Framework

1. Corruptive influence
Quote: ‘Big brother is watching you’

- synthetic personalization of ‘you’ which shows second-personal general pronoun which for
those proles understand it as a direct address to themselves

- influences the behavior and morality of the character in the novel—>connect it with
surveillance state

- this is because the thought police watches over the proles and control their actions

- Relate to panopticon imagery

- constant fear in their lives which deprives them of their basic necessities and lifestyle

2. Surveillance state
Quote: ‘no way of turning the tele screen completely’

- Allow the Inner party complete control over individual behavior

- Functions as a panopticon

- Leads the proles to always think, speak and act according to what the inner party
proposes

- Asserts the fear factor to the population, which ultimately controls the proles to render them
docile and submissive to the party

- Hence, this makes the inner party an evil force which eliminates the personal life of the
proles, limiting privacy and right of freedom of speech to think and speak however they want

3. Distorting of reality
Quote: ‘war is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength’

- enforce doublethink and warp the truth

- Doublethink: equates contradictory words with the intent of distorting reality through
language as the medium

- Used throughout the novel as a policy with the intent of distorting reality through language
as a primary medium

- Indoctrinate proles, by conditioning through repetitive exposure to accept party-approved

truth even though it is incongruent with reality and definition of words

- Use of slogan or public display of slogan such as poster hanging ‘Big brother is watching
you’:

- Inner party extensively indoctrinate proles

- Proles completely trust in what the inner party say as an ultimate truth

- shown by distorting the reality of which country they are at war with

- Ultimately leading them unable to dissent against their living conditions and lack of freedom

4. Torture
- Torture in the ministry of love for those who do not accept the conditioned version of reality
approved by the party

- Inner party does not tolerate proles who dissent and resort to torture to forcefully lead
them to assent

Ex: Winston, protagonist rebelling against the party

Quote: ‘who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’

by saying ‘the past, though of its natural alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true
now was true from everlasting to everlasting’

- Rebellious activity

- Result in Ministry of love torturing him, forcing him to believe the distorted reality

- Display of rejection of reality conveyed through arithmetic reference

Quote: O’Brien forces Winston to accept he untruth of 2+2=5

Evidence: O’Brien forces to change the mind of Winston through constant torture in the room
101 using his biggest fear in his life, ‘rat’

- Orwell’s clear presentation of the Inner Party as the novel’s villain, where the torture is unjust

- Winston is forced to undergo under the false pretext of reality and teach him the truth

- inhumane torture leading to the ultimate indoctrination of Winston

Point 2: Constant fear of punishment/surveillance state

Quote: ‘thought police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork’

- People most feared about the Tough Police’s ability to surveil their thought

- Make it impossible to even plan on rebelling

- Even if the people truly dissented against the party, their ingrained fear of the thought police
render them functionally incapable of rebelling against the state

Historical context:
- Gestapo of Nazi party and Germany
- Act on people without judicial review putting it above the law which allow them to ignore
basic human right in treating anyone
- Kim jong un
- forces people to set up the picture of their ultimate leader on the doorstep of their houses
and make them to pledge loyalty to the leader everyday for a certain time period

Quote: ‘Some Eurasian prisoners, guilty of war crimes, were to be hanged in the park’

- Extent to which the party’s influence is shown is presented with the quote above

- Public exhibitions of capital punishment deeply ingrain the fear of death in the people,
through the very explicit demonstrative effect of the exhibitions

- Deterring effect therefore extremely effective through these two fear factor where the fear
became normalized which makes the people to just comply with the party’s rule

Link back:

- Constant fear was conveyed though different factors such as thought police and the tele
screen which was all for the surveillance purpose

Orwell:

- Successful in showing fear with the use of technology in extending the reach of government
surveillance

- Allows the imagery of panopticon to be visualized through the use of tele-screen

5. Distorted relationship—>link to surveillance state—>bring in historical context

Quote: ‘it was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children’

- Indoctrination on the belief and love for Big brother

- Completely control the young children

- Normal for one to be feared in being reported by their children

Quote: ‘cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man
and woman’

- Use of anaphora: intensifies and further emphasize the distortion of relationship

- Emphasize issue of trust that is prevalent in society between individuals

- There would be no one that one can rest their thought on as the chance of being reported by
any individual of the society is ever present

- Culture of reporting one another to the party erodes the normal social relationship by
creating suspicions among each other

Historical context:
- Gestapo of Nazi party and Germany
- Act on people without judicial review putting it above the law which allow them to ignore
basic human right in treating anyone

1. Describe the POV used in the passage

The POV of the passage is from the third-person view which describes a scene with dictions
and imagery. For example, ‘the hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and rag mats’ connotes
sensory imagery focusing at ‘smell’. This gives the effect to the audience of the abominable
condition in which the people are living in. It builds up the inhumane living conditions created
by the totalitarian government which deprives the people on the basic lifestyle. This allows
Orwell to achieve his objective of showing how detrimental living conditions may be if the
totalitarian government takes over the country.

2. How does the author use descriptive language in this passage?

3. What stylistic features are used in the text and for what purpose?

The use of synthetic personalization of ‘you’ allows the inner party For example, ‘Big Brother is
watching you’ shows second-personal general pronoun ‘you’ which for those proles
understand it as a direct address to themselves. This influences the behavior and morality of
the character in the novel as it connects with surveillance state. Furthermore, the panopticon
imagery is highlighted as proles are constantly being watched by the thought police. This
makes them to think and behave like how the government wants the people to behave.