A. From life experiences
B. From a writers point of view
VI
Conclusion
Introduction
"Orwell observed that every line of
serious work that I have
written since
1936 has been written directly or indirectly,
against
totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I
understand
it" ("George
Orwell"). George Orwell has been a
major contributor
to anticommunist literature around the World
War II
period. Orwell lived in England during
World War II, a
time when the
totalitarianism state, Nazi Germany, was at war
with England and
destroyed the city of London. " I
know that
building' said
Winston finally. Its a ruin now. It's in the
middle of the
street outside the Palace of Justice.'
That's
right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in-oh many years
ago'"
(Orwell 83). This reflects Orwell's own
life experiences
as a citizen in
war torn England and how he uses this in 1984.
George Orwell is
famous for two major novels which attack
totalitarianism. The first is Animal Farm a satire describing
the leaders of
the Soviet Union as animals on an animal farm. The second novel is 1984 a story
of dictators who are in complete
control of a
large part of the world after the Allies lost in
World War II
. The government in this novel gives no
freedoms to
its
citizens. They live in fear because they
are afraid of
having bad
thoughts about the government of Oceania, a crime
punishable by
death. This is the gem in Orwell's
collection of
novels against
totalitarianism. This paper will
show how George
Orwell wrote 1984
as a political statement against
totalitarianism.
1984 is about life in a world where no
personal freedoms
exist. Winston the main character, is a man of 39
who is not
extraordinary in
either intelligence or character, but is
disgusted with
the world he lives in. He works in the
Ministry
of Truth, a place
where history and the truth is rewritten to fit
the party's
beliefs. Winston is aware of the
untruths, because
he makes them
true. This makes him very upset with the
government of
Oceania, where Big Brother, a larger than life
figure, controls
the people.
His
dissatisfaction increases to a point where he rebels
against the
government in small ways. Winston's
first act of
rebellion is
buying and writing in a diary. This act
is known as
a thought crime
and is punishable by death. A thought
crime is
any bad thought
against the government of Oceania.
Winston
commits many
thought crimes and becomes paranoid about being
caught, which he
knows is inevitable (Greenblast 113). He
becomes paranoid
because he is followed by a young woman who is
actively involved
in many community groups. Winston is
obsessed
with the past, a
time before Oceania was under strict
dictatorship. He goes into an antique shop and buys a shell
covered in glass
which is another crime punishable by death.
He
sees the same woman
following him. Many thoughts race
through
his mind "I wanted to rape you and then murder
you afterwards.
Two weeks ago I
thought seriously of smashing your head in with a
cobblestone. If you really want to know, I imagined that
you
had something to
do with the Thought Police" (Orwell 101).
The
girl who was
following him slipped him a note while at work.
The
note said "I
love you"(90). They make plans to
meet each other
and carry on an
illegal love affair. This love affair is
another
rebellion against
the government. It goes on for some
time.
Winston rents a
room where he and Julia can be secluded from the
outside
world. They meet a man named O'Brien who
indicates that
he is another
revolutionary. Winston and Julia go to
his house
to meet with
him. O'Brien gives than a seditious book
to read.
Soon after that,
they are caught by the Thought Police and never
see each other
again.
O'Brien, becomes Winston's rehabilitator
and torturer for
the next 9
months. O'Brien tortures Winston in
stages. The
first two stages
are to force the party's beliefs on him then
learn and
understand what is expected of him. In
the third
stage, Winston is
made to face what he secretly fears most, rats
eating his
face. After being completely
rehabilitated by
O'Brien, Winston
now loves the establishment and the government.
He is set free.
Big Brother is the figurehead of a
government that has
total
control. The Big Brother regime uses
propaganda and puts
fear in its
citizens to keep the general population in line.
"Big Brother
is watching you"(Orwell 5) is just one example of
many party
slogans that puts fear in its citizens.
Big Brother
uses various ways
to catch people guilty of bad thoughts "In the
world of 1984 the
tyrant Big Brother does employ a vast army of
informers called
thought police, who watch every citizen
at all
times for the
least signs of criminal deviation which may consist
simply of
unorthodox thoughts"(112).
Winston Smith represents Orwell's view on
totalitarianism.
Winston rebels
against the government of Oceania by starting a
diary and
constantly having bad thoughts against the government.
"Winston
knows that he is doomed from the moment he has his first
heretical thought
. The tensions of the novel concerns how
long
he can stay alive
and whether it is possible for Winston to die
without mentally
betraying his rebellion" (Greenblast 115).
Winston starts
writing in a diary for two reasons. The
first is
that he
wants to be able to remember the daily
occurrences in
the world. In 1984, the memory of individuals, is
effectively
manipulated,
programmed, and controlled from the outside by the
party (Kolakowski
127). People don't know what they are
consciously
remembering and what is told to them.
"The party had
invented
airplanes" (Orwell 127) is just one example of the
party's
propaganda and false statements that change every day.
The other reason
for the diary is so that people in the future
will be able to
read what went on during Winston's time and to
tell them about
his daily reflections on his feelings about the
party. These are the same reasons why Orwell wrote
1984. He
wanted to expose
a communist country (the Soviet Union) .
The specific political purpose that
had aro used
Orwell's sense of
urgency was his desire to explode
the
myth of the
Soviet Union as the paradigm of the socialist
state.
He also wanted to expose the dangers of totalitarianism,
which the
devaluation of objective truth, and the systematic
manipulation of
the common people through propaganda ("George
Orwell").
O'Brien is an informant to Big
Brother. He is not who he
seems to be. He appears to Winston as a fellow
conspirator, but
actually becomes
Winston's torturer and rehabilitator.
O'Brien
and the party
can't tolerate Winston's betrayal of the
government.
O'Brien tells his victim : You are a flaw in the
pattern,
Winston. You are a stain that must be wiped
out...It is intolerable
that an erroneous thought should exist
anywhere in the world, however secret and
powerless it may
be.
("George
Orwell").
In fact, the party can't
comprehend his disbelief
and must change
his thoughts through torture and brainwash.
"You
will be
hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and
then we shall
fill you with
ourselves" (Orwell 200). O'Brien
represents the
core of communist
or totalitarian rule, making the victims suffer
by using
brainwashing to control them. O'Brien
also tells
Winston what he
should feel about Big Brother when Winston is at
his lowest point
mentally and physically.
O'Brien's speeches to the broken
Winsto n Smith in
the Thought
Polices' torture chamber represents
for Orwell
the core of our
century's political
hideousness. Although O'Brien says that power seeks power
and
needs no ideological excuse. he does in
fact explain
to his victim
what this power is ("George Orwell").
Julia is considered a sexual deviant in
the oppressed world
of 1984. In a normal world sex is free, in 1984 it's a
forbidden
act only allowed
for reproduction purposes to keep the party's
numbers constant. Julia has been sexually active since her
teenage
years. "She had had her first love
affair when she was
sixteen, with a
party member of sixty" (Orwell 109).
Love and
sex is not
allowed in this totalitarian state so Julia has to
look as pure as possible
so that she does not show any guilt.
"You thought
I was a good party member, pure in word and deed.
Banners,
processions, slogans, games, community hikes all that
stuff. And you [Winston] thought that if I had a
quarter of a
chance I'd denounce
you as a thought criminal and get you killed
off " (101).
The owner of the antique shop is another
example of someone
appearing to be
what he is not. Orwell uses the shop
owner to
illustrate a
point. Orwell shows that no one can be
trusted in a
totalitarian
country. Someone who appears to be your
friend will
actually turn you
in and have you killed. The shop owner
appears
to be an old
widower who enjoys having conversations with Winston
Smith. Throughout the book it can be seen that looks
can be
deceiving. He is actually a member of the Thought Police
and
gets a good laugh
when Winston and Julia getting caught.
Now all
he can do is wait
for his next victim to enter his store.
The Ministry of Truth is a place where
history and
facts--significant
and insignificant are rewritten to reflect the
party's utopian
beliefs.
They thoroughly destroy the
records of the
past; they print
up new, up to-date editions of old
newspapers and
books; and they know corrected versions
will be
replaced by another, re-corrected one. Their goal is to make
people forget
everything- facts, words, dead people, the names of
places. How far they succeed in obliterating the past
is not
fully established
in Orwell's description; clearly they try hard
and they score
impressive results. The ideal of
complete
oblivion may not have been
reached,
yet further
progress is to be expressed (Kolakowski 126).
Winston and Julia
are workers at the Ministry of Truth.
Winston
gets more
mentally involved in his work than Julia.
"Winston
Smith and his
fellows at the Ministry of Truth spend their days
rewriting the
past: Most of the material you were
dealing with
had no connection
with anything in the real world, not even the
kind of
connection that is contained in a direct lie'" ("George
Orwell"). Winston is not as strong mentally as
Julia. His
work affects him
more.
The Ministry of Truth is like a
totalitarian country,
because it has
ways to scare its citizens. People
guilty of
crimes are erased
from having ever existed. "Your
name was
removed from the
registers, every record of your existence was
denied and then
forgotten" (Orwell 19). Again
people were taken
away without any
rights. "...there was no trial no report of
arrest"
(19).
The actual purpose of the Ministry
of Truth is to
spread lies and to have control over its citizens using
memory erasing
techniques. "...the distinction
between true
and false in their usual meaning has
disappea red. This is
the great
cognitive triumph of totalitarianism: it cannot be
accused of lying
any longer since it has succeeded in abrogating
the very idea of
truth (Kolakowski 127).
These same
control techniques are used by totalitarian nations
that seek control
over there citizens.
The Ministry of Truth is a complete
contradiction of
itself. A Ministry of Truth should not change past
occurrences
or say people
never existed. It should exemplify the
truth and
not erase records
of the existence of people.
The Ministry of Love is where all
criminals are tortured,
rehabilitated,
then set free or killed. As soon as
Winston is
captured he knows
he is going to the Ministry of Love.
The
Ministry of Love was the really frightening one.
There were no
windows in it at all. Winston had never
been inside the
Ministry of Love, nor within half a
kilometer of
it. It was a place impossible to enter
except on
offical business,
and then only by penetrating throu gh
a
maze of
barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden
machine-gun
nests. Even the streets leading up to
its outer
barriers were
roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms,
armed with jointed truncheons
(Orwell
8).
In a totalitarian
state something resembling a Ministry of Love
is common
place. It's a place where the government
can inflict
pain on its
subjects for crimes big and small. That
is how
totalitarian
nations keep, power over their citizens-- by fear of
pain. The name Ministry of Love is a contradiction
of itself.
Its name shows a
feeling of love and warmth, but in actuality
it's the complete
opposite. It's a place of hate and pain
and is
cold and
dark. A better name for it would be the
Ministry of
Hate.
George Orwell lived during a time when
Europe was in a
period of
rebuilding after World War II. During
that time
Soviets gained
six nations as satellites. England was
helpless
and had to worry
about their own problems and had to watch the
Soviet Union take
control of half of Germany. The leader
of the
Soviet Union,
Stalin, closely resembles Big Brother.
They were
both larger than
life figures in there respective countries.
In
the Soviet Union
you could easily have found large posters with
Stalin's face on
them. The same holds true in 1984; Big
Brother's face is
everywhere. A famous quote from 1984 is
"Big
Brother is
watching you" (Orwell 5). Meaning
if his Thought
Police don't
catch you, his telescreens and hidden microphones
would. In the Soviet Union, Stalin's K.G.B. sought
criminals who
plotted against
the government. In Stalin's regime over
10
million people
were killed. In 1984 hundreds of
criminals were
killed
daily. Another aspect of the 1940's were
the new
broadcast T.V.'s
and mainframe computers. The new
technologies
could be used for
means of control. Orwell saw communist
countries using
these technologies for control ("George Orwell").
This is where
Orwell's idea of telescreens and hidden microphones
came from. Before World War II, Orwell had his worst
encounter
with
communists. While Orwell was in the
Spanish Civil War, he
was running away
from Soviet communists who were trying to kill
him. After that experience he got out of the army
and became a
writer full
time. "Another shock to Orwell was
when the
Nazi-Soviet pact
signaled the breakdown and the beginning of the
mental and
emotional state out of which grew Animal Farm and
1984"(Greenblast
105). Orwell may of have extracted what
he saw
in his world
while writing but it was done to get people's
attention of
problems in the existing world.
"Orwell's primary
purpose is to
distort disturbing conditions tendencies and habits
of thought that
he saw existing in the world"("George Orwell").
Orwell saw, the
whole world steadily moving toward a vast
ruthless
tyranny. He felt nothing could stop it's
monstrous
progress. 1984, in spite of its setting in the future,
is not
primarily a
utopian fantasy prophesying what the world will be
like in thirty or
forty years but a novel about what the world is
like now
(Greenblast 112). Orwell always relates
characters in
his books to
points of view and real people. In
Animal Farm
every farm animal
represents a person in the Soviet Union.
In
1984, Orwell
represents his point of view in Winston.
He shows a
totalitarian
leader, in O'Brien and Big Brother, while Julia is
the desire and
lust in every human being.
George Orwell had deep resentment against totalitarianism
and what it stood
for. He saw the problem of
totalitarianism in
his existing
world. He also understood how the
problem could
fester and become
larger due to instability in Europe's economy
after World War
II. He purposely makes the story, 1984,
unrealistic and
blown out of proportion to capture people's
attention and
make them think maybe it wouldn't be unrealistic in
the near
future. With his deep resentment toward
totalitarianism
it became the
focal point of his novels. George
Orwell's, novels
were directed
toward against totalitarianism and for Socialism
and what it stood
for.
1984,
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