Doublethink In 1984

The impact that Newspeak had on individuals was examined by Lewis, Xhinaku & Pema, and Ermida. The scholars contended that Newspeak caused the people of Oceania to be less understanding of others and to be more inhumane. As mentioned previously, Lewis believes Newspeak is meant to create a world where drawing logical conclusions is impossible, and therefore, by individuals not having the ability to fully understand and comprehend the state of the world around them using their reduced language, they are more likely to ignore, and therefore allow, the corruption and wickedness that the citizens regularly experience to continue to occur (28-29). Using this same logic, Lewis goes on to comment that “reduction in the socio-geographic space of language
Doublethink, in 1984, can be defined as the ability to believe two opposing thoughts at the same time. Only Zolyan and Chapman considered the concepts of doublethink on individuals. Zolyan tries to express the concept of doublethink by relating it to understanding a metaphor, like Orwell suggested. Zolyan declares that in order for one to understand a metaphor, one must find a relationship between the literal meaning and the figurative meaning (137-138); if one is unable to do this, then the metaphor does not make sense and it loses its figurative meaning (138). Zolyan adds that the concept of doublethink was just another example of a claimed by George Orwell, “political language is a tool for disseminating falsehood and misinformation” (138). Chapman would likely agree with Zolyan, stating that in order to stay alive in the dystopian society of Oceania, one must adopt “both a truth-committed and a non truth-committed approach” in every encounter, and they must do so at the same time (75). Doublethink was an attitude that the Party expected all citizens of Oceania to assimilate; however, Chapman observes that doublethink is not simply the ability to believe two opposing thoughts at the same time. Chapman insists that it is the ability to be concerned about and to not be concerned about the truthfulness of certain events or ideas (75). Chapman expressed this concept by using Goldstein’s book as a focal point. Chapman maintains that Goldstein’s book tells about how the Inner Party members believe that Oceania’s war stories are true, but at the same time they understand that the content is “spuripus” (76). Both Zolyan and Chapman can agree on the fact that doublethink was an approach that the Party wanted all individuals to use, but all individuals were not able to fully conform to those