Monopolized Economy The Duping Citizen

35

4.1.6 Monopolized Economy

The economy there is also monopolized by the government in Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is seen from the labels of products which are equally labeled victory, can be seen from the following quote: He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN… He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES. Orwell, 1948: 5 …A metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet… Orwell, 1948: 50 On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrappings of a cigarette packet —everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed —no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. Orwell, 1948: 27 The citizens were banned from shopping to other stores besides to government stores which can be seen from the following quote: Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops ’dealing on the free market’, it was called… Orwell, 1948: 6 Local peoples livelihoods highly depend on the supply of electricity, so if the electricity was disconnected then they are not working. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. Orwell, 1948: 1 Universitas Sumatera Utara 36

4.1.7 The Duping Citizen

The life of citizens was made to stupid by the system government slogan. This is consistent with the slogan adopted by the government the following: WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH Orwell, 1948: Chapter I Duping to citizens has become clearly visible in the law that regulates activity of writing. There is explained that the activity of writing isn’t something that is illegal, people who are doing that activity will be executed which can be seen in the following quote: The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws, but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty five years in a forced-labour camp. Orwell, 1948: 6 Nineteen Eighty-Four portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power. Nineteen Eighty-Four portrays a nation in which government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law.

4.2 The Impact of Dictatorship