musings Academic texts by Alexandra Kapelos-Peters

Language as an Instrument of Totalitarianism

As an author, George Orwell is concerned with the modern use and misuse of the English language. He notes the recognized ability of language to distort truth and deceive masses in his essay "Politics and the English Language", and attempts to alert the public of this power in his novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four . Depicting dystopia of a totalitarian system at a complete extreme, Orwelll's novel is essentially about psychological control of the public. In the creation of "Newspeak", Orwell portrays the effects of recurring abuse of language by government, and demonstrates how language can be used politically to manipulate minds on a monumental scale, eventually birthing a society in which people obey the government unquestionably. As argued in his essay and actualized in the novel, language acts as an instrument of mind-control, with the goal of perpetual elimination of individual consciousness and maintenance of a totalitarian regime.