned to, but well, sometimes it feels like a horrid game of fate.
Well, I felt like fecal matter that first night, so my memories were quite hazy now of picking up all details; I wasn't in the best state of mind, to say the least, nor was I in the best state of being, physically. Essentially, what I'm saying is that I'm not a reliable storyteller, and that I could very well be insane, limiting my credibility even more. Look, what I really mean to tell you is that I don't want any of this to be true, just to be some fictive event that I've made up in my mind. It would just make my life so much easier.
Maybe this double-speak will give me a temporary release.
The Party will always be watching, I suppose it's time to give them a show.
O'Brien will be waiting for my "intervention", so to avoid any more "rewards", I suppose I must get on with the story now.
Well, so it started with me being rolled in a wheelchair to my new room by a nurse I never saw again after that. I guess her shift ended after that, and she had to do work in another wing or something similar.
Have you ever had that feeling that something's not right, the feeling that there's impending doom, death, or anything bad like that? I haven't. Entering room 101, there was nothing strange at all in the atmosphere; it was, to the utmost degree, a completely ordinary room, or so it felt. However, as my eyes scanned the room holding none but two beds, two nightstands, two ECG monitors and a small TV, I found that there was an area of the wall, right by the bathroom door, which had been painted over. Although faint, it was obviously a few shades brighter, and the strokes were in a different pattern from the rest of the walls.
Of course, I didn't give it much thought at the time; what reason did I have not to disregard it? Although unusual that hospitals are still considered as a means for intervention, this one is quite faint to me.
Places where healing was sought after, were professionals tried their hardest to provide for their patients to the best of their abilities, were now torn down, inch by inch, layers upon layers of leveled glass.
The Party sought to tear down hospitals, secretly of course. It if were made public that their government desired to rid peoples of their health, there would be outrage. But of course, those who protest, will be silenced.
Do you wish to know the reason why? It's because of truth. Long ago, before the threat of war, before the Party's rise of power, we were once free. Free to explore, free to know, free to object.
With hospitals, you gain some semblance of freedom: You are free to wander if your ailment is severe, if you gain trust within the hands of your caregivers; if you can be free.
The Party does not like this. They do not like you be in the hands of another. Like a jealous lover, they want to be the One that dominates your life. They do not like the feel of you knowing, of you studying, of you gaining a sense of control over you.
Therefore, they tear down places of healing. Why if you are in need providence, you are not allowed to seek professionals' health?
Even they may be undercover, waiting for you to make a mistake, waiting for you to commit a thought-crime.
It is only a matter of time before I'm forced to extinguish these thoughts.
I have no peace, no hope, no support to lie on. If they wish, they could erase me, removing my very existence from the few who knew me.
But they do not. I do understand why I am still alive. Why I'm still fighting. Why the Party has allowed me to express.
This double-speak will get me surely… I can't say the word.
No matter how hard I'll try, they'll always be one step above me. Always watching, always waiting.
Even the stealthiest will fall prey to the Party.
This mantra that I have somehow kept confined to the cloudiest areas of my mind, only remain as a blanket of comfort.
Now I wish that I do not have this information. That I do not try myself to ruin with this double-speak. But I cannot.
After all, Freedom is Slavery.
When I was younger, I've been in and out of hospitals at least once a year. I suppose it was due to my mother's state; wanting the best for her children, she sought to cleanse her mind from the insanity of her children.
She desired peace, but was met with war when she gave our innocence away.
An unfortunate fate for the woman. But I shouldn't be shocked at the reveal.
Since I was a child, I've seen plenty people vomit, urinate and bleed on walls; those are common traits of sick people, after all.
I was disgusted by it. I was told countlessly that this is the result of those who disagree with the Party. That their sicknesses only allude to their false fears of peace.
But as I watched them, watching their soil themselves with their own fluids, I watched their expressions. I was unable to speak, whether out of amazement, or for fear of producing a thought-crime, I was uncertain.
Their expressions contrasted greatly with their actions.
They were wailing in pain, as expected. But they exhibited quite strange behaviors- behaviors that were to be considered disturbing for someone in their current situations.
They were not flailing their limbs about waiting for their demise, waiting for their deaths. They were not moping about, or staying silently in a single place. They were performing a horrid expression, one that with all my pseudo, child-like knowledge, was unable to comprehend.
They were smiling.
They were overjoyed that their conditions were acidic, too hazardous to be subjected to, but exposed to so much toxins. No, they were praising their compadres when they were criticized, and weeping when they were complimented. They did not scream. They did not protest. They did not seem to grasp their current situation. They were ostracized from society, and thus were harmful to society.
But they chose to neglect that fact.
They just simply, did not care. They did not show dissent when they were beaten. When they were mocked. When they were sedated, or removed from the premises.
They were happy.
At the moment, I wanted to be like them.
I wanted to have no care of the world. I wanted to have peace; true peace, not that one the Party propagates. Not the one where the majority of the populace was oblivious to their workings. No, I wanted a peace that was loving. That was kind. That did not back down in face of fear, in face of slaughter, in face of damnation. I wanted a peace that turned a blind eye to the fact that our ever-shifting government could not keep a constant viewpoint.
It always had to be that way, doesn't?
We're always at war with Eastasia, or Eurasia. We're always preaching the degrading mantas of posters that lay wake in our view. We're always conjuring up words of simple tongue.
We're always losing ourselves.
I wonder what happened. How it came to all of this. Only a few ask these questions nowadays. It's a shame- so many are too engrossed in their fallacious worlds, that they are unable to determine who they are ruled over.
But I cannot act. I cannot do a single action. If I were to be even close to what they were planning. To what their end goal was, I'll be thrown a new path to face.
It is a puzzle that cannot be solved. That word, puzzle, should it have not already been rewritten? Pondering this will leave me nowhere, as many actions in my past have already shown.
Maybe this is where the Party limits reach. Maybe this is where the control is seized and obtained to a new force. Perhaps this is a truth that they so desperately wish to decipher.
But I laugh, when has the Party ever been givers of truth?
I watch the patients again. Now I am able to understand them, if only a little. Their peace is what I desire. What I crave, but I can't be thrown aside just yet.
With a seam of opiate webs, I know why I still am what I am.
I am an amusement. A jester that can be mocked.
If they wished for me to be toyed with, I would've been taken in long ago. My curiosity would've been my demise.
But I was only a child. Now, that does not excuse my behavior to them, in fact it only made them more intrigued!
No, I was a child because my innocence was already taken by the Party.
Their methods of torture was not physical, but of a mental tenure.
I am an experiment to be studied. The thoughts that I should not possess, are the trials sent my way, possibly as a decoy.
To determine what I will decide.
But I have already made my choice, even when I was unable to choose. No, I'll give them a show!
I did not complain when the nurse forcible grabbed my arms away. I did not complain when my mother saw the markings on my back. I never noticed the tugging of my cotton sleeves, was reminiscent of my deceased sister's longing for alternative facts.
I did not notice the prickling streams of tears from my eyes.
I did not do anything but smile.
Only when I drifted into unconsciousness, did I accept my confirmed mantra:
Truly, War is Peace
When I had repeated this statement in my head, I wished to affirm it.
How could a contradiction of words resonate so soundly in the minds of the populace, that it manages to be the driving force between freedom and an authoritative state?
Because of the use of language.
Language is one of humanity's greatest forces. The simplest of creatures use language, from the drained infant, to the clever ape. It is a matter of forming a perfect concoction of words, although not quite similar in manner, but in style.
"Language" does not just refer to words for describing things; even animals have that. Apes can use sign language, parrots can talk, and dolphins have names for each other. Only humans, however, can use written and spoken word to communicate details, emotions, reasons, ideas, and attitudes all at once.
Now, you may be wondering amongst yourselves, why; why does this information matter to my current place?
I will try to communicate it to the best of my ability, but even the stealthiest has their fluttering moments.
This ability is not the greatest force, (that would be love), but it wields greater strength than any weapon or sensation. Language, unique to humans, can overcome any concrete power, but can, like any force, be corrupted.
The similarities may be starting to catch up to you, but fret not- I have not even begun to explore deep into the lore at this moment!
If you may have the time, recall the religious story of the Abrahamic Faith: The Towel of Babel. In this story, where followers try to explain the origin of language, tells of the story of a great people. In this story, everyone knew how to understand communication with one another, though their technology had been limited. But this determent did not stop them. In fact, according to the account, they had constructed a massive tower, in aim of reaching the heavens and exploring beyond their finite knowledge.
If you had read the account, it had ending with a God becoming disgusted with mankind's arrogance, causing Him to separate their unified language into distinct languages.
Even to the unbeliever, the tale tells of a great meaning: with language, humans could accomplish great inventions.
The scattering of communication, then, would be a perfect instrument of disorder.
Does it not seem reminiscent of our society today?
Newspeak, that cursed invention, is parallel to the God of the Babel story, but with their own reasoning.
It is true that both seek to create disorder amongst their creations by altering their sense of communication. But with these Two Forces behind the disorders of today, it makes me wonder of the motivations these withdrawals were intended to resolve.
Because of a distortion in language, numerous conflicts have risen to being. A lack of communication degenerates into a lack of understanding, then into a lack of empathy. But careful use of language coupled with translation could potentially bring humanity to a pre-tower harmony.
This is how my government seeks their control. How the Party so cleverly distorts their message, ever-changing, but fear-inducing at whim.
Not many seem to know of these distortions taking place: The proles are so oblivious that they are a lost cause, the Outer Party members, such as myself, have limited access to the real-workings of the Party. Are they truly for our benefit as the posters, the model citizens, and the fabrications tell? Or do they cleverly intercept any hearings of dissent and seek to remove it, to keep the santicity of the Party intact?
Their argument is silly if taken in fully: Their deception knows no bounds, but the weak are too simple-minded to understand. It has been popular, and quite alarmingly, seemed to grow in spurts. This is evident based on the rise of the Resistance, as we claim. Julia, my fair lady, seems to be in agreement with me. But I am unsure of O'Brien.
With Newspeak, language is purposely edited when new information is acquired. If the desire to find out the truth exceeds the set status quo that the Party gave to you, they will not be hesitant to find more suitable ways to force you into the truth.
But the method only pushes the perpetrator farther away from the Party.
Take this analysis into account, and see for yourself if my testament is able to be understood, preferably without the use of alternative facts:
Suppose a certain object is red, it is red and nothing more. No marks appear on the object, nothing to demote or uplift its value, just in a state of neutrality.
But consider this: inclusion of details takes effort. The cost is small, but why would the seller include a meaningless detail?
With this object, the normal will try to say it as it is: just a regular product of work.
But suppose the object is red, symbolizing something more than the plain object. Now, the object has substance, no longer is it a one-dimensional object, but an object riddled upon layers of meaning and curiosity.
That object has now been given substance. Red, usually relating to blood, war, anger, sacrifice, or hate, among other things, is now the center of attention. This is the power of language. It can be and has been used to make war or peace, life or death, love or hate. If we consider "power" to be the capability of making change, language is more powerful than any weapon. A person on one side of the battle line will have a negative opinion about individuals on the other side. A weapon can remove his opinion, but language can reverse the opinion. A change from negative to positive is greater than a change from negative to zero. Weapons may help a nation fight, but language keeps all the weapons pointing in the same direction.
Newspeak uses this to its advantage. This is where the Party begins their work, trying to escalate a situation of matter of point, into a worthless, or worry-squandering state of mind. This is how they gained so much power: the constant editing of media, the exorbitant use of monitoring, the fear-mongering of war with the Superpowers; this is where they excel in.
This is where I, fall sharply in, no matter how much I deny myself with it.
This power is unique to humans. Many animals can convey concrete details, but humans are special in their ability to convey abstract details. Perhaps this is why the Party has always used humans as their creatures. Their easier to control, easier to experiment, easier to break.
As opposed to the foreign word, science, I believe, there has not been any evidence against this claim. What the Part means, is that there has been no evidence against them doing wrong. Who will oppose them?
The ape may tell a member of his species: "there is a child sneaking up on you". The ape cannot, however, tell the attitude of the sneaky child, or the motive, or the essence of the child's existence. But humans overcome other primates with their ability to communicate attitude and essence.
The once brilliants innovators, Plato and Aristotle, debated on the subject of objectivity versus subjectivity, a concept foreign to any animal. These philosophers accomplished this with language. Philosophy, theology, logic, reason, math, and science cannot be reached by animals not because they lack the brain capacity, but because they lack language. Humans have taught various animals to think logically, but these feats required humans, the linguistic being.
The Party's method of distortion is monstrous. They praise themselves with their good deeds, but are the main orators of such a devilish foundation for society.
This human ability is essentially good, as the Party claims. But how can it be known what is truth today? Dostoevsky, a once proud member of the Eurasian Federation, called Soviet Union, once wrote in his novel, Crime and Punishment, that lies were good, because lies lead to the truth. In saying this, Dostoevsky's character means that good communication inevitably leads to the truth.
But language can be corrupted.
These corruptions have names: deceit, propaganda, and media. All of them orchestrated by the Party. The Superstates of the World, powerful proponents of their ideologue, used language to kill billions of the Earth's inhabitants. Every day, fear of war is used to orchestrate our lies. Bombs are powerful, it can be denied, but the power of convincing masses, the power of manipulation, is the real weapon used in conflicts. It is the language that was used to create our world today, and it is language, that is the weapon that still convinces millions that war is acceptable. That our enemy deserves to be killed.
Before the war, it was language that gave the power to the Superstates. With such fierce loyalty, they used it to their advantage, provoking their counterparts into disaster. But in each instance, the arguments used by the governments maintain a vital fallacy, an untruth that would expose radical beliefs. That 'War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.' The States seek to establish a true communication to clear away their lies.
Language in its purest form, is corrupt.
Language is powerful, language is human, therefore language is corrupt, when used purely.
When the dictionaries are edited, when our speech is limited, when we talk, or are forced to listen remember this: Even the old languages of Latin, English, Greek, and the forms that preceded and begot from them, we all speak with language. The specific dialect or accent does not matter. Just the thought of an alternative source of truth, is what they care about.
Remembering to analyze every aspect of communication is useless; the content is but a fraction of the whole. Facial expression, literary devices, irony, attitude, punctuation, cliche, tone, and symbols are just a few elements of linguistics. Even the written word can communicate tone; audible stimulus is not required. But it is the preferred method the Party uses.
Don't they see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, they seek to make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
By curtailing frivolous and "fighting" words, the Party seeks to narrow the range of thought altogether, such that eventually thoughtcrime will be literally impossible.
But perhaps that is good. The masses will not wake up, and I will not be released from my prison.
They'll never listen to the Inner Party. We're the only blockade between reality and freedom.
But I suppose that's our strength. Between the frightening masses and the vicious monitors, we're the only strong ones left.
And that's a horrifying thought.
Perhaps the Party is right.
Ignorance is Strength.
END OF STORY
A/N:
Good evening. I came out with a new story, a crossover between 1984 and Hetalia. The narrator is Arthur Kirland, a citizen of Oceania, from Airstrip One, which was once known as the nation of Great Britain. He is a member of the Outer Party, like Winston Smith was.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four there are three giant superstates or blocs of nations: Oceania (run by the United States, and including the British Empire and Latin America), Eurasia (the Eurasian continent), and Eastasia (China, southeast Asia, much of the Pacific). The superpowers are always at war, in shifting coalitions and alignments against each other. The war is kept, by agreement between the superpowers, safely on the periphery of the blocs, since war in their heartlands might actually blow up the world and their own rule along with it. The perpetual but basically phony war is kept alive by unremitting campaigns of hatred and fear against the shadowy foreign Enemy. The perpetual war system is then used by the ruling elite in each country to fasten totalitarian collectivist rule upon their subjects.
As Harry Elmer Barnes wrote, this system "could only work if the masses are always kept at a fever heat of fear and excitement and are effectively prevented from learning that the wars are actually phony. To bring about this indispensable deception of the people requires a tremendous development of propaganda, thought-policing, regimentation, and mental terrorism." And finally, "when it becomes impossible to keep the people any longer at a white heat in their hatred of one enemy group of nations, the war is shifted against another bloc and new, violent hate campaigns are planned and set in motion."
ENDING NOTE:
1984 has been called a "negative utopia." In a sense that is true, yet, in another sense, it is a true utopia. This world consists of practically all of the things that we consider to be evil, such as war, violence (as a result of war), totalitarianism, torture, shortages, lies, hate, submission, and ignorance. Yet, if one's mind were so conditioned as to accept and appreciate these things as necessary and even good, one could be content, even blissfully happy, in this world. One of the Party's slogans is "Freedom is Slavery." This is true, in that if one is free to develop his own ideas about good and bad, he will forever be a slave to his own longing for something better. If one is trained to believe that there are, in this world, absolutes of good and bad, what he has being good, what he doesn't being bad, then he can be truly happy. Alexander Pope wrote, "Whatever is, is right." The Party says, "Whatever we say is right, is good."
One might argue that, even if you had everything you ever wanted, you would always be at least partially discontented if only for lack of challenge. But this ceases to be of any consequence when psychological control becomes an issue. The Party has complete control over all thought, including the human need for challenge. Philosophically speaking, perfection is a state in which one is utterly happy and can imagine no improvements. In other words, ignorance is bliss.
1984 was written in 1949, only four years after the end of the Second World War, and in the midst of Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union. Hitler and Mussolini had gotten a little too close for comfort in their plan to conquer the world, and Stalin had his iron curtain firmly in place. Totalitarianism was all too real at the time, somewhat comparable to the status of terrorism these days. Orwell himself was a socialist, yet he was strongly opposed to the USSR because of the oppressive form that the Soviet socialism took on. It was this fear factor that caused him and his contemporaries to write of such pessimistic futures as those in 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
1984 is a complex work. Although the time in which it is supposed to take place has come and gone with no sign of Big Brother, the central theme is hardly outdated. Orwell drew his inspiration from the great threat of his time: the Russians. People, Americans in particular, saw them as inherently evil, bent on converting the entire world to communism. Before the Cold War, the same ignorant fear was directed at the Japanese by Americans during WWII. This has been going on for centuries, this blind hatred of what we don't understand. Today it is directed toward the terrorists of the Middle East. Surprisingly enough, this bleak pattern can be a source of comfort. Again and again our society comes to the brink of destruction, but somehow we always manage to pull back in time. We see the error of our ways and adapt. In the end, of this we can be sure:
We will prevail.
Enchanting Grace
REFERENCES/ADDITIONAL LINKS:
1. The title is spelled out, in words, in the original 1949 editions, both as published in England by Secker and Warburg [1] and in the United States by Harcourt, Brace [2]. It is sometimes presented numerically, in digits – 1984, in modern reprints and derivative works such as screenplays.
2. It is often suggested that "eighty-four" is a reversal of "forty-eight", the year in which the book was written, but this has never been confirmed.
3.The Collected Essays: Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 4, p. 546
4. quotes/authors/g/george_