Response 9

The psychological manipulations play a major role in 1984.  It is through the manipulations that the people of Oceania are controlled.  The Party has a hold on every aspect of their lives: emotional and physical.  The Party has found a way to control not only how people think but also how they feel.  Their control their thoughts, actions, language, impulses, desires, and reasoning.  The posters of Big Brother placed everywhere remind the people that they are constantly being watched which prevents them from doing anything that the Party deems as unacceptable.  Their minds have been altered to the point that there is no longer any individuality.  They are manipulated to think, act, and say as the Party does.  The scary thing is that the people do so unconsciously.  They do not know what it feels like to think their own thoughts and decide their own actions.  The propaganda that the Party feeds it's people has strangled the people.  The people are taught that whatever the Party says is true so if the Party says that two plus two equal five then that is the truth.  The telescreeens monitor every second of the people's lives.  In chapter 9 it talks about how the invention print made it easier to manipulate the public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further.  The people are constantly reminded that they are under the control of Big Brother who is always watching over them.  The Party has destroyed the minds of the children and succeeded in turning them into products of the Party system.  The children have no idea how to think other than how the Party thinks and believe other than the Party believes.  The children are brainwashed and stripped of all human nature.  The children turn against their parents and are the biggest advocates of the Party.  However, I do not fear that our country will ever have to worry about this happening to us.  Our country has been founded on the basis that all men are created equal and we are guaranteed individual freedoms and rights.  The government may be able to control some of our actions through laws and regulations, but they can never control the way that we think.  On the contrary, what if everything that we believe to be true is a lie.  Maybe the version of history that we were taught was revised to favor our nation's own beliefs.  Possibly we are the unconscious one's that are under the psychological manipulation of a supreme ruling.