In the world
of , history is continually rewritten so that the "facts" of the
past confirm the reality of the present moment, whatever that reality might be. For example, if
at the present moment, Oceania is at war with Eurasia, it must appear as if it has always been
at war with Eurasia: "All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly
as often as was necessary," explains the narration. Further, it's not possible to establish
that any "falsification" has ever taken place. All the evidence is scrubbed clean or
destroyed.is part of this process, as his job is to rewrite newspaper articles that happen to
contradict the current Party orthodoxy.
We learn fairly early in the novel,
however, from Winston's thoughts, that "Just once in his whole life he [Winston] had held
in his hands unmistakable documentary proof of the falsification of an historical fact." It
happened, Winston believes, in 1973, eleven years before the action of the story takes
place.
Earlier, in the mid-1960s, Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford, original
revolutionary leaders, were arrested and confessed to murder, embezzlement, and treason -- more
specifically, to being on enemy soil on a certain day betraying military secrets to the enemy.
At work, however, Winston finds a newspaper clipping showing they were actually in New York the
day they were said to be in Eurasia committing treason.
Although he destroys
this piece of evidence, Winston is excited by his discovery: he believes a revelation of Party
lies would blow the Party "to atoms." He is still naive at this point, as indicated by
the puzzled questions he writes in his journal of not understanding why the Party does what it
does. Later, he will learn fromthat even the old-fashioned "hard" evidence that he so
values doesn't matter: the Party has the power to force people to understand evidence any way it
wants them to, just as it has the power to force Winston not only to say, but to believe, that
two plus two equals five.
No comments:
Post a Comment