[Music] there are a number of key themes in 1984 one is class struggle George Orwell supported democratic socialism and saw totalitarianism as a huge danger in countries where socialism was the party line Winston speaks often of the need to mobilize the proles against the party the party controls the middle class and they're convinced that the proles are at the same level as animals this keeps the middle class in the proles from joining forces and Winston belongs to the middle class he sees that the higher classes enjoy privileges he can't have and he believes that the proles enjoy freedom because they're ignored by the party freedom versus oppression is also an important theme Orwell wrote 1984 in reaction to the rise of totalitarian governments would Orwell saw includes techniques he observed in totalitarian regimes in Europe like limiting the press and widespread poverty Orwell's intent in this cautionary tale is twofold to disparage totalitarian regimes and to warn about the possibility of takeover by intolerant anti-democratic powers fear and hate as means of control are key themes here Orwell examines the sneaky ways government's create fear and hate among their own people in order to gain or hold on to power fear and hate are ramped up by politicians subgroups and governments propaganda is used to control people telling them that they need to be afraid hatred is the correct response to alleviate that fear with enough exposure the people can be convinced of anything and the telescreen subjects people to nearly constant exposure individual thought versus mind control is a crucial theme in 1984 now individual thought requires freedom of expression the richer the language the more choices a person has to express nuance and specificity the outer party is on the 11th edition of the Newspeak dictionary and with each addition more words are dropped from the English language eliminating words reduces the range of consciousness and limits original thinking orthodoxy means not needing to think it's unconsciousness and here it's the ultimate form of mind control people are not allowed to think anti-party thoughts at all thoughtcrime can be detected by even a lukewarm expression which they call face crime the only allowable thoughts are the ones the party instills if someone in power tells a lie often enough and no dissenting voices come forward people will begin to believe the lie you