1984 Overview of Nineteen
Eighty-Four
1. Biography
George Orwell is the pen name of Eric
Arthur Blair, a British writer
with political conscience. He was
born in India but educated in
England at Eton College. He served the
Indian Imperial Police in Burma
from 1922 to 1927. In sick health, he
returned to Europe to live in
poverty as a struggling writer. Orwell joined
the Republican forces in
the Spanish civil war, and wrote a chilling
account of this experience.
He went on to write many books, mostly autobiographical,
and achieved
successes as a brilliant writer.
2. Synopsis
The novel takes place in a theoretical and fictional
dystopian
totalitarian society. The story begins
in London on April 4, 1984
after an atomic world war divides the world
into three states. London is
the capital of Oceania which is run by INGSOC
(English Socialism). The
controllers are called "The Party." The Party
is divided into two
sections, The Inner Party, and The Outer Party
which are the "Rich"
and the "middle-class." There is a third
group of people called "The
Proles," or "The Proletariat" which are the
poor, and considered to
be animals by the party. The main leader of
this government is Big
Brother.
The novel is told in third person and partly
first person, and is
also divided into three parts. In the
first part the main character and
his conflicts with the world he lives in are
revealed. Winston Smith
is a bureaucrat who works for the government
by altering history at the
Ministry of Truth. He begins to ponder
the reason things are so
bad and commits a terrible crime. In
the second part, he falls in love
with Julia, and is taken in by a man named
O'Brien, a member of the
anti-party society called the Brotherhood.
O'Brien turns out to be a
true member of The Inner Party. Winston
and Julia are captured and
hauled off to the Ministry of Love (Minilove
in Newspeak). Here,
during the final part of the story, Winston
is incarcerated and
rehabilitated by The Party. O'Brien constantly
tells Winston that Winston is
crazy, and that he is trying to help him. During
these sessions he reveals
the true purposes of INGSOC. The party's goals
can be summed up in
their mottos. "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,
and IGNORANCE IS
STRENGTH Orwell, 7)."
3. Theme
Under the rule of INGSOC, members of The Party
are engrossed in their
work. It is essential that the government
keeps its people happy in
order to avoid rebellions and "thought crimes."
Winston's greatest
downfall springs from his only pleasure, his
work. He found it easy to
become lost in the intricacies of his duties
guided only by the
principles of INGSOC and his best estimate
of what the Party wanted him
to say. A typical task might include
correcting an article in the
Times, written entirely in Newspeak.
In one instance he reviews an
article which read: times 3.12.83 reporting
bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs
unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling(Dr.
Tom Costa., 1.
In Oldspeak (or standard English) this might
be rendered: The reporting of
Big Brother's Order for the Day in the Times
of December 3rd 1983 is
extremely unsatisfactory and makes references
to nonexistent persons.
Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to
higher authority before
filing (Dr. Tom Costa., 1). The ability of
Winston to do this job can be
accredited to the control of his government.
Through the use of various
techniques such as propaganda and the "Thought
Police," Big Brother is
able to not only brainwash his people, but
also to reprogram thm to love and
serve him.
4. Structural
Feature
How does Orwell use distortion and irony to
reveal the true motive of
the IGNSOC government? By distorting the motive
of a government into
three elusively ironic statements, "WAR IS
PEACE, FREEDOM IS
SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell,
7)." Orwell is able to
convey the reality of IGNSOC's goals. "IGNORANCE
IS STRENGTH" is the basic
idea that ignorant people are content people.
The Outer Party is kept
ignorant because the truth is adjustable, and
the Proles are kept
content with ineffectual liberties such as
love, sex, and families.
"FREEDOM IS SLAVERY" breathes insecurity into
the individualist. It
implies that as an individual you will sink,
as a group you are
immortal. "WAR IS PEACE" leads people
to believe that war is a good
thing when in reality it is only good for the
government that they
should believe this. Ironically, it is
almost true, at lest in 1984.
Because the states are at war, they are locked
in perpetual deadlock.
The war never endangers any of the state's
important land and it
prevents the equal distribution of goods by
consuming them.
Overproduction and equal distribution of goods
would allow true
socialism, which the party was never interested
in from the beginning.
The Party realizes that throughout history
a society divides itself into
high, middle, and low classes. The high
class is maintained by keeping
the middle and low classes in constant drudgery
and everyone is kept
content by means of "doublethink" and "newspeak."
The only peace war
creates is reserved for the government.
5. Literary
Merit
"George Orwell's 1984 is the expression of a
mood, and it is a
warning(Erich Fromm)." After Word War
II, many people who read this
novel experienced mixed reactions. It
cannot be denied however, that
George Orwell made some stunning predictions
about the future. "The
basic theme of this novel is that if we don't
watch out 1984 will find
us(Jason Caminiti)." I believe it
may already have. Take the
statement "WAR IS PEACE." We are constantly
at war with other
countries, if not defending our own borders,
defending an allies. It is
as if we need a war to unify our nation.
If a president doesn't go to
war at least once, he is considered weak and
incompetent. Even our own
language is deteriorating with the advent and
acceptation of "political
correctness." 1984 was an excellent novel,
chillingly blunt, and
terrifyingly accurate.
Bibliography
Encarta. "George Orwell" Microsoft copyright 1993.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Penguin Group,
1950.
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