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Nineteen Eighty-Four
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Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of perpetuating the regime's propaganda by falsifying records and political literature. Smith grows disillusioned with his meager existence and so begins a rebellion against the system that leads to his arrest and torture.
The novel has become famous for its portrayal of pervasive government surveillance and control, and government's increasing encroachment on the rights of the individual.
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Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of perpetuating the regime's propaganda by falsifying records and political literature. Smith grows disillusioned with his meager existence and so begins a rebellion against the system that leads to his arrest and torture.
The novel has become famous for its portrayal of pervasive government surveillance and control, and government's increasing encroachment on the rights of the individual. Since its publication, many of its terms and concepts, such as "Big Brother," "doublethink" and "Newspeak" have entered the popular vernacular. The word "Orwellian" itself has come to refer to anything reminiscent of the book's fictional regime.
History
Orwell, who had "encapsulate[d] the thesis at the heart of his novel" in 1944, wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the island of Jura, Scotland, during 1947–1948 while critically ill with tuberculosis. He sent the final typescript to his friends Secker and Warburg on 4 December 1948 and the book was published on 8 June 1949.
Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 50 languages. The novel's title, its terms, its language (Newspeak), and its author's surname are bywords for personal privacy lost to national state security. The adjective "Orwellian" connotes many things. It can refer to totalitarian action or organization, as well as governmental attempts to control or misuse information for the purposes of controlling, pacifying or even subjugating the population. "Orwellian" can also refer generally to twisted language which says the opposite of what it truly means, or specifically governmental propagandizing by the misnaming of things; hence the "Ministry of Peace" in the novel actually deals with war and the "Ministry of Love" actually tortures people. Since the novel's publication "Orwellian" has in fact become somewhat of a catch-all for any kind of governmental overreach or dishonesty and therefore has multiple meanings and applications. The phrase Big Brother is Watching You specifically connotes pervasive, invasive surveillance.
Although the novel has been banned or challenged in some countries, it is, along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Kallocain by Karin Boye and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, among the most famous literary representations of dystopia. In 2005, Time magazine listed it among the hundred best English-language novels published since 1923.
Title
One of the original titles for the novel was The Last Man in Europe, but in a letter to publisher Frederic Warburg dated 22 October 1948 (eight months before the book was published), Orwell stated that he was "hesitating" between that and Nineteen Eighty-Four, although Crick mentions that it was Warburg who suggested changing it to a marketable title.
Orwell's reasons for the title are unknown; he might be alluding to the centenary of the socialist Fabian Society founded in 1884, or to Jack London's novel The Iron Heel (wherein a political movement came into power in 1984), or to G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill, set in 1984, or to the poem "End of the Century, 1984" by his first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy.
Anthony Burgess claims in 1985 that Orwell, being disillusioned by the onset of the Cold War, intended to name the book 1948.
According to the introduction of the Penguin Modern Classics edition, Orwell originally meant 1980 as the story's time, but as the writing became prolonged, he re-titled it 1982, then 1984, coincidentally the reverse of the year written, 1948. Still others believe that Orwell intentionally chose to title the book with the reverse of the year it was written, to allude to the possibility that the events of the story are not so far away as they might seem, rather they occur in a time that shares much with our own.
Popular misconceptions
The book has often been misinterpreted as an attack on socialism; Orwell himself had occasion to refute such claims, both privately and in public. In a letter to Francis A. Henson of the United Automobile Workers, dated 16 June 1949 (seven months before he died), excerpts from which were reproduced in Life (25 July 1949) and the New York Times Book Review (31 July 1949), Orwell stated the following: "My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions ... which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. ...The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere." In his 1946 essay, "Why I Write", Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist.
Story
Background
Nineteen Eighty-Four is set in Oceania, one of three intercontinental super-states. The story occurs in London, the "chief
city of Airstrip One", itself a province of Oceania that "had once been called England or Britain". Posters of the ruling Party's leader, "Big Brother", bearing the caption BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, dominate the city landscapes, while two-way television (the telescreen) dominates the private and public spaces of the populace. Oceania's people are in three classes — the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proles. The Party government controls the people via the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue), the workplace of protagonist Winston Smith, an Outer Party member. As in the Nazi and Stalinist regimes, propaganda is pervasive; Smith's job is rewriting historical documents to match the contemporaneous party line, the orthodoxy of which changes daily. It therefore includes destroying evidence, amending newspaper articles, deleting the existence of people identified as "unpersons".
The story begins on 4 April 1984: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen". The date is questionable, because it is what Winston Smith perceives. In the story's course, he concludes it as irrelevant, because the State can arbitrarily alter it; the year 1984 and its world are transmutable.
The novel does not render the world's full history to 1984. Winston's recollections, and what he reads in The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanuel Goldstein, reveal that after World War II, the United Kingdom fell to civil war, becoming part of Oceania. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union encompassed mainland Europe, forming the nation of Eurasia. The third super-state, Eastasia, comprises the east Asian countries around China, Korea and Japan. Mentioned also is an atomic war, fought mainly in Europe, western Russia, and North America. It is unclear what occurred first: the civil war wherein the Party assumed power, the United States' annexation of the British Empire, or the war during which Colchester was bombed.
Plot
Ministry of Truth bureaucrat Winston Smith is the protagonist; although unitary, the story is three-fold. The first describes the world of 1984 as he perceives it; the second is his illicit romance with Julia and his intellectual rebellion against the Party; the third is his capture and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education in the Ministry of Love. The plotline is therefore virtually identical to that of a 1921 Russian novel titled We, which occurs in a world similar to that of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The intellectual Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, lives in the ruins of London (the "chief city of Airstrip One", a province of Oceania), who grew up in the post-World War II United Kingdom, during the revolution and the civil war. As his parents disappeared in the civil war, the English Socialism Movement ("Ingsoc" in Newspeak) put him in an orphanage for training and employment in the Outer Party. His squalid existence consists of living in a one-room apartment, eating a subsistence diet of black bread and synthetic meals washed down with Victory-brand gin. He is discontented, and keeps an ill-advised journal of dissenting, negative thoughts and opinions about the Party. If the journal or Winston's errant behavior were to be discovered, it would result in his torture and execution at the hands of the Thought Police. However, he is blessed with having a small alcove beside his telescreen where he cannot be seen, where he can keep his own private secrets.
In his journal he explains thoughtcrime: Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death. The Thought Police have two-way telescreens (in the living quarters of every Party member and in every public area), hidden microphones, and anonymous informers to spy potential thought-criminals who might endanger The Party. Children are indoctrinated to informing; to spy and report suspected thought-criminals — especially their parents.
Winston Smith is a bureaucrat in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, revising historical records to match The Party's contemporaneous, official version of the past. The revisionism is required so that the past reflects the shifts of the day in the Party's orthodoxy. Smith's job is perpetual; he re-writes the official record, re-touches official photographs, deleting people officially rendered as unpersons. The original or older document is dropped into a "memory hole" chute leading to an incinerator. Although he likes his work, especially the intellectual challenge of revising a complete historical record, he also is fascinated by the true past, and eagerly tries to learn more about that forbidden truth.
One day in the office, a woman surreptitiously hands him a note. She is "Julia," a dark-haired mechanic who repairs the Ministry of Truth's novel-writing machines. Before that day, he had felt deep loathing for her, based on his assumptions that she was a brainwashed, fanatically devoted member of the Party; particularly annoying to him is her red sash of renouncement of and scorn for sexual intercourse. His preconceptions vanish on reading a handwritten note she gives him, which states "I love you." After that, they begin a clandestine romantic relationship, first meeting in the countryside and at a ruined belfry, then regularly in a rented room atop an antiques shop in the city's proletarian neighborhood. The shop owner chats with Smith, discussing facts about the pre-revolutionary past, sells him period artifacts, and rents him the room to meet Julia. The lovers believe their hiding place paradisaical (the shop keeper having told them it has no telescreen) and think themselves alone and safe.
As their romance deepens, Winston's views change, and he questions Ingsoc. Unknown to him, the Thought Police have been spying on him and Julia. Later, when approached by Inner Party member O'Brien, Winston believes that he has come into contact with the Brotherhood who are opponents of the Party. O'Brien gives him a copy of "the book", The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, a searing criticism of Ingsoc said to be written by the dissident Emmanuel Goldstein, the leader of the Brotherhood. This book explains the perpetual war and exposes the truth behind the Party's slogan, "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."
The Thought Police later capture Winston and Julia in their sanctuary bedroom and they are separately interrogated at the Ministry of Love, where the regime's opponents are tortured and killed, but sometimes released (to be executed at a later date). Charrington, the shop keeper who rented them the room reveals himself an officer of the Thought Police. After a prolonged regimen of systematic beatings by prison guards and psychologically draining interrogations by Party loyalists, Winston is subjected to electroshock torture by O'Brien, who tells Winston it will "cure" him of his "insanity", which O'Brien claims undeniably manifests itself in the form of Winston's hatred for the Party. During a long and complex dialogue, O'Brien reveals, in what is the most important line in the book, that the motivation of the Inner Party is not to achieve a future paradise but to retain power, which has become an end in itself. He outlines a terrifying vision of how they will change society and people in order to achieve this, including the abolition of the family, the orgasm, and the sex instinct, with the ultimate goal of eliminating anything that may come between one's love of Big Brother and Ingsoc. It will be a society that grows more, not less merciless as it refines itself, and a society without art, literature, or science, so that there are no distractions from their devotion to the Party, or any unorthodox thought, which is also meant to be achieved through the eventual eradication of Modern English, or "Oldspeak". During a session, O'Brien explains that the purpose of the ordeal at the Ministry of Love is to alter Winston's way of thinking, not to extract a confession, and that once Winston unquestioningly accepts reality as the Party describes it, he will be executed.
One night, as Winston lies dreaming in his cell, he suddenly wakes, yelling: "Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!", whereupon O'Brien rushes in and questions him, and then sends him to Room 101, the most feared room in the Ministry of Love. Here a person's greatest fear is forced upon him or her for the final re-education step: acceptance. Winston, who has a primal fear of rats, is shown a wire cage filled with starving rats and told that it will be fitted over his head like a mask, so that when the cage door is opened, the rats will bore into his face until it is stripped to the bone. Just as the cage brushes his cheek, he shouts frantically: "Do it to Julia!" The torture ends and Winston is returned to society, brainwashed to accept Party doctrine. During the brainwashing, it is noted that O'Brien somehow was always aware of what Smith was thinking and in a way was reading his mind. It can be interpreted as either the Thought Police had devised a mechanism of reading people's thoughts or O'Brien understood Smith completely and was able to predict his chain of thought perfectly.
After his release, Winston encounters Julia in the park. With distaste, they remember the unauthorized and unorthodox ("ungood" in Newspeak) feelings they once shared for each other and acknowledge having betrayed each other. They are apathetic about their reunion and each other's experiences. Winston, happily reconciled to his impending execution, and accepting the Party's depiction of life, celebrates the false fact of a news bulletin reporting Oceania's recent, decisive victory over Eurasia. It is at this moment that he sincerely loves Big Brother for the very first time--a metaphorical bullet entering his brain. Thus the book ends on a bitter note, with Winston Smith's inner transformation finally complete. Not resolved is whether Winston is ever actually executed, or whether his mental capitulation is considered enough.
Orwell's influences
During the Second World War, George Orwell repeatedly said that British democracy, as it existed before 1939, would not survive the war, the question being: Would it end via Fascist coup d'état (from above) or via Socialist revolution (from below)? During the war, Orwell admitted events proved him wrong: "What really matters is that I fell into the trap of assuming that 'the war and the revolution are inseparable'." Nineteen Eighty-Four shares thematic likenesses with Animal Farm, another of Orwell's novels, as follows: the betrayed revolution; the individual's subordination to the Party collective; rigorously enforced class distinctions, i.e. the Inner Party, the Outer Party, the Proles; the cult of personality; concentration camps; Thought Police; compulsory, regimented, daily exercise; and youth leagues.
In the essay "Why I Write", Orwell explains that all the serious work he wrote since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism". Nineteen Eighty-Four is an anti-totalitarian cautionary tale about the betrayal of a revolution by its defenders. He already had stated distrust of totalitarianism and betrayed revolutions in Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm. Coming Up For Air, at points, celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Much of Oceanic society is based upon Stalin's Soviet Union. The "Two Minutes' Hate" television propaganda represents the ritual demonisation of State enemies and rivals; Big Brother resembles Joseph Stalin; and the Party's archenemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, resembles Leon Trotsky in that both were Jewish, both had the same physiognomy, and Trotsky's real surname was Bronstein. Another suggested inspiration for Goldstein is Emma Goldman, the famous Anarchist figure. Doctored photography is a propaganda technique, as is the creation of unpersons in the story, analogous to Stalin's enemies being made nonpersons and being erased from official photographic records; the police treatment of several characters recalls the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge.
Biographer Michael Shelden notes as influences the Edwardian world of Orwell's childhood in Henley — for the golden country; being bullied at St. Cyprian's — empathy with victims; his policeman's life in the Indian Burma Police — the techniques of violence; and suffering censorship in the BBC — capriciously-wielded authority.
Specific literary influences include Darkness at Noon and The Yogi and the Commissar by Arthur Koestler; The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London; Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley; We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which Orwell read in French and reviewed in 1946; and The Managerial Revolution (1940) by James Burnham, predicting permanent war among three totalitarian superstates, broadly equivalent to those in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.
World War II acts as the grounding for Orwell's more fantastic elements. Most of the novel contains direct parallels, and occasional outright pastiche, of the rhetoric and politics surrounding the end of the war and the changing alliances of the nascent Cold War. The overseas service of the BBC, controlled by the Ministry of Information, was the model for the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Love's ultimate weapon against dissidents, Room 101, is named after a conference room at BBC Broadcasting House where Orwell used to sit through tedious meetings. The Senate House, where the Ministry of Information was housed, is the architectural inspiration for the Ministry of Truth. Nineteen Eighty-Fours world reflects the socio-political life of the UK and the USA, i.e. the poverty of Britain in 1948, when the economy was poor, the Empire dissolving, while newspapers reported imperial triumphs, and wartime ally Soviet Russia was becoming a peacetime foe.
The world of 1984 also parallels, or extrapolates from, life during the First World War as well as the Second. Just how oppressive the British government had become during the earlier war can be judged from a satire of the time which Orwell may even have read while at Eton, 1920: Dips into the Near Future, published in 1917. Though Orwell may never have read it, it shares some themes with 1984, themes which ultimately came from the common experience of both authors if not from one reading the other. 1920 exaggerates actual government oppression during World War I, and if not a literary influence on Orwell it still reveals what undoubtedly had influenced him in the real world.
Oceania is a metamorphosed future British Empire that geographically includes the United States, and whose currency is the dollar. As its name suggests, it is a naval power, with much militarism focused on venerating sailors serving aboard floating fortresses greater than Dreadnoughts. Moreover, most of the fighting by Oceania's troops is in defending India (the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire).
The term "English Socialism" also has many precedents in Orwell's wartime writings. In The Lion and the Unicorn of 1940, Orwell stated that "the war and the revolution are inseparable (...) the fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a textbook word into a realizable policy". The reason for that, according to Orwell, was that the outmoded British class system constituted a major hindrance to the war effort, and only a Socialist society would be able to defeat Hitler. Since the middle classes were in process of realizing this, too, they would support the revolution, and only the most outright reactionary elements in British society would oppose it, which would limit the amount of force the revolutionaries would need in order to gain power and keep it.
Thus, an "English Socialism" would come about which "...will never lose touch with the tradition of compromise and the belief in a law that is above the State. It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word".
Orwell's words in this and other writings at the time leave no doubt that in 1940 he regarded "English Socialism" as highly desirable and was actively trying to bring about its victory. Yet in the nightmare world he envisioned eight years later, the same term - contracted to "Ingsoc" - is the monstrous ideology of a totally oppressive regime, far from the relative moderate revolution which Orwell foresaw in 1940. When the vision of "The Lion and the Unicorn" is compared with that of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" it is evident that Orwell saw the regime presided over by Big Brother not only as a betrayal and perversion of Socialist ideals in general, but also as a perversion of Orwell’s own specifically and dearly cherished vision and hope of "English Socialism".
Although theoretically possible, Orwell's 1984 might have portrayed a society which was in a logical sense unsustainable. For someone to run the system as part of the inner party he or she should be aware of the reality of the system. It is also mentioned that membership to the inner party is not hereditary. Smith, O'Brien and possibly many people deep in their psyche were aware of a system which did not resemble the present, and were hence in a position to either commit thought crime or run as part of the inner party. It is also shown that any member of the outer party who might develop an inkling of the machinations of the system is immediately purged. But it is not mentioned how the members of the inner party plan on sustaining the inner party without divulging fundamental structure behind the party and society. The current members of the inner party were possibly people who had seen both sides of the society and hence were fluent in double speak. The members of the outer party while they were the ears and eyes of the inner party, in a systemic sense made no decisions and were almost powerless. Only the inner party knew what to do and why to do it. A logical sense would have made if there was a system given by which someone from the outer party who showed exceptional understanding (like Smith) could have been given the chance to move up and become a member of the inner party, thereby formulating a succession plan which is sustainable and at the same time in line with the ethos of Oligarchical Collectivism.".
Characters
Several characters in the book are based upon people from real life and nearly all of them are parallel figures from the Russian Revolution and Communist Russia in general.
Major characters
- Winston Smith - The novel's protagonist; a phlegmatic everyman.
- Julia - Winston's lover, a covert "rebel from the waist down" who militantly praises the Party's doctrines while secretly living in contradiction of them.
- Big Brother - The dictator of Oceania; believed to be based upon Joseph Stalin. However, as Winston Smith points out, he has never seen, nor remembers anyone else seeing Big Brother, and suggests that he never existed. This is also true of Emmanuel Goldstein, whom Winston Smith points out is, if real, definitely dead, but may have been created for propaganda purposes.
- O'Brien - A government agent who deceives Winston and Julia into believing that he is a member of the resistance, convinces them to "join" it, and later uses this against them to torture them. He convinces them that they must not only obey, but "love" Big Brother. He was not only torturing them, but "cleaning" their minds as well.
- Emmanuel Goldstein - A former top member and now opposer of the ruling Party; he is based upon Leon Trotsky, a dissident member of the Soviet Communist Party, who was forced to flee the Soviet Union to save himself from Stalin's persecutions.
Minor characters
- Aaronson, Jones, Rutherford - old party leaders killed and erased from the historical record.
- Ampleforth - Winston's colleague, a poet.
- Mr. Charrington - ostensibly the owner of a junk store in the prole district; actually a member of the dreaded Thought Police.
- Katharine - Winston's wife, a strong supporter of the Party. It is unknown whether or not she is alive at the time of the novel because she and Winston had separated several years earlier.
- Martin - O'Brien's servant.
- Parsons - Winston's naive neighbour and colleague, described as an ideal party subordinate because of his idiocy and suggestible nature. He is last seen in the Ministry of Love after his children turn him in for thought crime, at which point he looks forward to being corrected.
- Syme - Winston's intelligent coworker; works with the language Newspeak, and is later vaporized (made so as to seem that he never existed), presumably because despite his strong orthodoxy and support of the party, he thinks too clearly and knows too much. Syme's disappearance is an allusion to the Stalin Purges.
Fictional world
Ingsoc (English Socialism)
Ingsoc is the ideology of the totalitarian government of Oceania. Ingsoc is Newspeak for "English Socialism".
Ministries of Oceania
Oceania's four ministries are housed in huge pyramidal structures, each roughly 930 feet high and visible throughout London, displaying the three slogans of the party on their façades. The ministries' names are ironic antonyms of the true nature of their actions.
Ministry of Peace (Newspeak: Minipax)
Conducts Oceania's perpetual war.
Ministry of Plenty (Newspeak: Miniplenty)
Responsible for rationing and controlling food and goods, along with all production of all domestic goods. The Ministry of Plenty declares false claims to have increased the standard of living every time by a considerable amount, when in fact the ministry counteracts its own claims.
Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue)
The propaganda arm of Oceania's regime, controlling information: news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. Winston Smith works for the Records Department (RecDep) of Minitrue, "rectifying" historical records and newspaper articles to make them conform to Big Brother's most recent pronouncements, thus making everything that the Party says 'true'.
Ministry of Love (Newspeak: Miniluv)
The agency is responsible for the identification, monitoring, arrest and torture of dissidents, real or imagined. Based on Winston's experience there at the hands of O'Brien, the basic procedure is to wear down the subject with a long series of beatings and electrical torture. Finally, when the subject is near broken, they are sent to "Room 101", where they are exposed to their worst fear, once and for all eradicating any remaining impulse of individuality or resistance, and replacing it with a sincere embrace of the Party. The Ministry of Love differs from the other ministry buildings in that it has no windows in it at all.
The ministries' names are an example of doublethink: “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation”. (Part II, Chapter IX - chapter I of Goldstein's book)
Doublethink
Political geography
The world is controlled by three functionally similar totalitarian super-states engaged in perpetual war with each other:
- Oceania (ideology: Ingsoc or English Socialism) comprises Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, Polynesia, Southern Africa, and the Americas.
- Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism) comprises continental Europe and northern Asia.
- Eastasia (ideology: Obliteration of the Self, usually rendered as "Death worship") comprises China, Japan, Korea, and Northern India.
The "disputed area", which lies "between the frontiers of the super-states", is "a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong."
That Great Britain and Ireland are in Oceania rather than in Eurasia is commented upon in the book as a historical anomaly. North Africa, the Middle East, South India, and Southeast Asia form a disputed zone which is used as a battlefield and source of slaves by the three powers. Goldstein's book explains that the ideologies of the three states are the same, but it is imperative to keep the public ignorant of this, so that they believe that the other two ideologies are detestable. London, the novel's setting, is the capital of the Oceanian province of Airstrip One, the former United Kingdom.
The Revolution
In the novel, there are a few glimpses of what happened to cause the revolution. The formation of Eurasia is depicted as occurring after the Second World War when American troops left Europe earlier than in our history, allowing Soviet troops to move in and gain control of war-torn Europe without much opposition.
As explained in the book, Eurasia does not contain the British Empire because it merged with (or took control of) the United States giving the successor to both states, Oceania, control of a quarter of the world (southern Africa, Australasia, and Canada). The United States also annexed Latin America at around the same time, forming Oceania.
Eastasia is the last of three superstates to be formed, and apparently was formed when China and Japan conquered surrounding nations. The previously-formed Eurasia prevented Eastasia from growing to the size of the others, a handicap it made up thanks to its numerous and hard-working population.
Although the chronology of these events is unclear in the book, most of it appears to happen between 1920 and the 1960s.
The War
The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is built around a never-ending war involving the book's three superstates, with two allied powers fighting against the third. As Goldstein's book explains, each superstate is so strong it cannot be defeated even when faced with the combined forces of the other two powers. The allied states occasionally split with each other and new alliances are formed. Each time this happens, history is rewritten to convince the people that the new alliances always existed, using the principles of doublethink. The war itself never takes place in the territories of the three powers, but is conducted in the disputed zone stretching from Tangier to Darwin, and in the unpopulated Arctic wastes. Throughout the first half of the novel, Oceania is allied with Eastasia, and Oceania's forces are combating Eurasia's troops in northern Africa.
Midway through the book, the alliance breaks apart and Oceania, newly allied with Eurasia, begins a campaign against Eastasian forces. This happens during "Hate Week" (a week of extreme focus on the malice supposed of Oceania's enemies, the purpose of which is to stir up patriotic fervour in support of the Party). The public is quite abnormally blind to the change, and when a public orator, mid-sentence, changes the name of the enemy from Eurasia to Eastasia (still speaking as if nothing had changed), the people are shocked and soon enraged as they notice that all the flags and posters are wrong and tear them down. This is the origin of the idiom "we've always been at war with Eastasia". Later, the Party claims to have captured the whole of Africa. As with all other news, its authenticity is questionable.
Goldstein's book explains that the war is unwinnable, and that its only purpose is to consume human labour and the fruits of human labour so that each superstate's economy cannot support an equal (and high) standard of living for every citizen. The book also details an Oceanian strategy to attack enemy cities with atomic-tipped rocket bombs prior to a full-scale invasion, but quickly dismisses this plan as both infeasible and contrary to the purpose of the war.
Although, according to Goldstein's book, hundreds of atomic bombs were dropped on cities during the 1950s, the three powers no longer use them, as they would upset the balance of power. Conventional military technology is little different from that used in the Second World War (In the 1984 film version of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Oceanian troops were seen armed with Commonwealth WWII infantry weapons like the Lee-Enfield rifle while the Eurasian soldiers were armed with Soviet WWII infantry weapons like the Mosin-Nagant rifle and the PPSh-41 submachine gun). Some advances have been made, such as the replacement of bomber aircraft with "rocket bombs", and battleships with immense "floating fortresses", but they appear to be rare. There are no longer massive battles, rather short skirmishes with no clear winners since the purpose of the war is to use up raw materials and labour, not to kill the population. Obsolete and wasteful technology is deliberately used in order to perpetuate pointless fighting.
Goldstein's book hints that, in fact, there may not actually be a war. The only view of the outside world presented in the novel is through Oceania's propaganda, which has an obvious tendency to exaggerate and even fabricate "facts", and the rocket bombs ostensibly fired by the enemy. Goldstein's book suggests that the three superpowers may not actually be warring, and as Oceania's media provides completely unbelievable news reports on ridiculously long military campaigns and victories (including an impossibly large campaign in central and northern Africa), it can be suggested that the war is a lie. Julia even goes so far as to suggest that the rocket bombs that land on London are launched by the Party from other parts of Oceania.
Even Eurasia and Eastasia themselves may only be a fabrication by the Oceanian government, with Oceania the sole undisputed dominator of the world. On the other hand, Oceania might as well actually control only a rather small part of the world (the former United Kingdom and ex-Republic of Ireland) and still brainwash its citizens into believing that they are battling/allying with a fabricated Eurasia or Eastasia.
Living standards
By the year 1984, the society of Airstrip One lives in squalid poverty; hunger, disease, and filth are the norms. Under the influence of the civil war, atomic wars, and enemy (or possibly even Oceanian) rocket bombs, the cities and towns are in ruins. When travelling about London, Winston finds himself surrounded by rubble, decay, and the crumbling shells of wrecked buildings. Half of the population of Oceania go barefoot, despite the Party reporting large quantities of boots being produced; Winston believes it likely that very few, if any, boots were actually produced at all.
Apart from the gargantuan bombproof Ministries, very little seems to have been done to rebuild London, and it is assumed that all towns and cities across Airstrip One (and Oceania) are in the same desperate condition. Living standards for the population are generally very low; everything is in short supply and those goods available are of very poor quality. The Party claims that this is due to the immense sacrifices that must be made for the war effort. Goldstein's book states that they are partially correct in as much as the point of continuous warfare is to be rid of the surplus of industrial production to prevent the rise of the standard of living and make possible the economic repression of people.
The Inner Party, at the top level of Oceanian society, enjoys the highest standard of living. O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, lives in a clean and comfortable apartment, and has a variety of quality foodstuffs such as wine, coffee, and sugar, none of which is available to the rest of the population. Synthetic versions of these foodstuffs are available to members of the Outer Party; but they are of far inferior quality. Winston, for example, is astonished simply that the lifts in O'Brien's building actually work, and that the telescreens can be turned off. Members of the Inner Party also seem to be waited on by slaves captured from the disputed zone; O'Brien's servant, Martin, is described as having Asiatic features, which would identify him as an Eastasian or Eurasian national, possibly a former soldier captured in battle.
Although the Inner Party enjoys the highest standard of living, Goldstein's book points out that, despite being at the top of society, their living standards (apart from the slaves) are significantly lower than pre-Revolution standards and says the social atmosphere is that of a
besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and
poverty. The proles (proletarians), treated by the Party as animals, live in squalor and poverty. They are kept sedated by vast quantities of cheap beer, widespread pornography, and a national lottery; but these do not mask the fact that their lives are dangerous and deprived. Proletarian areas of the cities, for example, are ridden with disease and vermin.
However, the proles are subject to much less close control of their daily lives than Party members. The proles whom Winston Smith meets in the streets and in the pubs seem to speak and behave much like working-class Britons of Orwell's time. In addition, the proletarian criminals whom he meets in the first phase of his imprisonment are far less subdued and intimidated than the intellectual "politicals", some of them rudely jeering at the telescreens with apparent impunity.
As explained in Goldstein's book, this derives from the social theory which the regime believes, that revolutions are always started by the middle class and that the lower classes would never start an effective revolt on their own. Therefore, if the middle classes are so tightly controlled that the regime can penetrate their very thoughts and their most minute daily life, the lower classes can be left to their own devices and pose no threat. This produces a contrast with the ideas of Karl Marx, who held that revolution would rise from the lower classes. Meanwhile, any potentially rebellious or intelligent proletarian individuals who could become the nuclei for resistance are simply allowed to rise into Inner Party positions, so that they can be more easily watched and pacified. Interestingly, Winston Smith holds on to the belief that "the future belonged to the proles" and that the lower class would eventually rule the world, making him a Marxist.
As Winston is a member of the Outer Party, more is shown from its living standards than any other group. Despite being the middle class of Oceanian society, the Outer Party's standard of living is very poor. Foodstuffs are low quality or synthetic; the main alcoholic beverage — Victory Gin — is industrial-grade; Outer Party Victory Cigarettes are not manufactured properly. The use of the word "victory" as a brand-name may refer to the "victory suit" and victory garden meant to support American war efforts.
Themes
Nationalism
Nineteen Eighty-Four expands upon the subjects summarized in the essay (1945), about the lack of vocabulary needed to explain the unrecognized phenomenon behind certain political forces; in Nineteen Eighty-Four Newspeak, the Party's artificial, minimalist language, addresses the matter.
Positive nationalism: Oceanians’ perpetual love for Big Brother (who may be long dead or even non-existent); Celtic Nationalism, Neo-Toryism, and British Zionism are (Orwell argues) defined by love.
Negative nationalism: Oceanians’ perpetual hatred for Emmanuel Goldstein (who, like Big Brother, may not exist); Stalinism, Anti-Semitism, and Anglophobia are defined by hatred.
Transferred nationalism: in mid-sentence, an orator changes the enemy of Oceania; the crowd instantly transfers their hatred to the new enemy. Transferred nationalism swiftly redirects emotions from one power unit to another, e.g. Communism, Pacifism, Colour Feeling, and Class Feeling.
O'Brien conclusively describes: “The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power”.
Sexual repression
The Party imposes antisexualism upon its members (as manifest in the Junior Anti-Sex-League), because sexual attachments diminish loyalty to the Party. Julia describes Party fanaticism as "sex gone sour"; except during the liaison with Julia, Winston suffers an inflamed ankle (an allusion to Oedipus the King, symbolic of unhealthy sexual repression).
In Part III, O'Brien tells Winston that neurologists are working to extinguish the orgasm; sufficient mental energy for prolonged worship requires repressing the libido, a vital instinct, and therefore requires externally-imposed sexual restriction by the authorities (civil, political, et cetera).
Futurology
If Orwell meant the novel as prophecy is unknown; yet O'Brien describes the future:
This starkly contrasts with his forecast essay England Your England, in The Lion and the Unicorn (1941):
Yet, Nineteen Eighty-Fours geopolitical climate is like his précis of James Burnham's ideas in the essay 'James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution' (1946).
Censorship
A major theme of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is censorship, which is displayed especially well in the ministry of truth, where photographs are doctored and public archives rewritten to rid them of "unpersons". In the telescreens, figures for all types of production are grossly over-exaggerated (or simply invented) to indicate an ever-rising economy where there is actually loss.
An excellent example of this is when Winston is charged with the task of eliminating reference to an unperson in a newspaper article. He proceeded to write an article about Comrade Ogilvy, an imaginary party member, who displayed great heroism by giving his life so that the important dispatches he was carrying would not fall into enemy hands.
The Newspeak appendix
"The Principles of Newspeak" is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible". (See Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.)
Whether or not the Newspeak appendix implies a hopeful end to 1984 remains a critical debate, as it is in Standard English and refers to Newspeak, Ingsoc, the Party, et cetera, in the past tense (i.e. "Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised", p. 422); in this vein, some critics (Atwood, Benstead, Pynchon) claim that, for the essay's author, Newspeak and the totalitarian government are past. The counter view is that since the novel has no frame story, Orwell wrote the essay in the same past tense as the novel, with "our" denoting his and the reader's contemporaneous reality.
Cultural impact
Nineteen Eighty-Fours impact upon the English language is extensive; many of its concepts: Big Brother, Room 101 (the worst place in the world), the Thought Police, the memory hole (oblivion), doublethink (simultaneously holding and believing two contradictory beliefs), and Newspeak (ideological language), are common usages for denoting and connoting overarching, totalitarian authority; Doublespeak is an elaboration of doublethink; the adjective "Orwellian" denotes that which is characteristic and reminiscent of George Orwell's writings, specifically 1984. The novel also originated the practice of appending the suffixes "-speak" and "-think" (groupthink, mediaspeak) to denote unthinking conformity. Many other works, in various forms of media, have taken themes from Nineteen Eighty-four.
In 1981, a Baptist minister in Jackson County, Florida challenged the novel's suitability as proper reading for young Americans, arguing it contained pro-Communist, anti-Semitic, and sexually explicit material.
Other media
Nineteen Eighty-Four has been twice adapted to the cinema and radio, three times for television, and once to the stage. References to its themes, concepts, and plot frequently appear in other works, especially in popular music and video entertainment.
See also
Adaptations
1984, the 1956 film 1984, a 2005 opera Nineteen Eighty-Four, the 1984 film
Themes of Nineteen Eighty-Four
Similar works
- 2112, a song by Rush
- "Anthem", a novel by Ayn Rand
- Animal Farm, another novel by George Orwell
- Big Brother Awards
- Blind Faith, a novel by Ben Elton
- Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley
- Brazil, a film by Terry Gilliam starring Jonathan Pryce
- Diamond Dogs, an album by musician David Bowie
- Equilibrium, a science fiction film starring Christian Bale
- Fahrenheit 451, a novel by Ray Bradbury
- Fatherland, a novel by Robert Harris
- Kallocain, a novel by Karin Boye.
- One, a novel by David Karp
- The Protomen, an album by the group The Protomen
- THX 1138, a film by George Lucas starring Robert Duvall
- V for Vendetta, a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
- We, a novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- Little Brother, a novel by Cory Doctorow
Derivative concepts and works
- 1984, a television commercial for the Apple Macintosh
- 1984, an album by Rick Wakeman
- 1985, a novel by Anthony Burgess
- 1985 (a novel by Gyorgy Delos), a novel by Gyorgy Delos which is depicted as a sequel to the world of 1984
- Chain of Command, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Nineteen-Forty-Eightish, a song by Roy Harper and Jimmy Page dedicated to 1984
- Testify, a song by Rage Against the Machine
- Undenk
- The Unreals, a novel by Donald Jeffries
- Diamond Dogs, a concept album by David Bowie, which features songs with such titles as 'We Are The Dead', '1984' and 'Big Brother'
External links
Electronic Editions:
Note that Nineteen Eighty-Four will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2044 and in the European Union until 2020, although it is public domain in countries such as Canada, Russia, and Australia.
The following free online or downloadable editions of Nineteen Eighty-Four are available:
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- Nineteen Eighty-Four, full text (public domain in Canada)
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Other:
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- (originally aired 27 August 1949)
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