The Party's methods of control

The Party in 1984 has many means of controlling the people. The language control that we have discussed in class is one of the most intense methods that they use, but they also have things like how they change the past. This happens to be Winston's job in the novel, which is interesting. By changing the past and records, people never know the truth. They never know what actually has happened. Today, we teach history, not only becuase it's interesting, but it's important because to understand the present, you have to know about the past. And it just keeps building, to understand what is coming in the future, you have to know what is happening in the present. In this society, taking away the past, is taking away people's understanding. Which is why it is so powerful. The people have no idea what has actually happened and they don't really know what is happening right now, because the society is always lying to them and changing things. Like in the example we talked about in class, one day the chocolate ration went down to 20 grams, which was a "positive" thing, and then the next day they announced that the chocolate ration went up to 20 grams, which of course is a positive thing and no one thought there was anything unusual about it being the exact same as the day before. It's almost like the past just isn't important. The Party even uses people like Winston to go back into old articles and delete people who have been vaporized so it's like they have never even existed, and to create people that have never existed. It's a big cover-up scheme that is incredibly effective. It's hard to explain why it is so effective, but deleting the past and records of things from the past means that these things are lost forever and no one will ever know the truth.