Posted by Aleksei on July 18, 2002 at 09:58:47:
Hi, I'm new here! I stumbled upon this forum in attempt to find an answer to a question pertaining 1984. Maybe some one here will be so kind as to help me...
Here's the deal:
You know how in 1984 there is plenty of talk about changing the past, and controlling the past through present and future through the past, etc. There is a paragraph, about five pages through chapter three, (when Winston is doing exercises in front of the telescreen) that does not look quite as self-explanatory as most of what Orwell wrote. Here it is:
"...And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."
Well, as I see it, victories over your own memory refers to the fact that people wouldn't remember any events or statistics even if they were informed by the Party and gladly accepted the newly fabricated lies about those events later on. However, Orwell also says that "the past, though of its nature alterable, had not been altered" and then in the very next chapter he goes on telling about how historical evidence (newspapers, magazines, films) were destroyed and re-written in favor of status-quo. That seems like a little contradiction to me...and I get a feeling that I'm not catching something...
any people smarter than me out there?