Why in the novel 1984 did totalitarian government take away the free will of the people and control them without them realizing it?

Answer 1

1. The reason for stripping people of free will is to make (near) total control easier. Rebellion is impossible. 2. The second point is trickier. You say 'controls them without them realizing it'. To some extent, surely, they are aware. They know that they can be observed and they know about the dreaded Ministry of Love and so on ... However, one of the key tricks is to deprive people of knowledge of any real alternative. The wretched world of the novel is the only one that people know. There's no question of travelling to Another Country; there's also no way of travelling into history, into the past. That is why the Party controls all history books and so on. Winston Smith is, for example, unable to find out minor details, such as whether capitalists really did wear top hats or whether it was simply a way of indicating capitalists - what we would now call an icon. One of the key devices for controlling the people in most totalitarian states was to reduce the scope for knowledge of alternatives.

Answer 2

Oceania's government controls its citizens by using thought police and the telescreen to monitor what the citizens do, think, and say. They also use microphones to keep watch of their citizens as well as their own children. The citizen's children act as spies that can monitor them behind closed doors at all times of the day/night.

Also food rations and the fact that they don't eat real food helps to make and keep them weak. The fact that they always drink gin helps to keep them subdued and happy with their lives by taking the edge off. And deprivation from sex helps to take that energy and sexual urge and redirect it towards hatred of enemies and devotion to Big Brother.

Not allowing people to feel happiness or any other emotion besides hate helps keep them in line because they do not know what they are missing out on. By not letting them marry for love discourages loyalties to anyone else but Big Brother because the only person the citizens should be loyal to and love is Big Brother

Having posters of BB all over the place, with the eyes that feel like they are always following you helps to keep everyone in line as well. Also the deletion of words from language helps to restrict the citizen's communication.