The aim: How are the readers of 1984 warned about the power
of manipulation?
Do now ( Think Pair Share) : Winston thinks, “They could not alter your feelings;
for that matter, you could not alter them yourself,
even if you wanted to.” Think about and discuss the
nature of feelings and emotions.
- Can you alter your own feelings by force of will? Why/Why Not?
I believe that you cannot alter your feelings unless there is a reason behind it. If you want to improve your mood, such as be happy when you are upset, you can forcefully do something like a hobby or your passion, to make your mood more positive. However, you cannot just avoid your emotions so no matter if you force yourself to feel better, the emotions will not disappear unless you resolve the problem. Peter said that there are experiments such as a smile experiment of doing the same tasks, to see how it would affect their emotions. These experiments prove that it is possible to alter your emotions, either through your own mental state and exaggerations, or due to what you may do to change your emotions.
- Can someone else alter another person’s innermost feelings?
I believe that it is possible, to an extent, same as the other question. To alter your feelings means to understand the other side and perspective of your dilemma or happiness, and by argument or by discussion, a person may be able to change your bias and emotions if they have enough details to support why your mood should change. For example, if you were feeling happy, and you have a good day, and someone came up to you and started insulting you, this would change your emotions greatly because you may feel upset, angry, or bothered, making yourself feel less happy either due to overreaction or due to the change of the situation. A form of brainwash may affect someone’s innermost feelings because someone’s feelings may be changed in specific life or death cases.
Three questions for the novel so far
- The purpose of this team work is to see the team’s opinions and answers to these questions to understand the novel better for all of the students in the class.
How did Julia get the groceries from the Black Market? How has the thought police not already gotten to the market?
How is the thought police not aware of what is happening if they supposedly know everything? Do they just say that to provoke fear and brainwash others?
Is O’Brien really an enemy of the Party?
Some insights: some students have questions which cannot be answered because there is no details or proof to support it. For example, some students wonder if Goldstein is a real person and others wonder if Oceania is like everywhere else.
Group Work : a comparison chart was made to show the differences and similarities between Winston and Julia and how the author portrays the characters through tone v.s the way they actually act towards each other.
Evaluate the characters of Julia and Winston.
Record Characteristics unique to each, then record characteristics that are
shared.
How is the author warning the readers about manipulation through the
Characters?
- While Julia and Winston are both against the party, Julia wants to resist the party while Winston wants to overthrow it and start a Revolution. Julia is very smart and creative and wants to resist the party for individualism and her own personal thought. She lives in the present and doesnt think about the future and how it may affect the generation like Winston does. Winston is more naive and does not know how exactly to start revolution and doesn’t know exactly what the outcome will be. Winston acts to her as if she is pure and orthodox but what she does shows the opposite such as her buying groceries and makeup from the Black Market.
Record what you did last friday morning
- I cannot exactly remember what I did last friday morning, but I remember sleeping later than usual and eating breakfast. I think I caught up on some assignments to submit them, and then watched some Netflix to distract myself from boredom. Overall, my days have been pretty much the same because there isn’t much we can do inside the house.
The purpose was to show the difficulty of recalling what happened in the past, just as the people of Oceania, such as the old man Winston met at the bar, cannot recall everything that happened on an every basis.
Whole class discussion
- It is difficult to record what happened because if it was an average day with nothing interesting, you don’t remember your everyday routines.
- It is easy to forget because some details get lost with other aspects of your other days, as well as the emotions you had, which may have caused you to forget about these specific details because you do not feel that way anymore.
- Forgetting leaves people vulnerable because it is easier to manipulate someone to believe a false interpretation of what happened because you don't remember the specifics of what happened.
Write about your thoughts regarding the reading.
While reading chapter 4 and 5, a comparison of Julia’s and Winston’s approach to the party is shown. Although both want to stay away from the party, Julia doesn't want to rebel but only resists from the party and dislikes the smaller aspects of the Party. She, like Winston, wants individuality, but Winston strives for more. Winston wants to overthrow the party by a revolution, large scale, physically and emotionally, not just in the small scale of the thoughts that Julia wants to have. In addition to my thoughts, a lot of the students in my English class shares slightly different views. They believed that although Julia is smart, she, like Winston is naive to what is happening. Throughout reading these chapters, I wasnt aware of Winstons naive ideas, but since he cannot start a revolution without getting most of Oceania involved, I agree that he is too naive to expect all of Oceania will go against the loyalty to Big Brother.
Write about what you learned in your online English lessons.
Today, I learned from my English class the importance of thought crime and how emotions are involved with it. The students in my class and I had a discussion involving the argument that emotions can be forcefully altered, as questioned in 1984. Some believed that for emotions to be altered, something very darastic has to occur, but from my point of view, I believe that emotions can be forcefully altered depending on how strongly you want change. For example, I participated in class by giving an example of emotion forcefully alternating. I said, if someone is very upset but q1 person tries to do something or tells them good news to make them happy, this may change thier emotions into a more positive way. However, I slightly agree with some of the students in my class because although this emotion would be altered, the conflict would stay and would bring the emotions back once remembered. This can be related to 1984 because WInston wants change and believes the government is corrupt, and although he had lived most of his life in oblivion, not aknowledging the conflict and how he truly feels, he cannot hold these emotions in for long and now wants to revolt. From this lesson, i learned a valuable life lesson too. I learned that you cannot try to hide your emotions or questions you have in this world, because they will always reappear in a stronger form that can be a danger to yourself or others. B
What is it like working from home?
Working from home is slightly difficult due to the lack of resources given. If I would be in school, I would be working in the library on my assignments as well as reading the chapters of the 1984 book. However, by working from home, I am able to be in complete focus without distractions such as my friends or loud background noises. Although there are less distractions, the distraction of using my phone and social media has increased, so to avoid this, I download an app to limit my phone usage when I am studying, which will lock me from the social media apps for as long as I want to study. By studying from home and participating in zoom classes online, such as my english class, participating actively is slgihty harder since there is less organization as well as many more distractions in my home. In addition, we cannot have accurate and active groupwork and as much creativity as I would like, which makes me less motivated to understand the themes and metaphors of the chapters. Although this is the case, I am happy that I have more time to complete the assignments as well as submit the classwork in my own pace within the three day. Overall, I like the individual work because I can focus and express my opinion about the themes which allows me to explore the creative sides of my mind when writing and participating in online classes.
Answer to Aim- By manipulation, the author warns us that brainwashing techniques are as simple as someone forcefully altering your emotions. The author warns us and implies that is important for us to remain unique and as individuals, to prevent one single leader from manipulating us into their full control.
Reflection
Today during class, I learned the power of manipulation and how leaders could use it against the society. Before this lesson, I wasnt aware that in our everyday lives, we should question why and how someone does something to change our emotions, for their own power to be in control. I also learned that like Winston, it isn’t possible to remember every single detail of your early life, or even what we had for lunch a week ago. LIke us, Winston's life prior to the revolution and big brother, may haven’t seemed important to remember then, but now as he searches to find an explanation for why it all started, us as readers notice that every person doesnt know something is important until it comes haunting us back. In a way, this relates to emotion alteration because ever since Big brother, the society became more calm and happy, forgetting about their problems. However, as I've mentioned before, it is impossible for something so life changing to just be forgotten, which is why Winston is so eager to revolt now rather than in the beginning. We learned this lesson to understand how brainwashing and manipulation techniques can make us forget about our worries, and make us feel more secure and comfortable in the world. However, we learned from this lesson the importance of questioning their world around us as well as getting out of our comfort zone, like Winston did, to reform and question the government and society. We also learned this to distinguish the differences between Winston and Julia. While Winston is getting out of his comfort zone to find answers and fix society, Julia would rather sit at home, away from danger, making her seem like how Winston was before he got the diary and began to write out his emotions and thoughts, which will be forever on paper even if it is no ,longer in his mind. I will use what I learned to get out of my on comfort zone and do something that i have always wanted to do but never felt comfortable to do: make a blog about my own emotions and thoughts about society and the world around us.
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