1984 - Paper 2

Why did George Orwell write 1984?

Why did George Orwell write 1984?

Around the time it was written (1948) there was a rapid rise of totalitarianism. Specifically Stalin, and wealthy politicians in the US and the UK. Orwell wanted 1984 to serve as a warning against what the future might hold.

Theme: Language and communication

It is important to the behavior control, the state induced newspeak to eliminate the possibility of rebellion or disobedience. There is a Newspeak dictionary and it comes bank in Goldstein’s manifesto (a declaration of policies, motives and intentions).

Language limits thought, and thought is dependent on language. No thought can be had without the right words to express it.

Theme: Power

The party wants power, they condemn sex and brainwashes its members. Family does not exist, they control the past, present and future. They do this by controlling historical records, language and even thought.

1984 demonstrates that totalitarianism is a devastating political agenda, because it is necessarily dependent upon fear, classism, and physical torture. Without these elements, the Party would have no power.

Theme: Warfare

It is used as a tool and symptom of the totalitarian state. Oceania is at constant war with the other states. This also functions as a tool to keep citizens in constant flux and fear and helps them to rely on the Party.

It also helps prevent internal conflict.

What are the three superstates

Oceania (where Winston lives), Eurasia and Eastasia

Theme: Technology

Telescreens and microphones are all across Oceania and they are used to monitor its constituents.

Technology is necessary for its self-preservation because it affords the Party the ability to eliminate potential subversion early on.

Theme: Manipulation

The party wants to control everything, they manipulate every source of information, rewriting and modifying the content of all historical records and other documentary evidence for its own gain. Any thing can be destroyed through memory holes.

The manipulation can be overpowered by memory. Winston is the only character that can escape the effects of the Party’s manipulation.

Theme: Repression

The party brainwashes children to believe that sex is despicable. It is only seen as a duty to the party.

Winston’s varicose ulcer represents the Party’s sexual repression of its constituents.

Theme: Loyalty

Loyalty to the party plays a big role, all constituents need to have loyalty to the party.

Used as a tool for control

Constituents need to have loyalty to the Party only.

Winston and Julia were loyal to each other and not the party.

Theme: Rebellion

Winston’s diary leads him to his rebellion against the party. As his diary helps him to produce his thoughts and opinions. Winston rebels when he falls in love with Julia and him joining the Brotherhood.

The Party’s strong rules drive Winston and Julia to engage in rebellious acts. Their love for each other is a more dangerous form of rebellion than anything else.

Winston writes in his diaries his ideas. But he describes in more detail the root of his principles and claims. It’s not only that he had a simple thought, but he had a complex enough idea that would need to be explained to the reader in depth.

Tone

Gloomy tone, little color and dark.

Genre

Dystopian literature

Setting

Future in London, Airstrip One (the country). Poor living conditions, no privacy anywhere

Writing style

Very bland writing style, dull, matter-of-fact. This adds to the dull life for Oceania’s people.

He starts by describing the world and then lets the story unfold.

In the essay “Politics and the English language” Orwell establishes rules to make writing more simple.

Winston Smith

• Very average persona

  • 39 years old

  • Works for Ministry of Truth

  • He drinks and smokes (more normal in 1940)

  • Has a swollen ulcer on his leg

• The aim is for the reader to identify with Winston, to help us see ourselves and experience this future in its brutality.

• Outer member-party (middle-class)

• Rewrites history

• Very passionate about the real past which he writes about in his secret journal.

• Winston seeks truth, which he does by rebelling against the Party.

• He is the symbol of the values of current civilized life, and his defeat is a reminder of the vulnerability of such values in the midst of all-powerful states, governments and institutions.

Julia

• Julia is Winston Smith’s Juliet (coincidence?)

• Helps Winston in his rebellion against the party

• Works in the Fiction Department of Ministry of Truth

• Wears Anti-Sex sash (even though she is very sexual)

• Regularly sleeps with party members

O’Brien

• Very mysterious person

• Winston is jealous of him, O’Brien has privileges that Winston doesn’t.

  • O’Brien is more brave than Winston (in Winston’s eyes)

• He gets Winston to believe that he is a member of the Brotherhood

• O’Brien ends up torturing Winston for his rebellion against the party.

Mr. Charrington

• Old widower

• Prole

• Owns a secondhand store in the Prole district

• Sells Winston his journal (from this point on Mr. Charrington already knows he is rebelling)

• Actually a member of the thought police

Quotations

"War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; and Ignorance is Strength." (confuses the reader just like it confuses Winston about life in their society)

"If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles. If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses could the force to destroy the party ever be generated” (Winston thinks the proles are the only people who can collectively overthrow the party)

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

“He loved Big Brother.” (last line)

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.”

The proles

• Lower class

• Not one character but a group of people

  • In the book they seem like a collective character.

• They are happy, because they are not under control which Winston is.

Perspective

Third person limited - we are still able to hear Winston's thoughts. Orwell gives the reader a sense of understanding Winston’s psychology better than he himself does. While Winston questions his memories and motivations, the reader clearly sees that his gradual dehumanization is the result of an ongoing, systemized program to rob citizens of their individuality and free will.

Flashbacks

Winston has flashbacks to working at the ministry of truth, his previous marriage and his early life with his mother and sister.

• Allows reader to feel more connected to Winston

• Characterization for Winston

• Winston feels guilty towards his mother and sister’

  • he feels they had to die so he could survive

• Used as a driving factor of Winston’s self growth

• Moment where his Dad takes him to a bomb shelter, shows his experience with war and troubled past.

Significance of diary

• Leads him to rebellion

• Allows him to separate himself from the brainwashing techniques of the party.

• In the beginning he writes that he considers himself “already dead”

  • This shows how values less his life is and that he is willing to give it up for a good cause.

• He has no one to talk to before Julia

• Diary is a symbol for the hatred against the party

  • He writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” over and over in the diary.

• Its a piece of his soul that has not been taken by the party yet.

• Stream of consciousness in his diary

Ideology differences Julia vs. Winston

Winston believes that the party must be resisted and overthrown.

Julia thinks it is better to evade its authority while pretending to acquiesce to it.

Winston tells her she is “only a rebel from the waist down” she takes this as a compliment.

With this he means that she doesn’t rebel against the party with her heart and mind but only with her body.

Significance room 101

• A room in which a prisoner’s worst fear is manifested.

• The party knows the worst fear of all their citizens

• In a certain part of the book, a man goes on his knees and tells an officer that they can kill his entire family so that he does not have to go to room 101.

• The room is a symbol for the Party’s power.

• For Winston, a cage of rats is strapped to his face.

  • This leads him to choosing Big Brother over Julia.

  • This breaks the promise he swore to never break

  • “if they could make me stop loving you, that would be the real betrayal.”

Why are the proles not happier than the outer party members?

An Outer Party member and a Prole are analogous to a priest or nun who must never commit heresy and their pet dog. An Outer Party member who consciously and unconsciously accepts Ingsoc and Big Brother (as would the blossoming loyal children of Party members become) is happy and a Prole whose brain has fewer synapses than Paris Hilton (who has only one synapse by the way) is also happy.

Glass paper weight symbol

• The old glass paperweight sold to Winston by Mr. Charrington represents the past.

• The level of craftsmanship required to make it is no longer achievable, since production standards have dropped and the Party has abolished beauty for its own sake.

• The tiny fragment of coral embedded in the paperweight represents the fragility of human relationships, particularly the bond between Julia and Winston, which is destroyed by O'Brien as easily and remorselessly as the paperweight is smashed by the Thought Police.

• The paperweight also symbolizes the room in Mr. Charrington's house that becomes a private sanctuary for the lovers, imagined by Winston as a separate world, frozen in time.

The Red-Armed Prole Woman

• The prole woman symbolizes fertility and reproductive capacity, and represents the strong and vital lower classes.

• She is compared to an animal (a mare), a fruit (a rose-hip), and an overripe turnip.

• Winston feels a "mystical reverence" toward her.

• Just before the lovers are arrested, the sight of her hanging laundry in the courtyard convinces Winston that the proles are "immortal" and will someday awaken and rebel against and overthrow the Party.