The Ministry of Truth is quite ironic, for it displays
everything but the truth. Instead, this should be called the ministry of
falsification. Winston’s job is to literally change history so that Big Brother
will always seem correct to the past, present, and future. What baffles me is
that the people, like Winston, who work these jobs, continue working them. They
complete their tasks yet seem blind to what they are actually doing. I wonder
if other workers other than Winston realize just how contradicting and
destructive their job is. The result of
the ministry of truth is to make Big Brother the one, absolute power which
everyone not only supports, but is proud of.
Orwell’s society is ultimately portrayed as contradicting. It’s
as if the government has a double standard for its self and its citizens; on
one hand, the government can change its past so that the future can perceive Big
Brother as perfect, yet the citizens live in a less than perfect world. In fact,
they live in a dystopia. The devotion
perfection trying to be achieved by Big Brother only benefits the government. Isn’t
the government supposed to benefit its people? Oceania is quite the backwards
society.
In context with our own government, I think the ministry of
truth symbolizes its corruptness. As seen in history classes throughout the
country, we focus on wars won, rather than battles lost. Arguably one of America’s
greatest downfalls is barely talked about in school. The eugenics movement was
not covered in my required history class, rather an elective which not all
students take. Isn’t it interesting what school curriculums choose to focus on?
For, our downfalls as a country are quickly overlooked while our losses and
victories are taught repeatedly.
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