Power is the Ability to Control or Influence

8/4/2019 Power is the Ability to Control or Influence

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Power is the ability to control or influence. The nature of power is that it can be transitory, manipulative and

enthralling. Powerplay involves the complex manipulation of power and powerful alliances on both an individual

and group level. Within powerplay, exists the group and individual struggles for predominance, control, honour,

freedom and idealism, and the mechanism used by both groups and individuals to gain power, by which the

powerful are portrayed generally as either admirable or fearful. Real power is everywhere, and society is

constantly unaware of its presence. The prose fiction text Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, the film The

Crucible directed by Micholas Hytner and an untitled cartoon by Michael Leunig all display how real power isinsidious.

Nineteen Eighty Four is a political satire that explores the nature of individual rebellion. Orwell uses a

third person omniscient narration, whereby events and characters are filtered through the consciousness of the

protagonist Winston Smith. This technique allows an immediate bond to be formed between the responder and

Winston.

Orwell presents Nineteen Eighty-Four as a warning rather than a prediction of what is to come. Winston

struggles to live in a regimented society who are the dead and nothing was your own except for a few cubic

centimeters inside your skull. He observes as his comrades blindly live in, and accept the regimentation and

routine set out by the Party, who are interested solely in power. Uniformity, assisted by subtle political tools such

as Newspeak, doublethink and the mutability of the past, maintains stability and sustains a society free from the

threat of rebellion. The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought, through this, unorthodox and

unacceptable behaviour are made virtually impossible. Doublethink is the ultimate euphemism for hypocrisy. It

allows the Party to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. The facts of history are

falsified or erased so that the chosen lie would pass into records and become truth. Such subtle strategies

employed by the Party ensure opposition is crushed and power maintained.

Relationships within Nineteen Eighty-Four are intermittent and scarce. Winston, in desperate need for an

ally, becomes susceptible to the face of the Party, OBriens influence and power. OBrien is a chameleon, who

befriends only to destroy and crush any shed of human dignity in the would-be rebel, and hence becomes a

pseudo ally of Winston. OBrien is representational of ultimate powerplay. Upon OBriends betrayal of Winston he

explains that power is power over human beings, over the body, but above all over the mind, this becomes the

Partys ultimate goal, to obtain inclusive power over individuals by corrupting their minds.

The text is filled with irony. Ironic situations heighten the helplessness of the characters, who have no

knowledge or control of reality. Even when Winstons coworker Parsons was ironically handed to the thought

police by his own children and no questions are asked about where society is headed. The Party uses the publics

vulnerability to further its powerful reach. Lies and deceit play a major role in keeping society controlled. Ironically

even the ministries are lies in their names the Ministry of Love in no way deals with what its name implies.

Orwells blunt, powerful and stark style compiled with direct and simple language enhances the

vulnerability, despair and helplessness of Winston once he realizes there is no hope. OBrien and the Party secure

their power by making the population fearful and weak, power is inflicting pain and humiliation. The constant war

is a subtle way of controlling the population. Power has become entrenched by a strategy of waging warfare on

neighbouring countries. With war there is an excuse for scarcity, and scarify makes people weak and reduces their

ability to resist. With war there is a direction for hate, and blame for a corrupt society is directed away from the

Party. By creating a civilization founded upon hatred real power is at play..

This notion of controlling the public population is echoed in the film text The Crucible directed by

Micholas Hytner. The Crucible is a text which tells of power and how the powerful control the fragile, influential

town of Salem. After a young girl Abigail and her friends were caught apparently dancing naked in the woods, the

rumour of witches overwhelms the small town. The witch hunt was a perverse


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Through Nineteen Eighty Four we see Orwells dystopian view of the world through Winstons eyes. It is an

imaginary world where people lead dehumanised and fearful lives and things are the worst they could be. Oprah

on the other hand unfortunately represents a realistic image of some lives across the world. We see this through a

series of documentaries recorded by various journalists. Hotel Rwanda similarly represents a true reflection of the

world, depicting the nature of the dispute between the Hutus and Tutsis in South Africa and the impact of the

decisions made in power on the everyday people such as Paul and his family.

In Nineteen Eighty Four this dystopian world is largely conveyed through the dramatic irony in the three party

slogans WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH These slogans are emphasised as

Winston is a man guilty of doublethink and clearly does not agree with the slogans that his society is forced to

live by. The impact of the irony on the responder becomes stronger, as we live in a world where we dream of no

war, have the right to freedom and encourage education. Winston believes that he should be living in a world like

this also.

Orwell incorporates the power of the media through Winstons eyes as we see the impact of the media on his

lifestyle and psyche. The poster of Big Brother reading Big Brother is watching you, the propaganda about

Goldstein and the two minutes hate, are all aimed to promote assimilation to the way of life that the party believes

is right. The media is a constant reminder that he is never alone and is continually being monitored. Being that the

text is told from Winstons point of view, the responder also feels the sense of oppression that influences

Winstons life

The essential relationship between representation and meaning is evident at the core of every

text. Literature serves as a multifaceted vehicle used by composers in evoking a relationshipbetween themselves and their responders. Post-structuralists argue that words themselves do not

mirror reality, that language is a mere system of representation completely dissociated frommeaning (Baudrillard). This makes the relationship between representation and meaning fragile,

yet enables composers to represent their own ideas within their texts. However, according to

George Orwell, a word can only have meaning when there is a sharply defined set of meaningswithin the language. Thus, language is a system of representation as acclaimed by the post-structuralists, yet it is a representation of the meaning which emanates from the current paradigm

in which they are embedded. The definitions are determined by the zeitgeist making powerplayas inscrutable as the people who manipulate it. A text, just like a definition of a word, is a

product of its epoch, and the ideologies present within it. George Orwells Nineteen Eighty Four,Peter Nicholsons King George Bush Adams and The Foucault Reader compiled by Michael

Foucault are all representative of powerplay and its origins.

George Orwells narrative viewpoint in 1984 creates a partial truth of power through the

depiction of a state which cannot develop power without the consequent subjugation of theindividual. Orwell depicts Oceania as a state whose hegemony perpetuates the binary opposition

between those who have power and those without it. According to Trilling, Power in its pureaspect exists only in relation to the weakness of others. However, the third person narrative

presents a partial truth, which is limited. Winston sees Big Brother as an enormous face, morethan a metre wide As readers, we are positioned to empathise, thus intensifying and

heightening the terror which Orwell tries to induce. It is unnecessary for readers to question BigBrothers existence, for Winstons belief justifies ours. Furthermore, Winstons unquestioning


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attitude validates Big Brothers power, even if he does not actually exist. Big Brothersubiquitous and omniscient existence rests with the people who inhabit Oceania, for it is they who

allow him to perpetuate power; thus it is the people of Oceania who sanction their ownoppressors. Paradoxes such as these are seen throughout the text. The paradoxical slogans, War

is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength depicts this induced belief without proof, or

holding two opposite thoughts and believing both: double-think. Thus, power lies in language.

When considering the origin of institutions of power, Orwells understanding that power too liesin language can be appreciated. According to Orwell, the definition of a word presents the way it

is viewed in that society, thus making credible Foucaults claim that rather than an objectivetruth existing, many truths can coexistent, each with their own rationality. In Oceania truth is not

questioned. "If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it neverhappenedthat, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.". Newspeak, the new

and revised version of English, deliberately eliminates words and therefore reduces thepossibility of ideas being expressed: if one eliminates the meaning of one, then the other falls as

well. Were the word power to be deleted, then there would be no way to express the ideas of thepeople without power: "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of

thought? Orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think.' Winstons truth may differfrom the partys yet it would become impossible to express. This paradox becomes prominent for

readers have to decide whose truth is correct, what is true and what is illusory. The societyOrwell presents disregards objective truth, challenging our own paradigm where objective truth

is demanded, as it is seen as the product of science and scientific methods. In Oceania, truth ismerely the story which prevails after all others have been eliminated.

Orwell represents the interplay of power through the juxtaposition of this omnipotent character

and Winston Smith, the texts protagonist. He is an individual within this totalitarian state whochallenges authority and practises the unlawful thought-crime, thus questioning this binary of

power. In his diary, Smith writes, I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. However, thisis a contradiction within itself. We are conditioned to believe Big Brother has power, though

who is Big Brother? Oceania has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereaboutsnobody knows. As readers we are forced to make assumptions. Past this point, we can assume

Big Brother has power, yet Orwell continues to question it. A torturer without a victim isincapable of feeling powerful, thus Big Brothers power operates indulgently as it is

unreasonable.

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Power is the Ability to Control or Influence