1984 - power

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ENGLISH ESSAY – “POWER IS A DESTRUCTIVE FORCE IN HUMAN SOCIETY”

Power is the ability to exert authority, control or to influence another person or party. Power has played its part in shaping and moulding human society to what it is today, but human society’s destructive nature has also been shown over the centuries through the misuse of power. Through conflicts, strife and oppression, this destructive nature is revealed. This is a recurring motif that is evident in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, and Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall

Firstly, power is shown to be a destructive force in human society in the text Nineteen Eighty Four. This is clearly shown through George Orwell’s use of an invasive authoritarian government, not allowing individual thought among its citizens. This is portrayed in the text mainly through the use of telescreens, a device used by the antagonistic government in this text to monitor the lives of its citizens. George Orwell’s use of verisimilitude is shown in the quote, “in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in the darkness, every movement scrutinised.” The effect of this is to create a sense of reality in the reader’s mind, and to reinforce the invasiveness of the authoritarian government. It displays the intrusive measures that the authoritarian government puts into effect, using the telescreen to show the misuse of power of the government upon its citizens. What's more, George Orwell uses Winston Smith, the protagonist of Nineteen Eighty Four to show the fight for freedom and the rebellion against the ideology and invasiveness of the party. Winston Smith represents the archetypal rebel whose actions and attitude go against the norm, against the authoritarian orthodoxy. Winston Smith is shown in the book to rebel against the government’s blatant misuse of power, and the reader feels an empathetic connection towards Winston because of this.

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Secondly, George Orwell also shows the destructive force of power in human society through the authoritarian government’s abuse of power depicted through the vaporisation of those citizens that do not conform to the ideology of the party. The party does not care for the citizens, and will vaporise its citizens if they even show beginning signs of defiance or rebelliousness. In the text, George Orwell highlights this point vividly when he writes, “The party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power… power is not ...

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