Thought Police

    In 1984 a weird aspect if it is that Winston isn't allowed to keep a diary and their isn't many books in Oceania. Your not allowed to have your own thoughts or opinions that go against big brother which is why diaries and books aren't accepted. As you know they have the "thought police" that will come after you. However, Winston keeps a diary anyways because he feels as though if you don't write down your thoughts and ideas they will die. Personally, i agree with Winston because if you don't have the words to write down your thoughts they will soon become unexplainable to others and even yourself. Especially, in a place where you have so much trying to push you into believing and thinking a certain way its pivotal that you have some sort of outlet to express your feelings, and that's what the diary was for Winston. I believe even today when we have more freedom that that's still the reason why some people keep diaries.
     The thought police hunt down people that do this because they are afraid of someone finding out that everything big brother does isn't good. The thought police watch your every move from television screens that they have in their houses. If you get caught doing a thoughtcrime you are punished and tortured. An example of a thoughtcrime is Winston's relationship with Julia. They don't allow romance, sexual desire, or love. In 1984 Winston says "The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.", meaning that the people of Oceania are trained to stop thoughtcrime before it even occurs.
   In many ways I feel like even today people are thought not to think or feel certain ways. Obviously we don't have "thoughtpolice " however, we do have people that tell us what we should think all the time. We have parents, presidents, teachers, employers, even friends that want you to think exactly like them all the time. Which is why we take outlets like social media, diaries, or even activities to try and find somewhere where we have a voice and can speak out on how we really feel.

The irony of the four ministries in 1984

     In 1984 their are four ministries: The ministry of love, The ministry of truth, The ministry of plenty, and The ministry of peace. However, each of these ministries names are very ironic to what actually lies beneath each of these ministries.
     The first ministry is the ministry of love, they are responsible for all the government aspects of Oceania such as police, security, and emergencies. The function of this ministry is to instill love for Big Brother through fear. The ministry has no windows, is surrounded by barbed wire, steel doors, guards, and have hidden machine gun nests. Not very homey, right? Another thing that lies in the ministry of love is room 101, a torture chamber.                                                                                                   In chapter V O'brien

Room 101

tells Winston "You asked me once, what was in room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in room 101 is the worse thing in the world". The party has complete access to every ones worse nightmare, in room 101 is where your nightmare becomes brought to life. The party put Winston in room 101 not to make him terrified but so he would betray Julia by saying he would rather have her tortured, resulting back to the fear aspect of this ministry.
     The second ministry is the ministry of truth, the propaganda ministry. Their job is to rewrite the historical events, ironically they do this by lying. They rewrite these historical events for propaganda purposes, and to make Big Brother always seem correct so people will value him more. Without this ministry the party would not seem absolute and the people would not think highly of them. In my opinion this probably the most important ministry to the story line.

Ministry of Truth

      The third ministry is the ministry of plenty, they take care of Oceania's economy. The function of this ministry is to keep everyone in poverty because poor people are easier to rule than wealthy, established people. Big Brother does this by convincing the people that production has gone up when in reality it has gone down, of course this is with the help of the ministry of truth. Winston says "statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version" meaning that the statistics that are "true" and the statistics that are told to the people are both nonsense.
       The last ministry is the ministry of peace, which is ironically responsible for war. They take charge of Oceania's military defense. This relates back to the common theory of Big Brother and one of the party's slogans "War is Peace". The idea of this ministry is to keep Oceania in a perpetual state of war to keep the people busy and at work so they don't learn the truth about their society. Of course it is broad casted that Oceania always wins all the wars, but once again that has no credibility.
      As you can see the names of these ministries are very contradictory to their actual functions. Once again bringing in the theme of "double speak" that is prominent in this book. What ministry do you believe to most vital for the plot line? Why?

What do the partys three slogans mean in 1984 and how do they relate to today?

   In 1984 the party has three slogans: "War is peace", "Freedom is Slavery", and "Ignorance is strength". Each of these hold their own meaning and bring an important aspect to the story. As you can see these three slogans tend to contradict each other which brings in the term "double thinking" that we learned about in class, a term that describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Today these slogans still can apply to our own country.

   In 1984 the slogan War is Peace is referring to how Oceania is always in a state of war however, they can feel peace at the same time depending on what the party is telling them to feel. Today we still use the phrase war is peace when engaging in "preemptive" wars which are basically wars when we have evidence that the enemy is going to attempt to attack us. Do you believe that peace is war in a case where were going preemptive war?

  The next slogan is Freedom is Slavery which is a great example of double thinking because it contradicts the previous slogan.  Freedom of slavery is Big Brothers way of saying that if your completely free you'll have many responsiblities, making you into a slave. He believes and leads everyone else to believe that the best option is to follow him and you wont have to be a slave and stuck with so many responsibilities.In return this leads everyone away from freedom just like he wants. Today that slogan still applies just on a smaller scale, in order to receive full freedom here we have to work to be able to gain the things that give us access to freedom such as education, a car, and most importantly money. Although this isn't scene as "slavery per say, it does follow the same concept.

  The last slogan is Ignorance is Strength refers to keeping everyone dumb and blind to whats going on so the party has all the power and insight. In the partys eyes its basically a way of be-littling them and just another way to have that sense of control over them. Its similar to the relationship of a baby and parent, when a child is so young they have a very low understanding of what goes on their for the parents have most control over their child at a young age. We still have this same exact problem today, we aren't supposed to question authority, laws, or education. We also don't get told everything that's going on in the world for the "greater good" and to save us from worrying all the time but is that the real reason we don't get told everything or is it so the government holds more power over us?

  In 1984 Orwell did a great job at picking out slogans that are relivant to not only the book but to thew wrold still today. He also did a great job at inncorportating the "double thinking" concept in all three of these slogans. Do you find these slogans to still be reliavant today?

Is The Five People You Meet in Heaven a book for everyone?

    The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a book that focuses on very spiritual concepts and takes an imagination to be able to get something out of this book. As Eddie is meeting people in heaven it discuses how everyone of those people have crossed his path for a specific reason and contributed something to his life. This book touches upon fate, beliefs, hope, and faith. These are very controversial topics and many have different perspectives and opinions when it comes to these. Do you believe that everyone crosses your path for a reason? Do you think something positive can come out of dying? These are the questions that The Five People You Meet in Heaven bring to your attention, not everyone likes to think of these things especially for casual reading. Many people even may take offense to some these ideas expressed in the book about the after life if they go against their own personal beliefs.

Lessons Eddie learns

  I think this book is geared toward people who like to think while reading and are open minded to new ideas. This book is constantly throwing new concepts at you and is meant for someone who likes a book with a lot of meaning behind it. This book goes very in depth on Eddie's life and tries to prove to the readers and Eddie that his life did have a purpose. In order to do this it introduces the idea of meeting five people in heaven that were in his life for a reason. I think that book puts a good spin on heaven and its very interesting to see how simple things can alter our lives so much without us having any idea. For example, the third person Eddie met in heaven was a women named Ruby, he only seen a photograph of her because she had owned the Amusement Park he had devoted his whole life to working at. Little did Eddie know, Ruby had known Eddie's father before he passed away and had many things to share with Eddie about him. Someone Eddie never even met changed his whole entire life.

Eddie talking to Ruby

   Another thing this book focuses on is the physical appearance of heaven. In every chapter it gives a detailed description of what heaven looks like to Eddie. In the first paragraph it explains that Eddie has arrived at the after life in the Amusement park where he had spent his whole life. As the chapters go on it discusses the sky changing colors numerous times from white, to grey, to blue. The weather also changes with the colors form warm, to windy, to very cold. The seasons and colors foreshadow the event that's about to happen in that chapter, the good events usually had brighter colors and warmer weather, and the bad events in Eddie's life tend to have darker colors and rougher weather conditions. Do you think this was a coincidence or did the author purposely do this as an outlet to get his point across?
  All and all this book is extremely good and I think it could interest anyone from a wide variety of age groups, male and female. However, when reading a book that's predominately about heaven and dying, it is vital to keep an open mind and be wiling to take on a new understanding of things.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven compared to Tuedays With Morrie

   The Five People You Meet in Heaven starts off in Amusement park where an older man named Eddie is a maintenance worker, he spent the majority of his life working at Ruby Pier where he feels like his life is meaningless and wasted. On Eddie's 83rd birthday he begins his usual routine at Rubys Pier but then a malfunction occurs with one of the rides and Eddie looses his life to save a little girl. The book then takes you through Eddie's journey and experience in heaven where he realizes his life wasn't as meaningless as he thought.

   The Five people You Meet in Heaven has a very similar message to another book called Tuesdays With Morrie. In Tuesdays With Morrie it takes you through a mans final days of living, he spends his last days teaching a former student the importance and value of life and commonly says "once you learn how to die you will learn how to live." However, is dying something we can really be comfortable with? In Eddie's Journey in heaven one of the first things the book says is that "every hurt he'd ever suffered, every ache he'd ever endured- it was all gone as an expired breathe." Morrie stresses the importance that death is not scary and its something that can be just as good as living. 

   Similar to Morrie, people in Eddie's life had a very big impact on him however, Eddie never realized until he died. The first person Eddie met in heaven was a man named Joesph that Eddie unknowingly altered his life forever. Is it possible to not realize how much people change our lives? When Eddie was seven years old his baseball got thrown in the street and he ran after it, Joesph was driving down the street and saw Eddie, he slammed on his breaks. Eddie got the ball, ran away and never looked back. However, Joseph suffered from a heart attack due to the stress making his heart pump fast and died. The lesson Joseph wanted to teach Eddie was to see things from two different perspectives and how the same moment can effect people very differently.

   The Second person Eddie met in heaven was his captain from war. The captain comes to Eddie to try to instill in him that life is only the beginning and their is a lot more to be learned.  He explains to Eddie that "heaven is where you get to make sense of your yesterdays." The captain has the same philosophy as Morrie did when trying to explain to his former student that life is only the start and that death is not the end.

    Both Morrie and the first two people Eddie meet in heaven are there to help two people that lost the meaning in life and feel hopeless. Their main goals are to make sure Eddie and the student feel comfortable with death and believe that their is more to be learned. They also wanted them to see how people truly do make an impact on your life and cross your path for a reason, even if you don't realize what that reason is right away.
Tuesdays with Morrie movie Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1N4W7_Qhao