Roman emperor Essay Example for Free

Roman emperor Essay Roman emperor Nero has once said: â€Å"Let them hate, if they only fear†. These words can serve as an outstanding bearing of many totalitarian leaders and regimes. Fear is inspired by fear and creates fear like a chain reaction. This feature of absolute power has been noticed and described by many authors. In his â€Å"1984†, which is, undoubtedly, the most famous most famous anti-utopia of all times, George Orwell could not have disregarded the topic of fear. It is not fear itself, which makes the power of the Big Brother so strong, but fear and terror are organic elements of his influence. It is actually not even fear before the Big Brother himself, because Big Brother wants love and makes everyone love him even against their will. In case Big Brother and the ruling party were a source of fear themselves, they would never retain their power. People use to hate that what they are afraid of and to be afraid of that, what they fear, so in the â€Å"1984† society fear and hate are pointed against someone, who is outside the system. Orwell has developed the topic of such â€Å"outside† fear in his earlier story â€Å"Animal Farm†. A pig, named Napoleon, used to say, that all animals should work hard, in case they do not want Jones, a previous master, to come back. And this natural concern of the Animal Farm inhabitants is exploited by the pigs to support control over the rest of the animals. The loyal citizens of Oceania do not fear Big Brother, but in fact love and revere him. They feel he protects them from the evils out there. The purported love and hate walk closely which is illustrated in the end of the Two Minutes Hate:â€Å" At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of B-B! . B-B! . B-B! —over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first B and the second—a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. In 1984 such fear is inspired by the foreign enemies. His Oceania was engaged in constant warfare with Eastasia and/or Eurasia which kept the citizens in a constant state of mobilization and alert. Although war constantly rages on, the three powers in which the world is divided are now unconquerable. In the dictatorship of Oceania, the citizens live in fear each day, unsure exactly where the enemy bombers that fly overhead will decide to drop their missiles. Julia, even has the impression that it is Oceania itself, not the enemy, dropping bombs on the country. This is how the Inner Party takes any means to strike fear in the hearts of every citizen. Another source of fear are spies, which are said to be living between the loyal citizens, and which are sent by the symbol of all enemies Goldstein to ruin the â€Å"normal† life. Orwell starts to sketching out the features of a totally oppressive society already at the beginning of his novel. He plays on his readers fears of powerlessness and own experiences of oppression. The social surroundings of the novel are depicted on the basis of Orwells experiences of wartime London. He uses the descriptive techniques of literary naturalism to produce images of a society of extreme material deprivation: Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine, and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. However, it is not only material fear, which drive Winston, Julia and others. It is fear of themselves, their own thoughts and opinions. Winston’s neighbor is so afraid of thinking wrong, that even when he is simply told, that his thoughts are suspicious, he makes no effort to prove, that he remains loyal to the Big Brother but trusts everything about himself and goes to the Ministry of Love for â€Å"reintegration† without any complaint. The loyal citizens should not fear, but those, who entered the Ministry of Love are suppressed by all means, including fear. The Ministry knows for sure what each single person is afraid of and uses fear as an ultimate weapon to make the convicts forget about their errors and love the Big Brother again. By fear they make Winston betray his love to Julia and turn it into adoration with Big Brother. They do not kill, they wash the brains, and so love wins. Love, which is based on fear.