Madeleine Eisert

quote: «And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.»
analysis: This quote emphasizes the importance of the party’s slogan «Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past». The totalitarian rule of the government prevents the exposition of their faults made in past years by eliminating the history that could portray the state negatively. By doing so, the government controls more of the population because the population is taught at a very young age that what the party says or presents as factual is true. This eliminates a person's natural response to question the legitimacy of what «Big Brother» is presenting as being the truth thus rendering the state more powerful because they hold that power over their citizens.

Great analysis, I like how you've made a link between two different quotes and how you put emphasis on the totalitarian government. To add more to your analysis, I would say the different ways that Big Brother is controlling their citizens by using fear through telescreens and the Thought Police. Also, I would say that Big Brother is pushing people to forget the past by falsifying documents and history to make it seem like Big Brother is making the country of Oceania a better place to live so that the citizens can't compare their way of living to an other. Also, you could go further by saying that Big Brother wants to control the memories of the citizens of Oceania. This causes the citizens to believe Big Brother due to the fact that they can only base their knowledge on the present, since all evidence of the past has been erased.