Elements That 4 Popular Dystopian

Novels Have in Common

When writing a literary analysis, you have a lot of points to choose from, but
this article will focus on four elements:

• A ruler or oppressor with absolute power

• Conformity
• A protagonist who fights for change
• An ending that leaves readers questioning

A ruler or oppressor with absolute power

n dystopian novels, citizens’ movements, thoughts, and actions are highly
controlled and repressed. Generally, a government or large corporation is
the oppressor.

The Handmaid’s Tale

In The Handmaid’s Tale, The Republic of Gilead was able to successfully
overthrow the government, and although it claimed it would only hold power
temporarily, it completely altered society, stripping away women’s rights. Due
to declining birth rates in the country, women were forced to become
handmaids to help others conceive.

In this society, everyone is restricted, particularly when it comes to sexuality.

However, it’s the women who are ruled by absolute power. They have no
freedoms, cannot leave their homes without being watched, and are not
allowed to get an education.

1984
The citizens in the novel 1984, published in 1949, are continually monitored
by the leader of the ruling political party. The leader, known only as Big
Brother (not the TV show that takes its name from this novel), monitors
people’s every move.
People have no freedoms and are required to speak a new language
designed to curb political unrest. People aren’t even allowed to think about
rebelling against the government.

Fahrenheit 451
In Fahrenheit 451, individuality, intelligent conversation, and reading books
are all banned. People don’t even enjoy nature anymore. Instead, people
passively watch TV or listen to the radio for hours at a time.

In this society, the government has censored everything and has banned
books in order to prevent original thought and intelligence. The government
claims that this will promote equality among its citizens.

Brave New World

People in Brave New World are controlled by the World State, who claims
that stability and engineering people are the way to happiness. Life in this
brave new world means that people are not born into a caste system in the
traditional sense.

Instead, they’re engineered into a caste system through a company that

produces and alters embryos so that individuals are born into various
positions in life, such as leaders or laborers.

es readers questioning
Conformity

In dystopian novels, most people generally conform to the new way of life.
This is often due to passivity or simply neglecting to question their rights and
the government’s actions.

This lack of questioning usually leads to most (or all) of people’s rights being
completely stripped away.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Before the development of handmaids, pornography was prolific, and
women were often victims of violence.
Many in society use these facts as talking points to attempt to convince
women that they are now treated with more respect and should not only be
content but happy in their new roles in life. In general, women accept (or at
least tolerate) their new lives.

1984
There are, of course, a few isolated pockets of people who want to get rid of
the oppression of Big Brother, but for the most part, people live their lives
under rule of Big Brother without incident.

In this society, even some thoughts are illegal, and people live in constant
fear of committing any type of crime.

Fahrenheit 451
When the ban on books first went into place, there were several groups who
fought against the laws, but most people accepted the new society without
question. They agreed to ban books as they didn’t want any writings to
offend people.

The wife of Guy Montag (the protagonist) is also content in a world without
books and questions him about reading, asking why he’d want to read a
book and risk being caught.

Brave New World

Because people are engineered into their own specific ways of life, they
generally don’t question their existence. They have known nothing else.

A protagonist who fights for change

Although most people in dystopian novels accept their lives, there are
people who question the new society. The protagonist of the story finds the
strength to take on the oppressor and/or gather followers in order to create a
world in which people will again have freedom.

The protagonist, however, isn’t always successful, and readers are often left
wondering about the fate of the protagonist and the society.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Ofglen is a member of Mayday, a group that is resisting Gilead and who
refuses to be complacent, yet the narrator, Offred, is not as committed as
some.

Though Offred does attempt to escape her position in life, when her escape
fails, she returns to her old role as a handmaid, essentially accepting her
position in life.

1984
The protagonist, Winston Smith, has an illegal affair with a woman named
Julia. Through this affair and writing in his illegal diary, Smith rebels against
Big Brother.

Even though Smith himself is a member of the party, he’s curious about the
totalitarian government and its absolute power.

Though Smith allows himself to become indoctrinated into the Brotherhood

(who is against Big Brother), he secretly feels as though he will be caught. In
the end, he is caught, tortured, and ultimately submits to Big Brother.

Fahrenheit 451
The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a firefighter who burns books but soon
realizes that there’s much to learn from reading.

He meets a teenager who questions things and loves nature. He meets other
underground groups, including a professor, who have secret stashes of
books and who share knowledge and conflicting opinions.

Montag’s wife ultimately turns against him, and Montag is forced to burn his
own house. However, Montag also turns against his boss and sets him on fire
and flees. A nationwide manhunt begins, a war is soon declared, and society
is ultimately destroyed.

In the end, groups of book-lovers unite and hope to pass on knowledge and
rebuild society.

Brave New World

The protagonist, John, becomes the focus of the novel. He grew up in
relative isolation, but as he becomes involved in current society, he
questions its rules and rituals.

He believes the new world dehumanizes its citizens because things like art,
social functions, and relationships are no longer part of society.

An ending that leaves readers questioning

Because the protagonist doesn’t always succeed in his/her fight, readers
don’t know whether the society will stay the same, improve, or allow
conditions for the average citizen to actually decline.

Readers of dystopian novels are also left to question the current society in
which they live.

Dystopian novels are often cautionary tales about what can happen if
citizens are complacent. The novels hope to open people’s eyes to the
possibility of the government becoming too powerful.

The Handmaid’s Tale

The novel ends with Offred being taken away, but readers aren’t quite sure
whether she’s actually being “saved” by Mayday or being taken to prison.

While The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1986, the storylines of

pornography, prostitution, and violence against women are certainly relevant
today.
Given that, the novel and its ending leave readers feeling uneasy, wondering
if, given the current conditions of society, complacency could lead to a
situation not unlike that presented in the novel.

1984
In the end, O’Brien convinces Smith to become loyal to the party. Smith
leaves Julia and is content to obey Big Brother.

Thus, readers are left to consider what can happen to a society that no
longer has the ability to express individuality or question authority. If people
become complacent and do not question, soon all of their freedoms may be
taken away.

Fahrenheit 451
The novel was published in 1953 as the popularity of television was
continually increasing. At the time, readers could easily imagine people
staring at TV rather than enjoying nature or reading books.

Today, readers can certainly envision people staring at screens for hours at a
time, though now the screens are generally computer or smartphone
screens.

Readers are left to wonder what would happen if everything was censored
and free speech was banned. People today also worry about society losing
the ability to verbally communicate and people becoming isolated due to
technology.

In many ways, this is just what the author, Bradbury, feared.

Brave New World

John ends up giving into the state and the “brave new world” but can’t stand
the fact that he has given in. As a result, he commits suicide.

This novel, like most dystopian novels, leaves readers questioning

technology, happiness, and what their roles in society might be if they allow
technology to rule.
1984 overview

George Orwell's 1984 is such an influential novel that you

needn't have read it to notice its effect. With its chilling
examination of totalitarian regimes, 1984 changed
the language we use to discuss those very regimes. Popular
terms like "Big Brother," "Orwellian," or "Newspeak" were all
originated by Orwell in 1984.

The novel was Orwell’s attempt to highlight what he saw as an

existential threat posed by authoritarian leaders like Joseph
Stalin. It remains a vital commentary on the techniques of
brutal totalitarian regimes and only becomes more prescient
and applicable as technology catches up with its nightmarish
vision.
Plot Summary
Winston Smith lives in what is known as Airstrip One, formerly
Britain, a province of a large nation-state known as Oceania.
Posters everywhere declare BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
YOU, and Thought Police could be anywhere, watching for signs
of Thoughtcrime. Smith works at the Ministry of Truth
changing historical texts to match the current propaganda being
distributed by the government.

Winston longs to rebel, but confines his rebellion to keeping a

forbidden journal, which he writes in a corner of his apartment
hidden from the two-way television screen on his wall.

At work, Winston meets a woman named Julia and begins a

forbidden love affair, meeting her in a room he rents above a
shop in the midst of the non-party population, known as proles.
At work, Winston suspects that his superior, a man named
O’Brien, is involved with a resistance movement called The
Brotherhood, led by a mysterious man named Emmanuel
Goldstein. Winston’s suspicions are confirmed when O’Brien
invites him and Julia to join The Brotherhood, but this turns out
to be a ruse and the pair are arrested.

Winston is brutally tortured. He slowly gives up all outward

resistance, but preserves what he believes is an inner core of his
true self symbolized by his feelings for Julia. In the end he is
confronted by his worst fear, a terror of rats, and betrays Julia
by begging his torturers to do it to her instead. Broken, Winston
is returned to public life a true believer.

Major Characters
Winston Smith. A 39-year old man who works for the
Ministry of Truth. Winston romanticizes the lives of the non-
Party proles and indulges in daydreams in which they rise up
and spark a revolution. Winston rebels in his private thoughts
and in small actions that seem relatively safe, like his journal-
keeping. His torture and destruction at the end of the novel is
tragic because of the sheer lack of necessity; Winston was being
manipulated from the very beginning and never posed any true
threat.

Julia. Similarly to Winston, Julia is outwardly a dutiful Party

member, but inwardly seeks to rebel. Unlike Winston, Julia’s
motivations for rebellion stem from her own desires; she wishes
to pursue pleasure and leisure.
O’Brien. Literally everything the reader is told about O’Brien
in the first half of the story is revealed to be untrue. He is
Winston’s superior at the Ministry of Truth, but he is also a
member of the Thought Police. O’Brien therefore represents the
Party perfectly: He is changeable as needed, weaponizes
information or the lack of it, and ultimately serves solely to
perpetuate power and snuff out resistance of any kind.

Syme. A colleague of Winston’s, working on

a Newspeak dictionary. Winston perceives Syme’s intelligence
and predicts that he will disappear as a result of it, a prediction
that quickly comes true.

Mr. Charrington. A kindly old man who helps Winston rebel,

and is later revealed as a member of the Thought Police.

Major Themes
Totalitarianism. Orwell argues that in a one-party political
state where all other parties are outlawed, perpetuation of
power becomes the sole purpose of the State. Towards this end,
a totalitarian state will restrict freedom increasingly until the
only freedom that remains is freedom of private thought—and
the State will then attempt to restrict this as well.

Control of Information. Orwell argues in the novel that the

lack of access to information and the corruption of information
makes meaningful resistance to the Party impossible. Orwell
foresaw the rise of "fake news" decades before it was named.

Destruction of the Self. The ultimate goal of all totalitarian

regimes in Orwell’s opinion. Only by replacing individual
desires with a template created by the State can true control be
asserted.
Literary Style
Orwell writes in plain, largely unadorned language and a
neutral tone, which evokes the crushing despair and dullness of
Winston’s existence. He also ties the point of view tightly to
Winston, forcing the reader to accept what Winston tells them
much as Winston accepts what he is told, all of which is
ultimately revealed as a lie.
About the Author
Born in 1903 in India, George Orwell was an incredibly
influential writer, best-known for his novels Animal
Farm and 1984, as well as essays on various topics covering
politics, history, and social justice.

Many of the concepts Orwell introduced in his writing have

become part of pop culture, such as the phrase "Big Brother is
Watching You" and the use of the descriptor Orwellian to
indicate an oppressive surveillance state.

Summary:

Part One
1984 begins with Winston Smith coming home to his small,
run-down flat. At 39, Winston is old beyond his years and takes
his time walking up the stairs, greeted at each landing by a
poster stating BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. In his small
flat he can dim the wall-sized telescreen and lower the volume
but cannot turn it off. He keeps his back to it because it is a two-
way screen.
Winston lives in what is known as Airstrip One, formerly
Britain, a province of a large nation-state known as Oceania. He
looks out his window at the Ministry of Truth where he works
revising historical records to conform with the new versions of
history the government is always producing. Winston works
hard to appear a dutiful and fervent member of the Party, but
privately despises it and the world he lives in. He knows this
makes him what is known as a thoughtcriminal and assumes he
will inevitably be exposed and punished.

Winston has purchased a diary from a shop in a proletariat (the

lower class of people referred to as proles) neighborhood, and
has discovered that the placement of the telescreen in his
apartment allows for a small area where he cannot be observed.
He skips lunch at the canteen in order to come home and write
his forbidden thoughts in this diary out of the telescreen’s
range. It is a small act of rebellion.

Winston admits to a sexual attraction to a woman at the

Ministry of Truth, Julia. He has not acted on his attraction
because he thinks she might be spying on him, and suspects she
would inform on him. He is also paranoid about his superior, a
man named O’Brien whom he suspects is part of the
Brotherhood, a resistance movement led by the famous terrorist
Emmanuel Goldstein.

Part Two
When Winston goes to work the next day, he sees Julia with her
arm in a sling. When she stumbles, he helps her, and she passes
him a note that reads I Love You. He and Julia begin a sexual
affair, which is forbidden by the Party; Julia is even a member
of the Anti-Sex League. Their first encounter is in a rural area.
Later they begin renting a room above the shop where Winston
purchased his diary. It becomes clear to Winston that Julia
despises the Party as much as he does. The affair sparks
memories in Winston of the civil war and his ex-wife, Katharine.

At work, Winston meets a colleague named Syme who tells him

about the dictionary he is working on for the new
official language, Newspeak. Syme tells Winston that Newspeak
is designed to make it more difficult for people to think in
complex ways. Winston expects that this sentiment will cause
Syme to disappear, and a few days later Syme is gone.

Winston and Julia create a private sanctuary in the rented

room, and tell each other that they are already dead. They
believe that the Party will discover their crimes and execute
them, but that it cannot take away their feelings for each other.

O’Brien contacts Winston, confirms his involvement with the

Brotherhood, and invites him to be a part of the resistance.
Winston and Julia go to O’Brien’s large, well-appointed home
and take an oath to join the Brotherhood. O’Brien gives Winston
a copy of Emmanuel Goldstein’s book. Winston and Julia spend
their time together reading it, learning the truth behind how the
Party maintains its hold on society. They also learn about the
use of a technique called doublethink, which allows Party
members to believe contradictory concepts with ease, and how
history has been changed to support perpetual warfare, which is
used to keep a permanent state of emergency in place for crowd
control purposes. Goldstein also argues that a revolution would
be possible if the proles rose up en masse to oppose the
government.

While in their rented room, Winston and Julia are denounced

by the shop owner, a member of the Thought Police, and
arrested.
Part Three
Winston and Julia are taken to the Ministry of Love for
punishment, and learn that O’Brien is actually a loyal party
member who poses as a supporter of The Brotherhood in order
to expose the disloyal.

O’Brien begins torturing Winston. O’Brien is very open about

the Party’s desire for power, and tells Winston openly that once
he is broken and forced to change his thoughts in support of the
Party, he will be placed back into the world for a time as an
example, and then killed when his usefulness in that capacity is
exhausted. Winston endures horrific pain and psychological
stress as he is forced to adopt obviously untrue positions, such
as stating that 2 + 2 + = 5. The goal of the torture is to force
Winston to abandon logic in favor of absorbing and repeating
whatever the Party tells him. Winston confesses to a lengthy list
of imaginary crimes.

Winston breaks, but O’Brien is not satisfied, as Winston

defiantly tells him that he still loves Julia and O’Brien cannot
take that away from him. O’Brien tells him he will betray Julia
in Room 101. Winston is taken there, and O’Brien reveals that
they know everything there is to know about Winston—
including his greatest irrational fear, rats. A wire cage is fitted
over his face, and rats are placed in the cage. O’Brien tells
Winston that the rats will gouge out his eyes and Winston loses
the last bits of his sanity in terror, and just as the rats are
coming for him he tells O’Brien to substitute Julia.

Having betrayed Julia completely, Winston is truly broken. He

is "re-educated" and released. He spends his days drinking
heavily at a cafe. A few days later he meets Julia in a park, and
they discuss their torture. Julia admits that she broke as well,
and betrayed him. They both realize that their love for one
another has been destroyed. They no longer care for each other
as they once did.

Winston goes to a cafe and sits there alone as the telescreens

report an important victory for Oceania in the war against
Eurasia. Winston is happy and has no more thoughts of
rebellion, thinking that he loves Big Brother, and cannot wait to
finally be executed.

Characters
Winston Smith
Winston is a 39-year old man who works at the Ministry of
Truth, where his job is to alter the historical record to match the
government's official propaganda. Outwardly, Winston Smith is
a meek and obedient member of The Party. He carefully
practices his facial expressions and is always conscious of being
watched, even in his apartment. However, his internal
monologue is seditious and revolutionary.

Winston is just old enough to remember a time before the

current regime. He idolizes the past and revels in the few details
he can still remember. Whereas younger people have no
memory of any other society and thus function as ideal cogs in
The Party's machine, Winston remembers the past and supports
The Party only out of fear and necessity. Physically, Winston
looks older than he is. He moves stiffly and with a bent back. He
is in poor health overall, though without any specific disease.

Winston is often arrogant. He imagines that the proles are the

key to overthrowing the government and he romanticizes their
lives without knowing much about their reality. He is also eager
to believe that he has been recruited by the Brotherhood,
despite his relative lack of importance. Orwell uses Winston to
demonstrate that passive rebellion merely makes the rebel part
of the system he wants to subvert, thus dooming him to serve it
in one way or another. Rebellion and oppression are just two
sides of the same dynamic. Winston is thus doomed to betray
the Party and to be exposed, arrested, tortured, and broken. His
fate is inescapable because he relies on the mechanisms
provided to him instead of forging his own path

Julia
Julia is a young woman who works at the Ministry of Truth.
Like Winston, she secretly despises the Party and the world it
has shaped around her, but outwardly behaves as a dutiful and
content member of the Party. Unlike Winston, Julia’s rebellion
is centered not on revolution or changing the world, but on
personal desires. She wishes for the freedom to enjoy her
sexuality and her existence as she pleases, and sees her private
resistance as a path towards those goals.

Just as she pretends to be a loyal citizen, Julia is also pretending

to be a fervent revolutionary when she and Winston are
contacted by the Brotherhood. She has little sincere interest in
these goals, but goes along because it is the only avenue of
freedom open to her. It is telling that at the end, after her own
torture and breaking, she is an empty vessel devoid of emotion
and yet harbors a strong dislike for Winston, who she once
professed to love and saw as a path to her own liberation.

Julia is actually very unsuitable to Winston in terms of romance

or sexuality. Like Winston, she is not nearly as free as she
believes herself to be, and is constrained completely by the
choices society puts in front of her. Julia invents her love for
Winston as a way of convincing herself that her relationship
with him is genuine and the result of her own choices.

O’Brien
O’Brien is initially introduced as Winston’s superior at the
Ministry and a high-ranking member of the Party. Winston
suspects that O’Brien sympathizes with the resistance, and is
thrilled when he discovers (or believes he discovers) that
O’Brien is a member of the Brotherhood. O’Brien later appears
at Winston’s jail cell and participates in Winston’s torture, and
tells Winston that he purposely lured Winston into betrayal.

O’Brien is an unreal character; virtually anything the reader

believes they learn about him is later revealed to be a lie. As a
result, the reader actually knows nothing about O’Brien at all.
He is a completely unreliable character. In this he is actually
representative of the universe Orwell is imagining, a world
where nothing is true and everything is a lie. In the universe
of 1984, it is impossible to know if The Brotherhood and its
leader Emmanuel Goldstein actually exist or if they are simply
pieces of propaganda used to control the population. Similarly,
we cannot know if there is an actual "Big Brother," an individual
or even an oligarchy that rules Oceania.

O’Brien’s emptiness as a character is thus purposeful: He is as

unreal, changeable, and ultimately mindlessly cruel as the world
he represents.

Syme
Winston’s co-worker at the Ministry working on a new edition
of the Newspeak dictionary is the closest thing to a friend that
Winston has. Syme is intelligent and yet seems satisfied with his
lot, finding his work interesting. Winston predicts he will
disappear because of his intelligence, which turns out to be
correct. Aside from demonstrating to the reader how society
works in the novel, Syme is also an interesting contrast to
Winston: Syme is intelligent, and thus dangerous and is never
seen again, while Winston is allowed back into society after he is
broken, because Winston never actually represented any real
danger.

Mr. Charrington
Appearing initially as a kind old man who rents Winston a
private room and sells him some interesting antiques, Mr.
Charrington is later revealed to be a member of the Thought
Police who has been setting Winston up for arrest from the very
beginning. Charrington thus contributes to the level of
deception that the Party engages in and to the fact that Winston
and Julia’s fates are completely controlled from the very
beginning.

Big Brother
The symbol of The Party, a middle-aged man depicted on
posters and other official materials, there is no certainty that
Big Brother actually exists as a person in Orwell's universe. It is
very likely he is an invention and a propaganda tool. His main
presence in the novel is as a looming figure on posters, and as
part of the mythology of the Party, as "Big Brother is Watching
You." What is interesting is that these ubiquitous posters strike
those who support the Party as somewhat comforting, seeing
Big Brother as a protective uncle, while people like Winston see
him as an ominous, threatening figure.

Emmanuel Goldstein
The leader of The Brotherhood, the resistance organization
working to foment revolution against the Party. Like Big
Brother, Emmanuel Goldstein seems to be an invention used to
trap resistors like Winston, although it is possible he does exist,
or did exist and has been co-opted by the Party. The lack of
certainty is emblematic of the way the Party has corrupted
knowledge and objective facts, and the same disorientation and
confusion experienced by Winston and Julia in regards to
Goldstein's existence or nonexistence is felt by the reader. This
is a particularly effective technique that Orwell uses in the
novel.

THEMES
Written at a time when dictatorships and totalitarian regimes
were establishing a hold over much of the world despite the
defeat of Hitler’s Nazis in World War II, in 1984 Orwell
described what he saw as the inevitable outcome of any political
movement that embraced authoritarianism and the cult of
personality. Orwell was extremely frightened of political power
being concentrated in a small number of individuals, correctly
seeing it as a pathway to the loss of personal freedoms, and
foresaw the technology that would make the erasure of those
freedoms a simple task.

Totalitarianism
The most obvious and powerful theme of the novel is, of
course, totalitarianism itself. A totalitarian state is one where
there is only one political force legally permitted—all opposition
to the state’s policies and actions is illegal, usually categorized
as treason and met with violent retribution. This naturally
stifles freedom of expression and makes change within the
system impossible. In democratic societies, opposition groups
can form political parties, express their ideas freely, and force
the state to address concerns or be replaced. In a totalitarian
society, this is impossible.
Orwell’s Oceania goes further than even most existing
totalitarian states. Where real-world authoritarian leaders seek
to restrict information and control their populations in terms of
their physical movements and spoken or written
communication, Orwell’s government of the future seeks to
inhibit thought itself and alter information at the source.
Newspeak is a language invented by the state specifically to
make independent thought literally impossible, and even
Winston’s physical surroundings are designed to inhibit his
freedoms, like the way his small apartment is dominated by the
enormous two-way television screen, crowding him into a
corner he incorrectly believes offers him some degree of privacy.

That illusion is crucial to Orwell’s theme, as he strives to

demonstrate that in a truly totalitarian society all freedom is in
fact an illusion. Winston believes he finds ways to resist and
meaningfully fight back against repression, all of which turn out
to be gambits controlled by the state. Orwell argues that people
who imagine they would heroically resist such a repressive
regime are kidding themselves.

Control of Information
A crucial aspect of Oceania’s control over the citizenry is its
manipulation of information. Workers at the Ministry of Truth
actively adjust newspapers and books on a daily basis to match
the ever-changing version of history that suits the purposes of
the state. Without any kind of reliable source of facts, Winston
and anyone who, like him, is dissatisfied or concerned about the
state of the world, has only their vague feelings on which to base
their resistance. More than simply a reference to Joseph Stalin’s
practice of literally airbrushing people out of historical records,
this is a chilling demonstration of how a lack of information and
accurate data renders people powerless. Winston daydreams of
a past that never actually existed and sees it as the goal of his
rebellion, but since he lacks any real information, his rebellion
is meaningless.

Consider how he is tricked into overtly betraying the state by

O’Brien. All the information Winston has about the
Brotherhood and Emmanuel Goldstein is fed to him by the state
itself. He has no idea if any of it is true—if the Brotherhood even
exists, if there is even a man named Emmanuel Goldstein.

Destruction of the Self

Winston’s torture at the end of the novel is not simply
punishment for his Thoughtcrimes and incompetent attempts
to rebel; the purpose of the torture is to eradicate his sense of
self. This is the ultimate goal of totalitarian regimes according
to Orwell: A complete subservience to the goals, needs,
and ideas of the state.

The torture Winston undergoes is designed to destroy his

individuality. In fact, every aspect of life in Oceania is designed
to achieve this goal. Newspeak is designed to prevent negative
thoughts or any thought that is not approved or generated by
the state. The Two-Minutes Hate and the presence of Big
Brother posters promote a sense of homogeneous community,
and the presence of Thought Police—especially the children,
who have been raised in the poisoned environment of the
totalitarian state and who function as credulous and uncritical
servants of its philosophy—prevents any sort of trust or true
kinship. In fact, the Thought Police do not have to actually exist
to achieve this goal. Simply the belief that they do is sufficient to
inhibit any individual expression, with the ultimate result that
the self is subsumed into Groupthink.

Symbols
Big Brother. The most powerful and recognizable symbol
from the book—recognized even by people who have not read it
—is the looming image of Big Brother on posters everywhere.
The posters obviously symbolize the power and omniscience of
the party, but they are only ominous to those who retain any
kind of individual thought. For those fully assimilated into the
party line, Big Brother is not an ironic term—he is seen as a
protector, a kindly older sibling keeping them from harm,
whether it be the threat of outside forces, or the threat of
unmutual thoughts.

Proles. Winston is obsessed with the lives of the proles, and

fetishizes the red-armed prole woman as his main hope for the
future, because she represents the potentially overwhelming
power of numbers as well as a mother who will bear future
generations of free children. It is notable that Winston’s best
hope for the future takes the responsibility from his hands—he
is not the one counted on to deliver this ill-defined future, it is
up to the proles to rise up. And if they do not, the implication is
that it is because they are dull and lazy.

Telescreens. Another obvious symbol are the wall-sized

televisions in every private space. This literal intrusion by the
state is not a commentary on modern television, which did not
exist in any meaningful way in 1948, but rather a symbol of the
destructive and repressive power of technology. Orwell
distrusted technology, and saw it as a grave danger to freedom.

Literary Devices
Limited Point of View. Orwell chooses to restrict our access
to information by tying the narrative solely to Winston’s point
of view. This is done specifically to keep the reader reliant on
the information they are given, just as Winston is. This
underscores the betrayal and shock that both feel when, for
example, the Brotherhood is revealed to be fictional.

Plain Language. 1984 is written in a very plain style, with few

flourishes or unnecessary words. While many students take this
to mean Orwell was a humorless man, or who simply lacked the
ability to write in an exciting way, the fact is the opposite:
Orwell had such control over his art he was able to match his
writing style precisely to the mood and setting. The novel is
written in a sparse, grim style that perfectly matches and evokes
the grim, unhappy, and hopeless setting. The reader experiences
the same dull, plodding sense of mere existence that Winston
does.

'1984' Quotes Explained

Quotes About Control of Information

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, where he alters
the historical record to match the Party’s propaganda. Orwell
understood that control of information without the objective
check on such power provided by a free press would allow
governments to essentially change reality.

"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made
five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they
should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their
position demanded it ... And what was terrifying was not that
they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might
be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make
four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is
unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only
in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable…what then?"
Orwell took inspiration from a real event in Russia where the
communist party celebrated reaching a production goal in four
years instead of five by proclaiming that the workers had made
2+2=5. In this quote he notes that we only ‛know’ things that
have been taught to us, and thus our reality can be changed.

"In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science.'"

Newspeak is the most crucial concept in the novel. It is a

language designed to make disagreement with the Party
impossible. This goal is achieved by eliminating all vocabulary
and grammatical constructions that could be construed as
critical or negative. For example, in Newspeak, the word "bad"
does not exist; if you wanted to call something bad, you would
have to use the word “ungood."

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory

beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of
them."
Doublethink is another important concept Orwell explores in
the novel, because it makes the Party members complicit in
their own oppression. When one is able to believe two
conflicting things to be true, truth ceases to have any meaning
outside what the state dictates.

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the
present controls the past."
People represent history through their own memories and
identities. Orwell is careful to note the vast generation gap
opening up in Oceania; the children are enthusiastic members
of the Thought Police, but the older people like Winston Smith
retain memories of the time before, and thus must be treated
like all history—altered by force if possible, eliminated and
erased if not.
Quotes About Totalitarianism
Orwell used Nineteen Eighty-Four to explore the dangers of
authoritarianism and totalitarian forms of government. Orwell
was deeply suspicious of the tendency of governments to
become self-perpetuating oligarchies, and he saw how easily
people’s worst tendencies could be subverted to the will of an
authoritarian regime.

“A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to

torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow
through the whole group of people ... turning one even against
one's will like an electric current, turning one even against one's
will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.”
One technique Orwell explores is directing the unavoidable fear
and anger experienced by the population away from the Party
and the state. In the modern world, authoritarian demagogues
often direct this anger towards immigrant groups and other
‛outsiders.’

“Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting

minor operation, like having an enema. This again was never
put into plain words, but in an indirect way it was rubbed into
every Party member from childhood onwards.”
This quote demonstrates how the state has invaded even the
most private aspects of life, dictating sexual mores and
controlling the most intimate aspects of daily life through
misinformation, peer pressure, and direct thought control.

“All beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that

characterize our time are really designed to sustain the
mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-
day society from being perceived.”
Orwell cleverly makes Emmanuel Goldstein’s book an accurate
explanation of totalitarianism. Goldstein's book, Goldstein
himself, and The Brotherhood may well be part of a ruse created
by the Party to snare would-be rebels like Winston and Julia;
nevertheless, the book lays out how a totalitarian government
sustains its hold on power, in part by controlling outward
expression, which has a direct effect on inward thought.

Quotes About Destruction of the Self

In the novel, Orwell is warning us about the ultimate goal of
such governments: The absorption of the individual into the
state. In democratic societies, or at least one which have a
sincere respect for democratic ideals, the individual’s right to
their beliefs and opinions is respected—indeed, it’s the
foundation of the political process. In Orwell’s nightmare vision,
therefore, the key goal of the Party is destruction of the
individual.

"The thought police would get him just the same. He had
committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen
to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself.
Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that
could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a
while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get
you."
Thoughtcrime is the essential concept of the novel. The idea
that simply thinking something contrary to what the Party has
decreed to be true is a crime—and then convincing people that
its revelation was inevitable—is a chilling, terrifying idea that
requires people to self-edit their thoughts. This, combined with
Newspeak, makes any sort of individual thought impossible.

"For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came

out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only
one way to save himself. He must interpose another human
being, the body of another human being, between himself and
the rats. ... 'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't
care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones.
Not me! Julia! Not me!'"
Winston initially endures his torture with desolate resignation,
and holds onto his feelings for Julia as a final, private,
untouchable part of his inner self. The Party is uninterested in
merely getting Winston to recant or confess—it wishes to
completely destroy his sense of self. This final torture, based on
a primal fear, accomplishes this by making Winston betray the
one thing he had left of his private self.