1984: A Visionary Novel
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four takes us through
Winston Smith's life in
the period of a year. Winston lives in a
world made up of three main
states: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. In
this visionary novel, Oceania
is run by a totalitarian government under
the leadership of a dictator
named Big Brother. Big Brother is so
controlling and his power so
great that one may question his own
existence.
Oceania's government is divided into four ministries: the
Ministry of Truth, which
concerns itself with news, entertainment,
education and the fine
arts; the Ministry of Peace, which deals with
war; the Ministry of
Love, which maintains law and order; and the
Ministry of Plenty, which
is responsible for economic affairs. (Orwell,
p. 6) Winston is an Outer
Party member who works in the Records
Department in the Ministry
of Truth. It was his job to destroy and
rewrite the archives
of the London Times so that they were
consistent with Ingsoc
policy. When someone is vaporized, or when Ingsoc
changes it's political
alliance with either Eastasia or Eurasia, it is
Winston's job to change
the records; to change the past.
The political party of Oceania is INGSOC, which is otherwise
known as English Socialism.
The government monitors the lives of
the citizens through
technological means to insure loyalty through
surveillance, propaganda
and brainwashing. The Party, as the
government is known,
goes so far as to control the people's thoughts and
ideas. They have even
replaced English with Newspeak, the language of the
party. By removing
meaning and suggestion from the vocabulary, they
hoped to obliterate anti-social
thinking before it even had a chance to
enter a person's mind.
The act of individual thought is called Thought
Crime. No one could
be trusted in fear that they might report you to
the Thought Police.
This held true for families as well. You had to
watch your facial expressions
at all times, because "the smallest thing
could give you away.
A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a
habit of muttering to
yourself - anything that carried with it the
suggestion of abnormality,
of having something to hide." (Orwell, p.65)
Those who think for themselves
are arrested by the Thought Police and
sent to the Ministry
of Love, where they are re-educated or killed.
And sometimes both.
This
novel serves as a warning against the dangers of a
technologically advanced
totalitarian government. It is set in London,
the chief city of Airstrip
One, a province of Oceania. It is possibly
1984, although, with
the party's control of all facts, one could never
be sure. (Orwell)
To begin with, he
did not know with any certainty that this was 1984.
It must be round about
that date, since he was fairly sure that his age
was thirty-nine, and
he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945;
but it was never possible
nowadays to pin down any date within a year or
two. (Orwell, p.9)
The novel is a forecast of an anti-utopian world set in the
year 1984. The
world is divided into three super-states: Oceania,
Eurasia and Eastasia.
Oceania consists of the Americas, the Atlantic
Islands, Australia and
South Africa; Eurasia is made up of Northern
Europe and Asia, extending
from Portugal to the Bering Strait; and
Eastasia consists of
China and the countries south of it, Japan,
Manchuria, Mongolia and
Tibet.
Oceania, where the book is set, is run by a totalitarian
government, led by the
socialist leader, Big Brother. In this state,
all thoughts and actions
are monitored through telescreens -- video
cameras in the form of
televisions that can never be turned off. Any
thought or comment which
goes against the state or Big Brother is a
crime and punishable
by death.
There is a defined class system in Oceania, set up in
pyramidal form.
At the apex is the all powerful Big Brother. Just
below him is the Inner
Party, which consists of roughly 1-2% of the
population. The
Outer Party, which is below the Inner Party, is made up
of approximately 13-18%
of Oceania's people. At the bottom, with about
81-85% of the population,
is the proles (the peasants.) The proles
aren't monitored by the
government because they are seen as too
uneducated and unimportant
to bother with. "'The proles are not human
beings.'" (Orwell, p.
56) There is no need to worry about a
peasant revolt,
so there is no need to deal with them. The proles are the
only people to live as
they always have and to have freedom of speech
and expression.
Because
of the situation that the proles are in, there is
virtually no chance of
a revolution occurring, since any possibility of
a revolt lies with the
proles, who are too uneducated and simple to
understand the state
that the world is in.
Oceania is currently at war with Eurasia and allies with
Eastasia. Although
in reality, this changes every few years, records
are destroyed to show
that Oceania has always been at war with
Eurasia. (Orwell)
As this novel was written in 1949 about the year 1984, it is
not an accurate portrayal
of the period. George Orwell wrote about
Oceania, which, as previously
mentioned, consisted of the Americas,
Australia, and the Atlantic
Islands (including the British Isles.)
(Orwell) These
countries were, and still are, democratic nations, and
not, as Orwell had predicted,
socialist totalitarian states. Although
the U.S.S.R. and China
were similar to Oceania politically in the
1980's, they form part
of Neo-Bolshevist Eurasia and Death-Worship
Eastasia, respectively,
not totalitarian Oceania. Orwell's division of
the super-states is more
like that found in the Cold War than that of
the 80's.
There is no real possibility of a revolution occurring in
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
although this is not the case in the real world.
There were many riots
during the 80's, such as the protests at Tiannamen
Square and the youth
riots in British cities during the early 80's.
(Paxman, p.1192)
People had the right to freedom of speech and
expression in the Western
World, something Orwell saw as being a crime
in his futuristic novel.
Although these protests during the 80's were
punished, the fact that
they even occurred shows the difference from
Orwell's prediction.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the proles would not have
thought of revolting,
much less acted upon it. (Orwell)
Many of the ideas in Nineteen Eighty-Four were based on
tactics repeatedly used
by governments, such as the use of secret
police. The secret
police were used by the Jacobins during the French
Revolution, Hitler during
World War II, Russia since World War II, the
government of South Africa,
as well as many other governments throughout
Latin America, Africa,
and Asia. Orwell's ideas were not completely
farfetched, he simply
predicted that technology and society would move
at a faster pace than
it did. For example, the concept of telescreens
and being monitored at
all times has slowly crept into our society
today. The use
of surveillance cameras in stores and work places, as
well as the mass use
of the Internet as we begin the millennium, and the
use of credit cards and
debit cards all enable the government to keep
track of your every move.
Although it is not as extreme as in Nineteen
Eighty-Four, it holds
the potential to become the frightening system
used in the book.
Works Cited
Orwell, George.
Nineteen Eighty-Four. London, England: Penguin
Books, 1949.
Paxman, Jeremy.
Chronical of the 20th Century: the Ultimate
Record of
our Time. London,
England: Dorling Kindersley, 1995.
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