It is by holding onto the individual thought, the idea that my single mind makes a difference, which makes me human. Because my mind is my reality, my reality is real. I have a past that exists because I remember it. I remember that I am alive and thus legitimize my reality. However, without words needed to express the idea that I have my own reality and my own thoughts, I cannot share my personal reality. I cannot affirm that it exits.
In George Orwell’s 1984, O’Brien and the Party wield the power of language. If no one has a way to express his or her individual thoughts, the thoughts cannot exist. The existence of the thoughts themselves, which could be arrived at in ways besides words, would not matter, because nothing could happen because of them. The power exists in the individual, because the individual is capable of turning thoughts into actions. However, those thoughts need a method to be understood. Looks and glances do not suffice as knowledge. The Party’s control of language is one of an “almost foolproof instrument” (319). Words are needed for action- to order, to command, to understand. Without words, without the proper words to execute the proper actions, nothing can happen. The Party can control the actions of the masses by limiting the ways in which they can communicate within their own ranks. People cannot revolutionize or rebel if they cannot share their ideas. If they cannot share their thoughts, they can never become actions.
O’Brien explains that the Party controls matter by controlling the mind. “Reality is inside the skull,” he tells Winston (274). The mind controls reality. Reality is arrived at only because of thought. When the mind is not given the proper tools, it does not grow. It cannot support ideas other than those of the Party. The Party controls the mind by controlling the language. Ingsoc butchers not only words, but also the thoughts that accompany those words. Simplification of language is also the simplification of thought through the limits placed upon word interpretations. Winston reasons that in order to keep a secret, you must “hide it from yourself” (291). Ingsoc enables you to hide secrets from yourself, in that they can remain in your “inner heart”. However, those thoughts are also trapped there. They can never be expressed, and thus they can never be acted upon. They may as well not exist, since one would not know how to explain the stirrings in his or her own skull. The limits of language in Winston’s society, and in the future, also limit thought. Thought requires a construct. Thought needs a manner in which to be understood. The limited thought results in limited action, and the Party remains in control. They cannot be challenged because there are not any words for what they are doing wrong, or how they have altered anything like memory or thought. The flaws in the society they have built cannot be pointed out, because the appropriate language does not exist.
In the beginning of the novel, Winston thinks pro-Brotherhood thoughts. He is in favor of an anti-Party establishment. Winston can remember remembering things. He has the mental capacity for such memory because he has the vocabulary in which to explain himself. His reality is inside his skull, but he can formulate opinions and deduce things from his environment and what he sees because he can think in words. The thoughts he has will continue to exist after his death, but it will become more difficult for those words to become actions. The words will not exist any longer. There will probably not be another room above a shop to escape telescreens. There will be no rebellious Julia, because even though she is fonder of rebellious actions than rebellious thoughts or words, she will not be able to act out any of her rebellious thoughts. She would not be able to explain them, even to herself, and therefore could not turn rebellious thoughts into rebellious actions. The inner heart will be safe, for a while, until the mind convinces the heart that what words it does have access to are all that matters. The mind knows nothing else, and thus convinces the inner heart. The Party’s influence will be seen in thought, not only in mindless action and following.
Winston originally agrees with the sentiment that remembering is real, that memory legitimizes reality. He remembers his mother and sister. But later they become classified as “false memories, products of self-deception” (288). O’Brien violates him by damaging the sanctuary of his mind. For a while, he still hopes that his heart will stay uncorrupted. “In the old days,” he said,” he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate” (290). The Party’s use of doublethink convinces Winston that things have never happened. What is has always been. The past was exactly like the present. He cannot go unnoticed any longer in the eyes of the Party. The appearance of conformity is not enough. He must think as the Party. The Party is so all-encompassing, that the Party will eventually be all that exists. Since it is all that can be remembered, it must be all that exists. The only words that exist are products of the Party. The language is a product of the Party. Therefore, thoughts become products of the Party, as well.
The Party’s influence on humanity will eventually be that the individual reality no longer matters. Instead, the collective thought will control the manner in which the individual is able to think. The Party sets the terms, and the personal reality changes with the limits placed upon it via language control. Ingsoc kills the human drive by eliminating the need to remember. The Party alters the past and controls everything in the past through changing it. Memory does not exist any longer, except through the Party. What is has always been. The Party controls language, and thus the reality present in individual thought.
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