1984 - Quotation Analysis

‘‘Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.’’ Chapter 3, Part 1.

Analysis
      This quote is firstly introduced in Part 1, Chapter 3 when Winston explains how the Party has complete control of the memories and historical events in the community. It introduces the readers to the understanding of the Party’s technique to modify the real facts of historical events in order to destruct the importance and repercussions of the truth. In this case, having control of the future is a given when you are able to control the past, because it comes back to link the two together. Essentially, the past gives opportunities to set rules and grounds that can influence to create future goals and objectives. In the novel, the Party forms the past to seem miserable which pushes people to comply to the Party’s future rules that are ‘‘presented’’ to liberate the human race from slavery.
     This leads me to my second point: control of the present. In the present, the Party has complete political control over its citizens and the reason for that is due to the fact that the Party portrayed the past to seem depressing. This pushed citizens to willingly believe in their beliefs. Since the people are not allowed to hold any documents including pictures and diaries reminding them of their past and that every book source reflects the Party’s ideology, this ensures that the citizens of Oceania retain a very vague and blurry memory so that no one is able to interfere with the Party’s plans.

Interpretation and Effect
In my opinion, I believe this quote is a key part to the base of what the Party is and what they stand for. It proves that the citizens are living under lies that the Party have fabricated for their own benefit, allowing no one to convey any memories while they recreate their own. I suspected that this quote gave readers a more in depth comprehension of the Party’s manipulation and how it always comes back to the lifestyle that the Party created in the past, to the present and for their future.

Hi Kiana! Your interpretation was insightful and I agree with you. However, I would even go as far as saying that the Party is very cunning and subtle in the way they manipulate their citizens. By way of consistently feeding citizens false information, the Party has provided its citizens with no other way of living or thinking. Therefore, the citizens of Oceania do not have the knowledge nor the models to fabricate thoughts deviating from Party ideology or to even consider the possibility of rebellion.

Moreover, I believe we can make a link between the Party’s modifications of history to paint themselves in a better light to our own historical literature. For example, last year my history teacher spoke of the subjectivity in historical works, citing an example of a widely praised book written by a British historian that covers the entire World War I. In Canada, when World War I is mentioned, we automatically associate this historical event to the Battle of Vimy Ridge in which Canada was literally united on the battlefield and created an identity for itself. Nonetheless, in this celebrated British book, the Battle of Vimy Ridge was merely depicted as “an advantageous position seized by commonwealth soldiers.” Hence, this goes to say that this British historian, as well as Canada portray historical events in a manner that promotes their own interest, just like the Party writes and rewrites history to maintain their credibility.

Very insightful thoughts in this thread!

It is a well known fact that history, as much as it tries to be objective, simply isn't. Different historians studying the same event with access to the same sources can come to two different conclusions (or, two different interpretations of events). Each historian brings his or her "baggage" with them: their cultural lenses, their experiences, etc. Luckily we live in an age of information, and we have access to different points of view and versions of events.

It's important to come to your own conclusions after considering different sides of the story. Put those critical thinking skills to work!