Memory

Remembering something in 1984 is practically impossible. What you think is true, could end up being false. In 1984, all the texts are rewritten over and over again. Speeches made by Big Brother are rewritten to make it seem like everything that comes out of his mouth is true. Because all the texts are rewritten, there really is no truth in 1984. Wilson tries to convince O'Brien that the Earth is older than man kind and O'Brien won't hear it because all his life he has been force feed the Party's lies.

"We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.'

'But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny-helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.'

Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness." (Orwell, 218).

O'Brien can't fathom that anything existed before humans. That shows how powerful having a past is. How the past is written and passed down can change our perspective of everything. In our world most people believe that evolution happened and that dinosaurs roamed the earth, while in 1984, humans have always existed and there was never a time when they weren't there. Dinosaur bones were created by scientist according to the people in the Party.

All of our history books are written over and over again, it seems likely that eventually people will leave things out or rephrase a sentence that completely changes history. Does that surprise you, to know that everything in your history book could be a lie that we all just believe? Do you think that there's a way to come up with a way to record history accurately? If so, how? Do you think that the truth actually exists or is it how we perceive the truth?