1984 post #2

To begin, think about why Winston is writing in his diary and why this is a crime. In what way is writing things down a threat to the Party? Why is Winston drawn to this activity? Now consider Syme’s job of destroying words. Discuss the control of language as a method of controlling individuality.
Winston is writing in his diary, really because he wants to. He knows it is dangerous but he feels this need to do it. His writing is a threat to the party because what he writes down is then documentation of history or what is going on. The reason this is a problem is because the party can't control his diary if they don't know about it. The party controls all other written documents in order to make people think what they want them to think. They change various documents so that people will think big brother and the party are always right. So if Winston has written in his diary that they are at war with Eurasia and the war switches and they are then at war with Eastasia, Winston to an extent would then have documentation of the war having been different.
Syme's job is to destroy words for the newspeak dictionary. The idea of this is that no one can commit thought crime if they can't form the words to describe what they feel. This controls people's freedom because they then can't form thoughts their range of thought is significantly narrowed. Thus there individuality and freedom is controlled. So that is how the party controls the people and keeps them under strict control all the time and how they prevent them from rebelling up against the party.