1984 - Apple Math

"Who controls the past...controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." p. 34

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." p. 81

They totally stole that first one from "Testify" by Rage Against the Machine. Somebody alert the plagiarism police!

Anyway, this blog post concerns the literary term "aphorism" which is an axiom or a brief little saying that has some sort of deep clever meaning. I'll be analyzing the two aforementioned aphorisms.

The first one deals primarily with the position of the terrible Party. The Party is capable of taking all evidence of past events and either destroying it or changing it to fit the needs of the Party. They can change all perception of human history so that no matter what, it appears that people's standard of living is always on the rise and that to fall back into the evils of capitalism would be terrible for everyone except the supremely wealthy. By doing this, the Party ensures that the common folk will never rise up in revolution in an attempt to attain a better life for themselves because they have no reason to believe that they will actually be any better off by overthrowing the party. The Party is in control right now, and thus can control the past, and therefore will control the future as well, since nothing will ever be able to overthrow it.

The second axiom is Winston's little idea, which is essentially like an answer to the first. Immediately before stating it, he ponders whether lunacy is really just being "a minority of one." If you are the only person who believes something, does that make you insane, and therefore wrong? Winston considers the idea, but with this quick maxim, he declares NO! Right and wrong are not a majority opinion. The party can declare that 2+2=5, and everyone may believe them, but when Tom has 2 apples, and his mom gives him 2 more apples, the recipe for apple pie which calls for 5 apples will, unfortunately be lacking 20% of its required appley goodness. Therefore, Winston is essentially expressing the idea that perhaps the Party is not so bulletproof. They cannot actually change the events of history, only the way that it is remembered. Perhaps therein lies the hope for escape from this dystopia?

Or perhaps it lies in this warm apple pie.