TS and BA

Post your thesis statement and broader application here. In the actual essay, the TS will occur early in the essay. The BA should be the last sentence.

Example post:

TS: While Winston seems to be in love with Julia, Julia is merely creating another fiction like she does in her job at the Fiction Department.

BA: Examining another person's behavior, especially when it seems strange or unexpected, can sometimes lead to a higher understanding of who someone actually is or of what her motives are.

(if something seems too good to be true, it probably is!)

TS: The government in the novel 1984 by George Orwell tries to keep the world of the citizens live in bland and simple which is the complete opposite of what our government is doing today.

BA: The government in the novel is eliminating words from their vocabulary where we are adding more words to our vocabulary each day. Our life is becoming more complicated when the life of Winston and the other citizens is becoming simple and bland.

TS>> The goal of the Party is to suppress thought from the minds of every citizen it governs.

BA>> A government will do anything, stretching to unthinkable extremes, to maintain its power and control.

TS=
The concept of not being alone and having fear that a member of the party is listening to their conversations, describes that the people in 1984 are never alone not even in their own minds.

BA=
Sooner or later the government could be treating us like the citizens in 1984, by blocking our phone lines and going through our mail, if the citizens don’t do something our lives could become like the ones in 1984.

TS: Big Brother is able to control the whole Party and their minds by intislling fear.

BA: Throughout the book big Brother has been using frear to contol the Party. He does this mostly by threatining them to be vaporized or die. Big Brother's way to control the Party seems to be working, but no one would ever want to live their whole life in fear.

TS: Big Brother controles his people though limitaion of thought and lack of education.

BA: All People must take dvantage of learning opportunities in order to not be overtaken by any corupt group.

TS: Syme’s intellectual characteristics and his actions will get him into trouble or even killed.

BA: Orwell is telling us through Syme, that under some circumstances it is best to keep your ideas and opinions to yourself, or suffer the consequences of your actions.

TS- In Big Brothers society thinking for yourself is not a good thing the less you think the longer it will be until you are vaporized

BA- In a society where the citizens cannotthnk then the government has more control because they cannot think about how bad the government actually is. This is true in any societyif a leader can control what the citizens think and do then it could be a very long regime

Today with the war in Iraq, many important issues have been pushed to the back of our minds. News agencies obsess over it, and we all listen, forgetting important issues such as the environment. President bush has also applied words like terrorist to non-terrorist events, which scares us and brings up visions of death and destruction, causing people to despise whatever the word is applied to and support any action against it. If he says phone tapping is key in finding terrorists, many people will listen, controlled by their fear. If someone says that eco-defenders are eco-terrorists people will hate them. They are all ways of controlling people through fear, just like the government of 1984.

TS-->The discussion between Winston and Syme about the new dictionary and the hangins demonstrates that Syme is too intelligent and too perfect for the Party.

BA-->If anyone is too perfect in any way today, wheter it is how they dress, think, play a sport, or sing a song, they are looked upon differently than anyone else.

TS:
Winston’s lack of a definite past contributes to his dissatisfaction with the regime of Big Brother.

BA:
The control technique of destroying the past and then making a past that is suitable to the government is a smart idea but not foolproof.

T:
Winston’s constant questioning of his own memories and the “memories” of the past created by the government demonstrate that truth and reality are shaped by our thoughts and perception of the world around us. This is shown by Winston’s seemingly instinctive need to find the truth.

BA:
That truth can be melded and mutated to fit our thoughts, then accepted as our own truth. The real truth makes no difference to us or our thoughts. Opinions can waver, but the sense of self set in one’s core cannot waver because of a simple thing called truth.

TS: The ideal citizens are easily manipulated, and because of this, they often create false opinions of others.

BA: In order to create an accurate opinion of another, one needs to be in control of their beliefs.

TS
Winston's view on the emotion of sorrow can show how Winston has more memory and consciousness than most citizens. It might also be expressing Winston’s guilt over their death and what he feels about family in general. It is also possible that it is meant to explain one of Winston’s reasons for hating Big Brother.

BA
Even something that appears to be small and insignificant, like Winston’s dream about his mother, can actually have a huge but silent impact on how someone views the world and other people.

TS:
Big Brother rules with an iron fist in order to achieve the goal of unfailing belief in him.

BA:
Big Brother's manipulation can be compared to the war in Iraq. Many reports were altered and emotions were played upon so that people completely believed the reasons for the war.

TS: Big Brother's sanctions and propaganda brainwash Oceania's citizens into mindless drones who act only as tools of the Party's power.

BA: The true power of a government can be absolute, and the manipulation of a populace is the first step towards a totalitarian state.

TS- Who would you rather be: someone who is treated with respect, but is not allowed to have personal freedoms; or someone who has every personal freedom, but is treated like a second class citizen?

BA- Winston’s ultimate desire is to overthrow Big Brother since Big Brother is the reason he feels oppressed and thinks he has to change his social status. People in general have similar desires to Winston’s. Humans need freedom, individualism, and honesty to be truly happy and productive.

TS: the government can easily control the people, so a shortage of a certain supply involves no risk of rebellion against the Party, because nobody knows what is really going on.

BA: For a higher up power, keeping your subjects constantly in the dark is an easy form of control

TS: The government is so afraid of losing control of their people that they rule using fear, vaporizing anyone who they cannot control, but by doing this, they are losing control.

BA: Vaporizing Syme won’t bring the government anymore control because there will always be another person like Syme to take his place and the government will keep slowly losing control.

TS: Big Brother’s party is based around many slogans including: ‘Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace, and Ignorance is Strength.’ The people that live under these really don’t know why they are there or what they truly mean. Therefore they are living blindly.

BA: Big Brother is trying to keep real meaning away from the people of Oceania.

TS:Fear is a manipulative emotion, which has the ability to modify the actions and even thoughts of an individual

BA: When a government utilizes fear, as a weapon, to control its own population, no man, crowd, or nation can act rationally or even think sanely under the great influence of fear.

TS: People whom can't think for themselves make better party members than those that know what is going on in their day-to-day lives.

BA: Could this then be applied to todays life? would a government like everyone to not be able to think for themselves and just believe everything they say? Or would the government like you to question everything they say?

TS~Winston, the main character, knows that Syme will be vaporized because he is obsessed with destruction

BA~ If someone is obsessed with something to a point that they become dangerous then, no matter how good of a party member they are, they may become a threat and will be vaporized.

T.S.: The party’s greatest fear is that with any individuality, all control will be lost, therefore, they instill fear in others to make them weak.

B.A.: In life, we have to find truth and battle fear in many different forms to achieve survival. People use the transference of feeling to push their fear onto someone else in the hope that they will no longer be afraid if they pass the feelings on. We hold people and things that create fear at bay so we don’t have to face them with the idea that eventually, they will go away on their own. In then end, however, battling and overcoming the fear achieves more and puts an end to the war forever.

TS: The proles who are the lower class actually have more freedom than the party members, and only thier altered reality dictates upper and lower class.

BA: This idea of an “inner class” being more directly controlled by a government than the general population is very reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany, the members of Hitler’s Nazi Party were like his “inner party”; they spread his propaganda and provoked nationalism and fear. Arguably the people who were truly being oppressed by the government were the members of the Nazi Party and close supporters of Hitler.