1984
George Orwell
Presented by Joseph Lema, Laura Cole and
Janelle Morin
February 23, 2010
Comparative Literature: Scandalous Literature
Main Character ± Winston Smith
Setting ± London, Air Strip One (England) 1984
The world has been divided into 3 major superpowers - Eurasia, Eastasia, and
Oceania
Big Brother is the dictator of Oceania
Ingsoc LVWKHWHUPXVHGWRGHVFULEHWKH3DUW\¶V'RFWULQH6KRUWIRU(QJOLVK
Socialism)
,QJVRF¶V Key Principles:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Oceania
Everyone is divided into 3 classes
The Proles
The working class, impoverished people who are
uneducated, viewed as insignificant, and less
monitored
The Party
Workers for the government, under strict surveillance,
a sort of middle class.
Inner Party
Upper class. Maintains control over the rest.
The Party works in 4
Ministries:
Ministry of Truth ± deals with lies and
propaganda.
Ministry of Love ± deals with hate, torture and
death.
Ministry of Peace ± deals with war.
Ministry of Plenty ± deal with economic affairs
and distribution of goods.
Winston works for the Ministry of Truth. He
writes and rewrites history to fit with whatever the
Party wants the people to believe.
Plot
Winston finds a journal where he begins to
record his own thoughts that go against the party.
Winston must act as a devout and ignorant
believer of Big Brother at all times to avoid being
detected and being accused as a thought
criminal.
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many others.
Winston secretly receives a love note from Julia.
They fall in love, confide in each other their
intense hatred towards the party, and begin a
secret affair.
Winston believes that a man in the Inner Party,
2¶%ULHQLVDSDUWRIWKHUXPRXUHG³%URWKHUKRRG´
which is an underground movement that
conspires against the Party. The Brotherhood
allegedly has a book in which they expose the
truth about Ingsoc and express their own political
agenda.
2¶%ULDQHYHQWXDOO\DSSURDFKHV:LQVWRQDQGVXEWO\
arranges to have Winston come to his house.
Winston brings Julia to 2¶%ULDQV, convinced that
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Winston and Julia are both willing to join the
Brotherhood to the point of death, but vow to never
betray each other.
2¶%UDLQ secretly informs them that he is a part of the
Brotherhood and arranges to secretly deliver the
notorious book of the Brotherhood to Winston.
Winston secretly meets with Julia to read the
book.
While reading the book, the secret police arrive
and arrest both Winston and Julia.
2¶%UDLQ, it turns out, was not a part of the
Brotherhood.
Winston is brought to the Ministry of Love, where
2¶%UDLQ tortures Winston to the brink of death
and successfully manipulates Winston into
believing in the subjective and illogical doctrine
of Ingsoc. 2 + 2 = 5
After the torture, Winston remains in jail
recovering until he is almost physically healthy
again.
At that point he is brought into room 101, where
he is forced to meet his worst fear ± a cage of
hungry rats which will ravage his face.
In a desperate attempt to avoid the fate of the
rats, Winston betrays Julia by screaming to have
her endure the torture rather than himself.
Winston is released and is now a faithful believer
of Ingsoc.
Winston and Julia meet, but having both been
broken into belief in the Party, they no longer
have any interest in each other.
The Party has successfully bent him to not only
believe in Big Brother, but to love him as well.
Sexuality
Sexuality in the Party is strictly controlled
Marriage is allowed, but only under the direction
of the Inner Party.
Even within marriage, the union is strictly for the
good of the Party. Marriage is without affection
or love and sex is done as a duty in order to
produce offspring.
Winston is married, but loathes his wife.
Sex with her was undesirable because she did it
only out of duty and because she acted as if she
hated doing it, but she insisted on it,
nonetheless.
They separated because they could not have
children.
Winston has the desire for sex, which is not
completely forbidden, as he goes to a Prole
prostitute only to find out she is elderly and has
sex with her anyway.
Julia believes that they attempt to repress sexual
desires because the pent up tension can be
directed towards love for Big Brother or hate
towards enemies.
2¶%ULDQVWDWHVWKDWWKH\KDYHDOPRVWILJXUHGRXWKRZ
to get rid of the orgasm all together. Sex will be
completely removed so that people will have
complete loyalty to Big Brother.
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for and fulfillment of sex creates an awareness of
others. It results in a bond of love that inspires
people to think and act with concern for one another.
Human bonds undermine the ability to control the
individual, which is what an egalitarian state, such as
the one under Big Brother, strives upon.
Orwellian Newspeak, Soviet
Phraseology and Modern
Propaganda
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-Orwell as Syme
1984
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argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development
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-Orwell
Politics and the English Language
Vocabulary
Newspeak
Sparse vocabulary intended to eliminate
dichotomies, degrees and subtleties from
language to reinforce the power of the ruling Party
Words divided into categories according to
function: A (simple concepts); B (more complex
topics); and C (technical vocabulary)
Vocabulary II
Oldspeak
Newspeak term for modern concept of the English
language
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2050 from the collective consciousness
Vocabulary III (related
term)
Thoughtcrime/ Crimethink
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capacities to understand, reason, and think in a
manner contrary to their own, thereby mitigating
and ultimately eliminating rebellion
Monitored through psychology and super
surveillance technology
The inherent aims of Newspeak are not linguistic but
political; language is not simply a tool for
communication, but a mechanism for
transmitting, understanding, deconstructing and
postulating ideas, which threaten the Party by
undermining its totalitarian and unilateral power.
What is language?
System for decoding information
Inherently symbolic; divorced from meaning
without signification
i.e. equality
Modern examples: language,
meaning, propaganda
Democracy
Iran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yymuWnowmv4
Children in New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK0gRMANRWw
Family Guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlImriMN6Q
Cartoons/ pop culture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn8Fp1jyok
What assumptions are inherent in these depictions of
democracy? What does this say about politics and
language?
Doubleplus Censorship in Nineteen Eighty-Four¶V2FHDQLD
2+2=5
In the time period of the book, (1984), the Party has
eliminated all books printed prior to 1960.
Prestigious historical writing, such as those by
Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and others
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That is, the writing was mutated to be in line with Ingsoc
principles. (pp. 325).
The Ministry of Truth:
The Records Department
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historical records so that they are in line with the
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the Party claims is historically and unarguably
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that they accurately predict current events.
Editing prior economic forecasts so that they report what
the actual production of goods is.
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YDSRUL]HGE\WKH3DUW\DQGWKHUHIRUH³QHYHUH[LVWHG´
Once the edits are made, the old text is completely
destroyed and the new text is printed.
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3DUW\LVDOZD\VULJKW´(pp. 163).
Winston acknowledges that even the new version of
history is often false, it merely reports whatever will
convey Big Brother as infallible.
For example, on one assignment Winston is to edit a
speech made by BB which acknowledges the
accomplishments of an unperson. To replace the
speech, Winston creates another Party member for BB
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now existed in the past, and when once the act of
forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as
authentically, and upon the same evidence, as
&KDUOHPDJQHRU-XOLXV&DHVDU´(pp. 50).
The Ministry of Truth:
The Department of Fiction
The Minitrue is also responsible for supplying both the
Party members and proles with newspapers, films,
textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels, statues,
poems, treatises, etc.
There is even a sub department called Pornosec, which
provides pornographic material to the proles, but not
Party members.
Other sources of information, including fictional, are
strictly banned ± even the ownership of a personal
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punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a
forced-labour FDPS´(pp. 8).
Doublethink
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necessary to forget, then to draw it back into
memory again at the moment when it was
needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and
above all, to apply the same process to the
process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety:
consciously to induce unconsciousness, and
then, once again, to become conscious of the
hypnosis you just performed. Even to
XQGHUVWDQGWKHZRUGµGRXEOHWKLQN¶LQYROYHGWKH
XVHRIGRXEOHWKLQN´(pp. 37-38).
Doublethink is an essential element of Ingsoc.
An extreme example of the use of doublethink is the
switching of allies in the never ending war:
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had been announced that Oceania was not after all at
war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia.
(XUDVLDZDVDQDOO\´(pp. 187-188).
Another extreme example of doublethink is the
belief of the claim 2+2=5.
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the dust on the table:
2+2=5
µ7KH\FDQ¶WJHWLQVLGH\RX¶[Julia] had said. But they
FRXOGJHWLQVLGH\RX´(pp. 305).
³)UHHGRPLVWKHIUHHGRPWRVD\WKDWWZRSOXVWZRPDNH
IRXU,IWKDWLVJUDQWHGDOOHOVHIROORZV´(pp. 280)
Questions? Thoughts?
Discussion?