1984

In 1984, Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, specifically in the Records Department. His job is to rewrite old newspaper articles and historical records so they match whatever the Party currently claims is true. Winston’s work involves “rectifying” the past by changing books, newspapers, photographs, and other documents whenever the Party changes its story about events or political alliances. He realizes that “all history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.”

This work is central to the Party’s control over reality. By constantly altering records, the Party makes it impossible for people to prove that anything has changed. Winston’s growing horror at this system is one of the reasons he begins rebelling against the regime. His job forces him to participate in the destruction of truth even while he privately believes that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.”