Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell’s science fiction dystopia novel published in 1949. The novel is set in a time zone where war is inevitable and perpetual, based on a super-state known as Oceania. The superstate is ruled by one supreme leader known as Big Brother and governed by four ministries, which include the Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty and Ministry of Time. All the ministries act opposite to the name that has been assigned to them.
- Ministry of Plenty
The Ministry of Plenty also known as Miniplenty in Newspeak is in charge of Oceania’s planned economy. Ministry of Plenty takes care of the rationing of food, supplies, and goods. In Goldstein’s book, the economy of Oceania is very essential, and it is a necessity for the citizens to create useless and synthetic supplies or weapons which would be used in the war. At the same time, they do not have any access to means of production. Furthermore, this is the main idea of Oceania’s view, that a poor and deprived nation is much easier to control.
The media plays a big role in fooling the people to believe that the economy of Oceania is actually becoming good, keeping the citizens of Oceania in the dark about the economy’s bad situation. The Ministry of Plenty gives out statistics which are completely and utterly “nonsense’. In the book when Winston is organizing some Ministry of Plenty’s figures, he explains that as he readjusted the figures placed by the Ministry of Plenty, they were never trying to form a statistic rather they were trying to compile pieces of ‘nonsense’ together, in order to replace the previous ‘nonsense’ they have presented. Most of the material had no connection with the actual world; rather they were made merely out of the Ministry’s mind.
Just like all the other ministries, the Ministry of Plenty is just a sales tactic used in advertisements to fool people, covering its actual function.
- Ministry of Truth
The Ministry of Truth also known as Minitrue in Newspeak deals solely with propaganda. As the other ministries mentioned in George Orwell’s book Nineteen eighty-four is the misnomer, and in reality, acts the opposite of what it is assumed to function as. Its task is to distort historical events for the betterment of the Party. Along with historical negationism, the Ministry of Truth administers truth and the spread of a new language called Newspeak, in which truth is referred to as 2+2=5 when the situation warrants.
