Current Events Shaped Themes in 1984

Throughout history there have been dozens of examples of how the book 1984 relates to current events. A Prime example of this is Fidel Castro and 1960’s Cuba, Throughout his rule he was responsible for housing many soviet missiles, and limiting the freedoms of his people. The only news allowed in cuba was the news that was verified by either castro himself or his higher up officers. This is an example of censoring/controlling the media.

Throughout the book there are dozens of examples that relate to this, on page 43 Orwell says And the records department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, Whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceania with.

. Every conceivable. Castro had also had embargoes placed on Cuba due to his actions. This caused a very low standard of living in Cuba. While his people lived in complete ruins he and his advisors lived lavish lives. Very similar to how the different populations lived in 1984. The hallway smelt of Boiled Cabbage and old rag mats. (Orwell, 1).

This quote shows the ruin that even members of the party lived in, The proles lived in broken houses that were constantly being bombarded. He was walking up a cobbled street of little two-story houses with battered doorways which gave straight on the pavement and which were somehow curiously suggestive of rat holes. (Orwell, 82) Yet another of example of a current event that portrays the event of 1984 is the reign of Joseph Stalin.

During his dictatorship he was responsible for some of the most covered up torture/abuse of his people. He was responsible for the establishment of the KGB which is a secret police division that was incharge of all of the secret thing that stalin had ordered. “No one who had once fallen into the hands of the Thought Police ever escaped in the end. They were corpses waiting to be sent back to the grave.” (Orwell,76 ). The thought police were big brothers secret police that if anything was questioned they would go in and eradicate the issue. Similar to that of Castro Stalin had also placed limit on the food that the farmers could keep for themselves.

This limit was not even enough to live off of, and cause a mass famine in the farming population of the soviet union. Due to this there were ghost towns created all throughout Russia. The bomb had demolished a group of houses two hundred meters up the street. (Orwell, 84). Yet another example of a historical event portrays the events in 1984 is Lenin’s reign over Russia. Lenin came to power by forcing his ideals down the throats, one of those ideals was throwing all of the political figures under the bus and calling them public enemy #1.

This is an example of the way that big brother had portrayed Eurasia as public enemy #1. A new poster had suddenly appeared all over London. It had no caption, and represented simply the monstrous figure of a eurasian figure. (Orwell, 149). Soon after Lenin gained power his slogan was all over the place Peace, Land and Bread. this is very similar to that of the party, War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” These slogans are considered to be a form of thought control.

Thought control is when the governing body is taking their views and brainwashing their citizens into mindless robots. These are just a few examples of how certain historical events are related to the events that occured in 1984.

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