1984 - George Orwell

Totalitarianism

AO1:

• The world in ‘1984’ is split into ‘three great superstates’: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

• Big Brother is described as having ‘a heavy black moustache’, mirroring the appearance of other totalitarian dictators like Hitler and Stalin.

• The proles live in dilapidated slums, reflecting their position in the eyes of the Party. Members of the Party also live in poor conditions with their homes ‘falling to pieces’. This type of environment would’ve been recognisable to the audience who had most likely lived through the Blitz in London (including Orwell himself). In contrast, the Ministries and ‘Victory Mansions’ have elements of Brutalist architecture, mirroring the oppressive and ugly nature of the Party.

• The ‘Ninth Three-Year Plan’ is mentioned a couple of times to satirise how long many historical totalitarian regimes reigned (e.g. the USSR).

• The Party takes part in many totalitarian practices, such as prioritising subjective truth (based on individual experience) over objective truth (based on facts and reality), forming a cult of personality under Big Brother, ‘vaporising’ and torturing its own people, using a scapegoat (‘Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People’), pushing the idea that 2+2=5, using ‘forced-labour camps’ and publically hanging people.

AO3:

• The superpowers discussed the post-war occupation and demilitarisation of Germany, leading to it being split into four zones.

• After being discharged from the Indian Imperial Police, Orwell lived a vagrant life for five years to learn more about the working class, resulting in his novel ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’. Experiences like this caused him to favour socialism over capitalism, although he didn’t agree with how socialism was practised by others, as, during his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, he saw lots of illegitimate power. With ‘1984’, Orwell intended to provide a warning against totalitarianism, NOT to attack socialism.

• Much of Soviet architecture was inspired by Brutalist architecture (rough surfaces, massive forms and unusual shapes), mirroring the oppressive and ugly nature of the USSR.

• In his novel ‘Animal Farm’, Orwell mocks the Soviet regime and its totalitarianism as he was very disturbed by Stalinist politics. This continues into his novel ‘1984’.

• A cult of personality aims to create a heroic image of a leader via the use of propaganda and patriotism. An infamous example is the cult of personality that Stalin formed, giving power to communism.

• Stalin launched a bloody purge in the late 1930s for all those whom he saw as threats. Mao, leader of the Republic of China, also purged thousands.

• Orwell was diagnosed with TB two years before publishing ‘1984’ and was subject to routine injections into his lungs and constant x-rays, perhaps inspiring the immense torture of Winston in the ‘Room 101’ (‘the place where there is no darkness’) with O’Brien in the novel.

• Hitler used Jews as a scapegoat, leading to the Holocaust, where millions of Jews were tortured and killed. Moreover, the surname ‘Goldstein’ is of Jewish heritage, and Goldstein is described as having a ‘Jewish face’. His book, which Orwell includes in the novel, is also a parody of Trotsky’s (a Soviet politician).

• The slogan ‘2+2=5’ originates from Russia when communists used it to help them accomplish their five-year plan in just two years.

• During the Holocaust, the Nazis operated many labour and death camps.

• The Nazis used hanging as a means of execution, both for criminal sentences and as a form of public execution.

AO4:

• The Party seems to have ruled for as long as Winston can remember, whereas Offred has a much clearer memory of a pre-Gilead time, implying Gilead is a more recent regime. Furthermore, there are far more orthodox people in Oceania, like Syme, than there are in Gilead, as even those in power, like the Commander, rebel against the regime.

• Both texts see the hanging of those who are thought to be criminals for one reason or another.

AO5:

• Although the ‘proles’ in ‘1984’ are not considered a threat, the Party takes precautions to ensure they never become conscious of their poverty and powerlessness, despite claiming ‘proles and animals are free’. Moreover, Syme claims 'the proles are not human beings’. According to Marxists, the lower classes have traditionally been manipulated through the encouragement of behaviours such as gambling, drinking and having sex.

Surveillance

AO1:

• Big Brother’s omnipresence (‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU’) ensures that citizens are constantly aware they’re being watched.

• The ‘Thought Police’ patrol citizens’ thoughts to eliminate the freedom of thought. Furthermore, Winston states, ‘thoughtcrime IS death’, creating fear.

• ‘Telescreens’ are always watching and listening, forcing citizens to police their own behaviour. Winston is aware that there’s ‘no way of knowing whether you were being watched’.

• The ‘Spies’ are encouraged to report any disloyal behaviour to the Party, even within their own families, meaning citizens are only loyal to the Party - this is evident in the Parsons household.

• It’s revealed that Winston and Julia were being watched in the room above Mr Charrington’s shop, someone whom Winston thought he could trust due to their shared appreciation for the past.

• The inability of the old prole to satisfy Winston's curiosity about the past and its comparison to the present is an indicator that the Party has succeeded in its program of mind control.

AO3:

• The Panopticon prison design requires only one guard to surveil multiple prisoners simultaneously. The idea was that, eventually, prisoners would begin to unconsciously limit their behaviour in fear of being caught.

• Orwell was allegedly spied on in the Spanish Civil War, and in ‘Homage to Catalonia’, he explores his fears of being denounced by a ‘friend’ to the ‘secret police’.

• Nazis and Soviets employed spies in various countries to steal military secrets (e.g. nuclear technology). Similarly, the Hitler Youth movement indoctrinated children into the Nazi Party and turned them into remorseless killers.
  

AO4:

• There are spies in ‘1984’ and ‘THT’. ___

AO5:

Value of Language

AO1:

• By starting a ‘diary’, Winston is recognising the value of his beliefs and understands that, to combat the reality control practised by the Party, he must record his private thoughts, even if he cannot share them with another person.

• ‘Who controls the past, […] controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’ sums up the Party’s goal to ‘rectify’ history to its advantage (‘the mutability of the past’). The Party also uses radio broadcasts for things such as victory announcements. This is done to push the Party’s subjective truth that Winston vows is wrong as he says ‘water is wet’, conveying his belief in the objective truth. Winston’s fascination with truth and the past is highlighted by the coral paperweight he buys from the antique shop, as it belongs to ‘an age quite different from the present one’. This is also present with his obsession with the rhyme Mr Charrington tells him as he constantly quotes it throughout the book as it is another artefact of the past.

• Winston works for the ‘Ministry of Truth’, producing propaganda. This includes editing ‘vaporised’ people out of images as they are considered to have never existed, altering history. Like Orwell, Winston believes the Party’s ability to manipulate history is ‘more terrifying than mere torture or death’. Not only does it manipulate history, but it also makes history up, for instance, the creation of ‘Comrade Ogilvy’, the seemingly perfect Party member.

• The Party’s language ‘Newspeak’ works to limit thought so that ‘thoughtcrime [is] literally impossible’.

• According to the orthodox, ‘[there’s] beauty [in] the destruction of words’ which is done by the Party to limit as it recognises the value of language within society.

AO3:

• Orwell worked for the BBC, producing propaganda despite his obsession with the truth (particularly objective truth) and the deceptive nature of language. He believed the most ‘frightening thing about totalitarianism is […] that it attacks the concept of objective truth’, much like the Party does in his novel ‘1984’. He felt that the deterioration of language was connected to the decay of conscious thinking, linking to Syme’s words ‘orthodoxy is unconsciousness’.

• Hitler and Goebbels had many propaganda tactics, including the use of radio broadcasts.

• Euphemistic terms like ‘rectifying’ were used by actual totalitarian regimes to disguise barbaric practices.

• During the Cold War, Stalin retouched photographs to remove people.

• Nazi Germany used language manipulation, known as Sprachregelung, to control the way political speech was handled to spread its ideologies.

• The principles of ‘Newspeak’ align with some of Orwell’s points in his ‘Politics and the English Language’ essay. In particular, he criticises writers who use ‘pretentious diction’ (the use of pretentious yet vague words to sound more political, scientific, etc). Similarly, in ‘Newspeak’, synonyms for adjectives like ‘good’ are eradicated, giving citizens the alternative options of ‘plusgood’ and ‘doubleplusgood’, for example. Furthermore, Orwell uses the exact same quote in both texts (‘some kind of dummy’) when speaking on orthodoxy and unconsciously speaking.

• The final line of the poem ‘Oranges and Lemons’ is ‘chip chop chip chop the last man is dead’, foreshadowing the end of the novel and linking to the original title ‘The Last Man in Europe’.

AO4:

• Winston questions, ‘for whom […] was he writing this diary?’ though he ultimately decides it’s for O’Brien, foreshadowing the ending where O’Brien does indeed read his diary and forces Winston into believing that 2+2=5 (Winston seeing the three men in the Chestnut Tree Cafe sobbing also foresahdows the final chapter where he is in this position). Similarly, Offred often asks herself why she is telling her story. The tapes are revealed in the historical notes to have been found by academics and published to the public for viewing.

AO5:

Resistance & Rebellion

AO1:

• Winston starting a diary is his first act of rebellion in the novel, and he writes in it, ‘DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER’.

• Winston thinks highly of O’Brien and, earlier in the novel, feels ‘deeply drawn to him’ and believes he will save him from the Party.

• The ‘Two Minutes Hate’ aims to direct all citizens’ hate towards the Party’s enemies to unify them and to ultimately make rebellion less likely.

• Winston had slept with a prostitute, and when he recounts this in his diary, he seems ashamed of himself. This is perhaps because sex with prostitutes encourages men to despise themselves for being unable to ignore their sexual needs, and to think of the sex act itself as unclean and even immoral. Moreover, it is the suppression of these desires that causes Winston’s hatred towards women.

• Winston believes ‘if there is hope […] it lies in the proles’. However, this is instantly juxtaposed by the degrading and animalistic description of them (‘two bloated women’, ‘Winston watched them disgustedly’, ‘why was it that they never shout like that about anything that mattered?’).

• The scene in which Winston gazes at the image of Big Brother on the coin parallels the final scene, in which he gazes at the same image on a poster, but with very different thoughts and feelings.

AO3:

• In many ways, Winston reflects Orwell. For example, at the time of writing ‘1984’, Orwell was extremely ill with TB - this is reflected in Winston, who has a varicose ulcer and has frequent coughing fits.

AO4:

• Winston and Offred are everyman characters, alluding to the lack of individualism in both Oceania and Gilead. This also helps the reader to relate to and sympathise with them, perhaps providing them with hope for the future of this fictional world, especially as they’re against the regimes.

• There’s a footnote that states, ‘Newspeak was the official language of Oceania’. The use of the past tense gives the reader hope, as it would seem the regime was overthrown. The historical notes at the end of ‘THT’ ___.

• The citizens of Oceania in ‘1984’ are made aware that their living standards have risen (including the chocolate ration), which Winston knows has been fabricated. Moreover, propaganda history books claim London was ‘miserable’ before ‘the glorious Revolution’. In ‘THT’, the Commander claims Gilead’s system is better for women as they can have babies without worrying about needing to find a partner, getting harassed, etc. ??

AO5:

Love & Sex

AO1:

• Julia is a member of the ‘Junior Anti-Sex League’, which aims to eliminate sexual desire so sex is purely seen as a means to procreation. Winston channels some of his hatred towards this during the ‘Two Minutes Hate’ as he fantasises about killing and raping her purely because she is ‘young and pretty and sexless’.

• Winston dreams about his family, and he seems to remember his mother loving him but not loving his mother in return, and it’s later revealed that he abandoned her and his sister. His mother represents the old world, when emotional ties, particularly between family members, were valued and respected.

• Kicking the hand into the gutter shows how Winston's empathy for other people has atrophied because of the Party's policy of discouraging emotional bonds between individuals.

AO3:

• The Soviets adopted a traditional view of sex, valuing it as a means to procreation.

• During WW2, the Nazis awarded women with medals for having children as Hitler wanted to ensure a strong population to keep his Third Reich running past his leadership.

RESEARCH ORWELL’S MARRIAGE/S

AO4:

• Winston’s wife, Katherine, referred to sex as ‘our duty to the Party’, agreeing with the Party’s ideaology that sex was purely for procreational purposes. This is also true in Offred’s situation as sex is not about desire or love, it’s purely performed for the sake of having a baby.

AO5:

• Freudian dream analysis and Oedipus complex.