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Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Number Date “Reality only exerts its pressure through the need of everyday life-the need to eat and drink, get shelter and clothing to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasures and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be convenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose” (Orwell, 228). Orwell’s central idea is that naivety blinds us from reality. Without the reality of life hitting us, the only pressure we have is how to get food, clothes and shelter. According to Orwell, the citizens had no access to the outer world and, therefore, they were like men in interstellar space. In addition, their rulers were absolute and they perceive them as perfect individuals which gave them the right to do almost anything. Therefore, we can see from the last sentence in the quote that they were able to twist that reality into the shape they desired. Orwell alludes to the probability that the rocket bombs that fell daily on London were fired by the Oceania government itself so as to keep individuals frightened.
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