Franz:
I am sending you new Orwell messages for your use.
Please also post
these on Delphi Orwell forum. This is the first set.
Carl
1984 Summary
Although 1984 has come and gone George Orwell's
masterpiece has
endured. In his prophetic vision the world
has split into three separate
super countries and the economy of each is
based on war with another. The
setting of the book is Airstrip one, a city
that is present day London,
in the supercountry of Oceania. The year is
1984.
The first character introduced in the story
is Winston Smith. A
tall, thin man with above average intellect,
Winston seems to be
condemned by the parties views from the start.
His attitude for life changes as
the story progresses. He starts as someone
who has little to live for,
but after he starts his rebellion from the
oppressiveness of the state
he feels he has something to live for, although
already considering
himself dead. By the end of Orwell's novel,
Smith is living in a state of near
total apathy, and living only because he has
no desire to either live or die.
1984 starts with a first person narration that
is used effectively
to show the universal fear of the Thought Police
and Winston's fear of
everything connected to Ingsoc, or English
socialism. The Party, as it is
simply called, is the Governing body of the
superstate Oceania. The
figurehead leader of The Party is a person
known only as Big Brother, a
brother that is always watching you.
The ever vigilant eyes of Big Brother are the
Thought Police, who
monitor everyone, everywhere through the use
of telescreens.
Designed to broadcast party propaganda, telescreens
also have a videocamera
which transmits the activities of all those
within sight of the screen to the
Thought Police.
The party controls not only the lives of people
through the use of
telescreens, but reality itself. They do this
by altering the past, a
fact easily concealed by The Party's principles
of doublethink. The
best explanation of doublethink are examples
provided by The Party's
slogans. These are: WAR IS PEACE; SLAVERY IS
FREEDOM; and
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth,
updating the past by
falsifying records in accordance with the principles
of Ingsoc,
provides the catalyst for his descent into
unorthodoxy. It is here that he
meets Julia, a young, pretty woman, who comes
to love Smith. In Winston
and Julia's secret meetings it is revealed
that Julia is also above average
intelligence. Both of them meet a man named
O'Brien in the Ministry
of Truth. Under O'Brien's seeming friendship
they each take vows to
disrupt the Party in any way they can, no matter
who they hurt.
To this end Winston and Julia rent a room with
a proletarian shopkeeper
named Charrington. It is a place where they
believe themselves to be
safe, away from telescreens, and out of view.
Much time is spent there
reading a book given to them by O'Brien. The
book is entitled The
Theory and Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism
and written by a supposed
revolutionary and leader of a revolutionary
group named the Brotherhood.
It is during one stay there they are captured
by the thought police for
unorthodox behavior. To their surprise it is
the shopkeeper Mr.
Charrington who was the member of the thought
police. Though he is very
instrumental in the demise of Winston and Julia,
Mr. Charrington is not
the member of the Thought Police responsible
for their initial suspicion.
This honor falls to their friend O'Brien.
After their capture Julia and Winston are taken
deep into the
complex of the Ministry of Love, where
they are tortured. It is here that
O'Brien reveals his identity as a member of
the Thought Police and tortures
each of them. Winstons torture is detailed
and involves many different
methods of breaking both his body and spirit.
At the same time he is
reindoctrinated with The Party's propaganda.
In torture room 101 he
faces his worst fear, rats.
Winston and Julia's tortures are complete in
every way. They are
transformed form intelligent, strong willed
rebels into a broken
spirited puppet of the party.
Copyright (c) 2000 123HelpMe.com
Webmaster: Dimitri
Lozovoy
A
Brave New World and 1984 Dissimilar
Although many similarities exist between Aldous
Huxley's A Brave
New World
and George Orwell's 1984, the works books though they deal
with similar topics, are more dissimilar than
alike. A Brave New World
is a novel about the struggle of Bernard Marx,
who rejects the tenants
of his society when he discovers that he is
not truly happy. 1984 is the
story of Winston who finds forbidden love within
the hypocrisy of his
society. In both cases, the main character
is in quiet rebellion against his
government which is eventually found to be
in vain.
Huxley wrote A Brave New World in the third
person so that the reader
could be allotted a more comprehensive view
of the activities he presents.
His characters are shallow and cartoon-like
(Astrachan) in
order to better reflect the society in which
they are entrapped.
In this society traditional notions of love
and what ideally should
come out of it have long been disregarded and
are now despised, "Mother,
monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain;
fierce and foamy the
wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet."
(Huxley 41) The comparison
to a wild jet is intended to demonstrate the
inherent dangers in these
activities. Many of the Brave New World's social
norms are intended to
'save' its citizens from anything unpleasant
through depriving them
of the opportunity to miss anything overly
pleasant.
The society values, "ACOMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY,"
(Huxley 1) supersede all else in a collective
effort. Soma, the magical
ultimate drug is what keeps the population
from revolting. "What you
need is a gramme of soma... All the advantages
of Christianity and
alcohol; none of their defects." The
drug is at the forefront of their
daily lives providing freedom from life's every
ill. "The word comes
from the Sanskrit language of ancient India.
It means both an
intoxicating drink used in the old Vedic religious
rituals there and the
plant from whose juice the drink was made-
a plant whose true
identity we don't know." (Astrachan) The drug
is used as a form of
recreation, like sex, and its use is encouraged
at any opportunity, especially
when great emotions begin to arise.
They are conditioned to accept this to calm
and pacify them
should they begin to feel anything too intensely.
The conditioning
also provides them with their place and prevents
them from participating
in social activities which they needn't take
part in. (Smith) Class
consciousness which Americans are so reluctant
to acknowledge is
taught through hypnopædia (the repetition
of phrases during sleep akin to
post hypnotic suggestion) for all social classes:
These names are letters in the Greek alphabet,
familiar to
Huxley's original English readers because in
English schools they
are used as grades- like our As, Bs, etc.-
with Alpha plus the best and
Epsilon minus the worst. In Brave New World,
each names a class or
caste. Alphas and Betas remain individuals;
only Gammas, Deltas,
and Epsilons are bokanovskified. (Astrachan)
The conditioning is begun at an extremely young
age and is
by modern real-world standards cruel. The screaming
of the babies
suddenly changed its tone. There was something
desperate, almost
insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to
which they now gave utterance."
(Huxley 20) The children's "Pavlovian" conditioning
with electric
shocks is later compared to the wax seals which
used to grace the seams of
letters (Astrachan), "Not so much like drops
of water, though water, it
is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite;
rather, drops of liquid
sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate
themselves
with what they fall on, till finally the rock
is all one scarlet blob."
The entire society is conditioned to shrink
away from intense emotion,
engage in casual sex, and take their pacifying
Soma.
In 1984, a first-person book partly narrated
by the main
character's internal dialogue, the great party
leader is "Big Brother,"
a fictional character who is somewhat more
imposing than "Ford," of
Huxley's book, named after the industrialist
Henry Ford (Astrachan).
The main character Winston fears Big Brother
and is much more aware
of his situation than any of the characters
in A Brave New World who
are constantly pacified by soma. In A
Brave New World history is
ignored completely whereas in 1984 it is literally
rewritten in order to
suit the present.
The role of science in both books is extensive
and complicated. 1984's telescreens
cannot be turned off, as A Brave New World
has "feelies," an advancement on
"talkies" which added sound, "feelies" add
tactile senses to a movie as well.
Science and human progress is not acknowledged
in A Brave New World (Smith)
excepting when it increases consumption, whereas
it is twisted with ironic titles
in 1984, "They were homes of the four Ministries
between which the
entire apparatus of government was divided:
the Ministry of Truth, which
concerned itself with news, entertainment,
education, and the fine
arts; the Ministry of Peace, which concerned
itself with war; the
Ministry of Love, which maintained law and
order; and the Ministry of Plenty,
which was responsible for economic affairs.
Their names in Newspeak:
Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty."
(Orwell 8) The God
(Ford) of A Brave New World encourages production
and consumption of
shallow objects to complement the shallow minds
of its citizens.
1984 was written as a warning against
the results of having
a totalitarian state. Winston bears the blunt
of his mistakes, the
crime of individuality and dissension. A Brave
New World is as much a
satire on the reality of today (the reality
of Huxley's day) as it is a
novel about the future. ANeil Postman ...warned
Awhen a population
becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural
life is defined a s a perpetual
round of entertainment, when serious public
conversation becomes a
form of baby talk, a people become an audience
and their public business
a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself
at risk; cultural death is a
clear possibility. (Kruk) Huxley seems
to feel that society is
progressing toward a materialistic and superficial
end, in which all
things of real value, including the relationships
which make people
human, will be quashed.
The two works vary greatly, A Brave New World
is the
Huxley's expression of fear that mankind will
create a utopia by
way of foregoing all that makes life worthwhile.
Orwell's work rings more
sharply of secret police paranoia. Indeed,
Winston is taken to
room 101, while Bernard is merely transferred
to an uncomfortable
location. The hypocrisy is much more evident
within A Brave New World as
well, owing to the controller's having had
a son. Both books forewarn of
a day when humankind might fall slave to its
own concept of how others
should act.
The two books ask not whether societies with
stability,
pacification, and uniformity can be created,
but whether or not
they are worth creating. It is so often that
one wants something and in
wanting romanticizes it, thus bringing disappointment
when the end is
finally obtained. They serve as a reminder
that it is necessary to have
pain to compare with joy, defeat to compare
with victory, and problems in
order to have solutions. Both books end on
negative notes; Bernard is
exiled to work in Iceland and Winston is subjected
to psychological
treatment and then killed.
Copyright (c) 2000 123HelpMe.com
Webmaster: Dimitri
Lozovoy