Alternative Reality in 1984

Among the many themes express in the novel 1984 by George Orwell the
most interesting and frightening is the concept of creating an alternative
reality to control a mass population. The Inner Party stays in power by shaping
the thoughts and opinions of the masses and it does this by creating a reality
where everything suits whatever it is the party needs to be believed. This is
accomplished in three ways. The first is revisionism or the act of changing
facts such as history so that the Party is always made to look good and mobilize
popular opinion against its enemies. The second way the party creates an
artificial reality is through artificial scarcity. There is no need for the
constant warfare but if the need no longer existed for the construction of the
tools of war that productivity would instead be put towards the manufacture of
goods which could actually raise the standard of living. Finally the Inner
Party controls the masses by creating an all powerful omnipotent being whom they
contr ol and can say or order whatever it is they need.

Much of the success in creating the Parties artificial reality and thus
controlling the people was due to the Parties ability to control history through
a process called revisionism. This work is done in the Ministry of Truth, in the
Records section, were Winston is engaged. Daily, people like Winston, destroy
old documents and create new ones to cover policy changes. In addition,
everything printed before 1960 has been destroyed by the Party. A good example
of this is the work which Winston has to do in the Minitru one day. His order in
Newspeak reads: "time e.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs
unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling." (46) in Oldspeak: "The reporting
of Big Brother`s Order for the day in the Times of December 3rd 1983 is
extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Re-write
in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing." (47) A former
higher Inner Party hero, praised in one of Big Brother's speeches, has
mysteriously fallen out of favor, and has probably been vaporized. It is not
enough that the Thought Police has made him disappear. He must be removed from
the records. According to the Party he has never existed - he is an Unperson.

This process of continuous alteration is applied not only to newspapers, but
also to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks,
cartoons, photographs- to every kind of literature or documentation which might
hold any political or ideological significance. In this way every prediction
made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence. All speeches,
statistics and records of every kind must be constantly brought up-to-date in
order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. With no
past to compare things with, everybody is satisfied with present-day conditions.
Changing the records maintains the infallibility of