1984 #1: The Inherent Paradoxical Nature of The Party

            In chapter one part one of George Orwell’s 1984, the reader is introduced to the Party. The Party is synonymous with the government and controls all aspects of people’s lives.  The Party’s slogans are one of the first things the reader learns about the Party; “WAR IS PEACE / FREEDOM IS SLAVERY / IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 4).  These three statements are mind-boggling to those living in a non-socialist environment and seemingly paradoxical.  War has an exceedingly negative connotation whereas peace has quite the positive connotation and equating the two of them leads to quite the paradox.  With the comparison of freedom and slavery the same thing occurs; slavery and freedom are considered antonyms so their equating creates a paradox.  The third slogan, “ignorance is strength” is a paradox as well; knowledge is power is the socially accepted belief, but to say that ignorance, an antonym to knowledge, is strength, a synonym of power, creates a statement that makes no sense in accepted societal context, therefore creating a third major paradox of the Party’.  The fact that the Party is based on three seemingly paradoxical ideas indicates that the Party is attempting to instill false truths in its subjects.  This false representation of the truth by the Party, although fairly synonymous with politics and government (when looked at with a cynical view), tells the reader that the Party is ungood (as one would say in Newspeak).  Orwell is metonymically comparing the Party to what he sees all governments becoming in the future, and he uses paradoxes as the Party’s slogans to portray his beliefs that oligarchies are inherently bad and this progression of the world’s governments must be stopped before it is too late.