Passage
"What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as open as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place." (Page 39-40)
Response
In the passage provided on top, we can see that the government is obviously using memory holes, presented on page 37 in which were thousands of slits on the walls that were used for employees to get rid of each and every past document that can contradict the present. The government is evidently worrying a lot about having their past affect their present and their future. They want to rid any unnecessary documents so they are not able to be tracked for false accusations.
The way in which Winston's job operated was for them to speak into speak writes, presented on page 37 in which are an example of our modern day speak to text apps in which the system puts someones dictation into words. Their job required for them is to rewrite history in the form of how the government wants them to have history. For example, the government wants fake document evidence to support their claims.
Also, on a personal level, I see the employees actions in regards to the memory holes as a shredder. Today we shred papers for us and other to not see that paper ever again. In this case, it is the same sort of idea since the government in 1984 controls the citizens to use these memory holes or a shredder in our case to get rid of any past documents that can contradict the past. Also, it is for any documents to not be seen ever again by anybody in Oceania. In my opinion, this way of throwing out paper is also quite suspicious in a sense since even though the employees use it to discard any unwanted papers, they technically don't know where exactly the papers are going to. So without the papers being shredded or burned, these papers can haunt the government at any time if they are not disposed properly.
In my opinion, I feel that the government has no right to do this form of trickery towards their citizens since it is basically setting up their government based on lies. By disposing any past documentations, they dispose the history along with it. Even though this is their intent, I feel that the government is too concerned with being always correct and true that they have to manipulate documentations to completely disregard any falsifications. I think that by the government being set up based on lies, it only tells me that the government of Oceania doesn't really care for the truth, and they would rather live on lies, than live on the truths that made them.
Also, some questions that I have for the government are:
All in all, this passage that I chose in Chapter 4, pages 39-40 is a good representation of the government in Oceania since they are fake and control their citizens to manipulate their documents to prove to themselves that they are always right.
"What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the pneumatic tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs—to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as open as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place." (Page 39-40)
In the passage provided on top, we can see that the government is obviously using memory holes, presented on page 37 in which were thousands of slits on the walls that were used for employees to get rid of each and every past document that can contradict the present. The government is evidently worrying a lot about having their past affect their present and their future. They want to rid any unnecessary documents so they are not able to be tracked for false accusations.
The way in which Winston's job operated was for them to speak into speak writes, presented on page 37 in which are an example of our modern day speak to text apps in which the system puts someones dictation into words. Their job required for them is to rewrite history in the form of how the government wants them to have history. For example, the government wants fake document evidence to support their claims.
Also, on a personal level, I see the employees actions in regards to the memory holes as a shredder. Today we shred papers for us and other to not see that paper ever again. In this case, it is the same sort of idea since the government in 1984 controls the citizens to use these memory holes or a shredder in our case to get rid of any past documents that can contradict the past. Also, it is for any documents to not be seen ever again by anybody in Oceania. In my opinion, this way of throwing out paper is also quite suspicious in a sense since even though the employees use it to discard any unwanted papers, they technically don't know where exactly the papers are going to. So without the papers being shredded or burned, these papers can haunt the government at any time if they are not disposed properly.
In my opinion, I feel that the government has no right to do this form of trickery towards their citizens since it is basically setting up their government based on lies. By disposing any past documentations, they dispose the history along with it. Even though this is their intent, I feel that the government is too concerned with being always correct and true that they have to manipulate documentations to completely disregard any falsifications. I think that by the government being set up based on lies, it only tells me that the government of Oceania doesn't really care for the truth, and they would rather live on lies, than live on the truths that made them.
Also, some questions that I have for the government are:
- Why do you care so much to hide the truth?
- Why do you always have to be true, and rely on manipulated documentation to support your claims?
- Are you scared that the citizens are close to surpassing the government?
- Where do the documents that are put into memory holes exactly go to?
- Are you aware that the employees manipulating your documentation can at anytime share the past history that they discarded through memory holes?
Questions I have for the employees:
- Do you feel that your being manipulated like the documents that you are "recreating"?
- Would you ever have the guts to spread the past documents to overthrow your own government?
- Are you aware that your the ones that allow the government to run based on lies?
- Do you have an idea where the documents go after you put documents into the memory holes?
- If you had the ability to would you recreate the documents to government standards, but embed the past in the document as well, so history is preserved?
These questions that I would ask to the government and the employees contradict each other since questions to the government correlate to the truth and falseness. On the other hand, the questions to the employees correlate more to asking if they would ever rebel against the government since they hate the government already.
All in all, this passage that I chose in Chapter 4, pages 39-40 is a good representation of the government in Oceania since they are fake and control their citizens to manipulate their documents to prove to themselves that they are always right.
Through this quote, I think one really gets a sense of how Oceania works and what their true intentions are. I mean it would make sense that the government is based on lies to control their citizens because they truly don't care if they are telling the citizens the truth or not because all they want is complete control over the people. The government feels the need to always be correct because if they aren't, how are people going to follow them? How are they going to have complete control over the people if they have all this evidence that could be used against them.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you included the questions for the government and the employees because it makes the reader question and analyze the book in further detail. I also enjoyed how you compared the actions in the book to a shredder. It's very true that when you shred something its important information and you don't want someone finding out. It makes me question whether the workers have been noticing that what they are changing and deleting is actually very important information and they just don't care or they're just scared to speak up against it.
I really liked how you picked one long quote and provided a thoughtful response, that included several pictures. I also think it was very wise to add questions intended for the government and he employees. Just one thing though; I personally find the font size for the quote to be a little too small. Maybe something to improve upon in the future? Other than that, I really enjoyed your blog!
ReplyDelete