Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, we create a system of titles. Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, Aunts or Marthas. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms “Unwomen” and “Unbabies.” Gilead maintains its control over women’s bodies by maintaining control over names.
In 1984
George Orwell examines narrowing the range of thought though the destruction of words. In Oceania, destroying the whole literature of the past is considered "a beautiful thing" (Orwell, 51).In Newspeak, “bad” and “awful” are altered to mean “ungood” or “doubleplus ungood.” This language leaves no room for nuance or shades of meaning. The vocabulary of Newspeak reduces year after year, limits the range of consciousness, and aims to make thoughtcrime impossible. As Syme, who is a specialist in Newspeak, says, “Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” (Orwell, 53). Sooner or Later, there will be no thought in Oceania, as there will be no words to express it.Big Brother haven't finished the final edition of Newspeak. In 1984, Syme's only job is to sit in his cubicle, and consolidate the English language into as few as characters as possible. But In Gilead, no one are called by their own names, everyone from the same class are equal. Nine names and a few sentences from the Bible make up all the language we use in daily life. Unlike Big Brother, we have already done everything possible to let our citizens not to express themselves.
In the North American society
The same thing happened to the state before us, the North American society. Text messaging was Newspeak. It had taken the world of communication over, and slowly took hold of the proper English language. As soon as the instant messaging services came out, short text messaging became a preferred form of communication and being frequently used. Ideas and thoughts were transmitted in fewest numbers of characters before any review and correction. With acronyms like LOL (laugh out loud), BTW (by the way) and ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) being used online to cut down the time spent on typing, the younger generations by that time were actually using these acronyms in their daily lives. The Example of the North American society depicts simple words seek to adapt the language to fit the new technological world.
