Strategies for Preserving Status Quo in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm

Abstract: In George Orwell's two most famous novels Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm we find a totalitarian state, and in each case there are strategies that enable these societies to stay totalitarian. The reader of today not only sees the Soviet Union when reading Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but a large number of other totalitarian societies with similar structures and systems that exist throughout the world. A close reading of the novels shows that the strategies for the leaders in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm to preserve the status quo include the control of media and flow of information, maintaining the class system, controlling education, creating distractions from issues that matter, being able to put the blame on a traitor, and enforcing control of people’s memory. Media is used to make the inhabitants believe that they are better off now than before, so that they will be content with what they have. Traitors and enemies are used to silence resistance and make sure that people stay in line. People’s memory is something that the leaders manipulate, even if it works in different ways in the two stories. In Animal Farm the animals just have a bad memory, and in Nineteen Eighty-Four it might be that the people have lost their ability to think critically and thus their ability to remember. Maintaining the class system and controlling education is to remain in control and minimizing the risks of another uprising. The reason why the Animal Farm becomes totalitarian is because the animals themselves looked the other way as the pigs started to take more than their fair share, which means that the responsibility of this situation is just as much the leaders as it is the peoples. The totalitarian societies in these books remain at status quo, but the message of these novels is that it can be different in real life. If we do not let things get out of hand, and if we keep on being aware of what is happening around us, we can stop this from happening.