Othello 1.1

"I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors. In honest plainness thou hast heard me say My daughter is not for thee. And now in madness, Being full of supper and distemp'ring draughts, Upon malicious (bravery) dost thou come To start my quiet" (Shakespeare 13) Here, the reader hears from Brabantio himself that he does not think that Desdemona is right for Roderigo: he has even banned Roderigo from being on his grounds. So, knowing that Roderigo loves Desdemona, and Othello has just eloped with her, Roderigo, like Iago, has a motive for wanting Othello out of the picture. Since Othello is a Shakespearian tragedy, someone is going to die; will it be Othello? Probably, cause the title character of Shakespear's works always seems to die. Maybe this is why some people don't like Shakespear's tragedies: you already know who's going to die.

Ex. Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, etc.

"If You Want Reace...Prepare for War" 1984 Style

Brian Monahan

Mr. George

World Lit. Honors

21 October 2010

“If You Want Peace…Prepare for War” 1984 Style

            How can one say that War is Peace? Isn’t war the opposite of peace, and isn’t the purpose of war to win and bring peace to your country? In 1984, that is not the case: in this world, the definition of peace is war. Ever since the 1950’s, Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia have been fighting each other. However, none of the super-states can be conquered by the other. So why must the war drag on? In the past, war was waged by countries trying to conquer one another. In 1984, war is waged for a number of reasons: to use up the products of the “machine”, to have a low standard for life, and to prevent the citizens of each super-state from realizing that the super-states are all the same. War is peace because war in 1984 is continuous, and it is the only worldly state that the Party will ever know of.

            Before the world had been ravaged by the atomic bomb, war had been waged by two or more sides in a battle to decide worldly supremacy. The reason behind the war may be different for each one, but the objective is always the same: to win. For example, the purpose of wars like the American Revolution were for one country to win independence from another; to do so, the weaker country had to prove its dominance over the stronger one. In World War II, it was a battle between democracy and fascism to determine which ideological government was stronger. In civil wars, a country is split in two, and the winning side takes full control over the country. Goldstein’s book defines past wars as, “Something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory of defeat” (Orwell 197). In the past, war would come to an end with a winning side and a losing side, with the winning side proving their dominance over the other. Now, war is fought between unconquerable countries over an unnecessary part of land, just to use up products of the machine to keep the economy stable and the standard of life low.

            War in 1984 is no longer the fight for supremacy; it has become a fight to use up the products of the economy and keep the general standard of living low within the super-states. Goldstein writes in his book, “The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces… materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses to comfortable and… too intelligent” (191). The three super-states fight against each other over a small piece of land that would not benefit anyone if captured. All the while, they are using their citizens to fight and work for them to defeat an unbeatable enemy. All the super-states are doing is using up resources to fight; however, because they are using up resources, fewer materials go to the Party. This is useful for Big Brother because it controls the standard for living, which is kept low so that the citizens can never want more. If the Party were to want more, and found a better life outside of what the Party was telling them, they would rebel against Big Brother. Since they have nothing and never see more, they will never know of a better world. As a result, rebellion is averted by Big Brother and the Inner Party. As a result, the war continues, and the Party remains in control. In 1984, there can be neither a winner nor a loser in war, and this is because each of the three super-states is almost identical to one another so they cannot be conquered.

            All three of the super-states that exist in the world cannot be conquered by one another; they are all equal in both strength and ideology, and so technically, each super-state is fighting a copy of itself. Each super-state has their own ideology: Oceania has Ingsoc, Eurasia practices Neo-Bolshevism, and Eastasia focuses on Death-Worship. It may sound like each ideology is different, but in fact, “The three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all” (197). Goldstein describes in his book that, “Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of a semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare” (197). It is implied that like Ingsoc in Oceania, the other two ideologies have some kind of leader like Big Brother who is revered like a God by the citizens. These citizens are all kept in check by the “Inner Party” of each super-state, using mutability of the past and doublethink to control the minds and reality of the Party members. It can also be assumed that there are groups of Proles in each super-state that are kept stupid so they can’t rise up. Also, since Goldstein writes that the economy is the same, they all must share the concept of oligarchial collectivism. If so, then each of the super-states would be nearly identical to the others, and there is no way something can defeat or take over what is essentially a replica of itself. As a result, none can be conquered by another, and the war can never end.

             One of the slogans that the Party of Oceania abides by is War is Peace. War is peace within 1984 because war is continuous; this war has been fought for over 25 years and there are no signs of an end. War is peace to the Party and its people because they have never known of a world without war. This is possible due to the mutability of the past in conjunction with doublethink filling the past with nothing but war, and the low standard of life within Oceania. Since the past can be changed at will by Big Brother, the Party has rewritten the past so that war has existed in the world for as long as Oceania has. With the past changed, the members of the Party will never know about a world without a never-ending war, and they are not able to envision one due to the low standard of life and doublethink. By implementing doublethink, the Party makes their altered past the reality, and its members believe the altercation by forgetting the past, and then forgetting that you just forgot something. As a result, the members of the Party only know of their past, not the “real” past. The book also states; “It is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious…such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink” (192). Doublethink allows the Party to make its members forget anything they want forgotten; if anyone finds out that the war is never-ending, they can doublethink the thought away, and so it never existed. With the mutability of the past and doublethink, the Party can control the minds of its members, and so they can keep the thought of war in their minds. As a result, they only know of peace in a time of war, hence the meaning behind War is Peace.

            War in 1984 is continuous; it has been going on for over 25 years, and there is no end in sight. War is no longer fought to declare a winner and loser; war is now fought to use up resources and keep the standard of living low for the citizens. There will never be a winner because the super-state cannot conquer one another. This is because they are almost identical to each other, and you cannot defeat yourself. Using the mutability of the past and doublethink, the Party can keep the state of war within Oceania. War is Peace within Oceania because the Party has never known of a time where there was no war; the past has been changed so that war has existed since the super-states were formed. War is Peace is possible because the war can never end, and as long as war is being fought, the Party can never lose.