Text Context

 Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes 1984) is a darkly satirical political novel by George Orwell. The
story takes place in a nightmarish dystopia, in which an ever-surveillant State enforces perfect
conformity among citizens through indoctrination, fear, lies and ruthless punishment.
 Itwas first published on June 8, 1949, is Orwell's most famous work, and is the inspiration of the word
"Orwellian.“
 The novel introduced the concepts of the ever-present, all-seeing Big Brother, the notorious Room 101,
the thought police who use telescreens (televisions that contain a surveillance camera – found in almost
every room of the apartments of the characters in the novel), and the fictional language Newspeak.
 The world described in Nineteen Eighty-Four has striking and deliberate parallels to the Stalinist Soviet
Union; notably, the themes of a betrayed revolution, which Orwell put so famously in Animal Farm,
the subordination of individuals to "the Party," and the extensive and institutional use of propaganda,
especially as it influenced the main character of the book, Winston Smith.
 London, the novel's setting, is the capital of the Oceanian province of Airstrip One, the renamed Britain
and Ireland. Goldstein's book explains that the three ideologies are basically the same, but it is
imperative to keep the public uninformed about that. The population is led to believe that the other two
ideologies are detestable.
The Party Nineteen Eighty-Four
 In his novel Orwell creates a world in which citizens have no right to a
personal life or personal thought. Leisure and other activities are
controlled through strict mores. Sexual pleasure is discouraged, with
females being taught not to enjoy it; sex is retained only for the purpose
of reproduction.
 The menacing figure of Big Brother has been variously interpreted to be
that of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
 Based on Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
 Most details are from Nazi Germany.
 Once a goal is reached in a totalitarian society it is replaced immediately
by another.
The ‘Four Freedoms’

 Parody of the 1941 "Four

Freedoms“ The structure of
the government resembled a
parody in reverse of the
famous 1941 USA State of the
Union speech by Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. In that
speech before the assembled
Congress, the president
outlined Four Freedoms:
Stalin
 Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In
the years following Lenin's death in 1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet
Union.
 Stalin launched a command economy, replacing the New Economic Policy of the
1920s with Five-Year Plans and launching a period of rapid industrialization and
economic collectivization. The upheaval in the agricultural sector disrupted food
production, resulting in widespread famine, such as the Soviet famine of 1932-1933,
known in Ukraine as the Holodomor.
 During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purge (also known as the "Great
Terror"), a campaign to purge the Communist Party of people accused of corruption or
treachery; he extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets
were often executed, imprisoned in Gulag labour camps or exiled. In the years
following, millions of ethnic minorities were also deported.
Stalin and Hitler
 Like Stalin, Adolph Hitler denied
his subjects access to the truth.
His Third Reich “can be read as a
war against memory – an
Orwellian falsification of
reality...” (Primo Levi) Oceania
conducts an unceasing war on
memory-evidence that conflicts
with the latest official line is
systematically destroyed & a
false trail is laid in its place.
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
 EVER since I have been scrutinizing political events, I have taken a
tremendous interest in propagandist activity. I saw that the Socialist-
Marxist organizations mastered and applied this instrument with
astounding skill. And I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a
true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties.
 My teaching is hard. Weakness has to be knocked out of them. In my
Ordensburgen a youth will grow up before which the world will shrink
back. A violently active dominating, intrepid, brutal youth - that is what I
am after". Youth must be all those things. It must be indifferent to pain.
There must be no weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see once more in
its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey. "I will
have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men.
Youth

 In the Soviet Union, young people were

encouraged to join the political group. They were
called Young Pioneers (aged between 7-13). If you
were a Young Pioneer member you got into
university automatically, so there was great
pressure to join.
 Similarly in Nazi Germany we had the Hitler Youth
Goebbels
 We do not intend to use the radio only for our partisan
purposes. We want room for entertainment, popular arts,
games, jokes and music. But everything should have a
relationship to our day. Everything should include the theme
of our great reconstructive work, or at least not stand in its
way. Above all it is necessary to clearly centralize all radio
activities, to place spiritual tasks ahead of technical ones, to
introduce the leadership principle, to provide a clear
worldview, and to present this worldview in flexible ways.
Surveillance and control

The people of this society are constantly being

watched by telescreens (monitors that have an
ability to project images and take in images)
They are also watching each other. Any small
facial gesture or sigh can give you away.
It doesn’t matter if you are innocent
Context
 The world is controlled by three functionally similar authoritarian
superstates engaged in perpetual war with each other: Oceania (ideology:
Ingsoc – English Socialism), Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism) and
Eastasia (ideology: Death Worship or Obliteration of the Self).
 Interms of the political map of the late 1940s when the book was
written, Oceania covers the areas of the British Empire and
Commonwealth, the United States of America and Latin America;
Eastasia corresponds to China, Japan, Korea, and India, and Eurasia
corresponds to the Soviet Union and Continental Europe.
 TheUnited Kingdom's placement in Oceania rather than in Eurasia is
commented upon in the book as an undisputed historic anomaly.
Oceania –

 One of the 3 Superstates. (Political

System: Ingsoc) Winston Smith's home.
Comprised of North and South America,
Britain, Australia, and southern portions of
Africa. Newspeak is the official language
of Oceania, but standard English is still
spoken by many.
1984: Oceania’s Ranks
 Oceania is a huge country ruled by The Party, which is led by a
figure called “Big Brother”
 The Inner Party (1% of pop.) control the country
 The Outer Party (18% of pop.) are controlled by the Inner Party
 The Proles (81% of pop.) are the labour power who live in
poverty
 The Brotherhood is an underground rebellion organization lead
by Emmanuel Goldstein
The Ministries
 The Ministries of Oceania, Oceania's four ministries are housed in huge
pyramidal structures displaying the three slogans of the party on their sides.
 The Ministry of Peace, Minipax is the newspeak name for the Ministry of Peace,
which concerns itself with making war
 The Ministry of Plenty, Miniplenty in Newspeak, it is the ministry involved in
maintaining ubiquitous poverty in Oceania
 The Ministry of Truth, Minitrue is the propaganda arm of the Ingsoc State. They
distribute the leaflets, porno, and of course the telescreens. Winston Smith
spends his daytime hours “correcting” historical records in Minitrue.
 The Ministry of Love, Miniluv is a gigantic windowless building devoted to
torture and brutality. The home of the thought police, it is surrounded by a maze
of barbed wire and machinegun towers.
The ministries convey paradox:

 WAR IS PEACE
 Can war lead to peace?
 FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
Can freedom be confining?
 IGNORANCE IS
STRENGTH
Can one know too much?
Characters
Winston

Winston Smith: Main character and the narrator

of the story.
Winston is a 39 year old low-ranking member
of the ruling Party
He secretly hates Big Brother and harbors
revolutionary dreams
Winston is thin, frail, contemplative, intellectual
Julia

Juliais Winston’s 25 year old lover

She is a beautiful, dark-haired woman who
enjoys sex and claims to have had affairs with
many Party members
She is optimistic and her rebellion is small
and personal
O’Brian

A mysterious, powerful, and sophisticated

member of the Inner Party
Winston believes O’Brien is a member of the
“Brotherhood” -- a legendary group of anti-
Party rebels
Winston trusts and admires O’Brien, but
never quite figures him out
Mr. Charrington

A kind and encouraging old man who runs a

second-hand shop in the prole district
He rents Winston and Julia a room without a
telescreen so they can carry on their love
affair
He seems supportive of Winston’s rebellion
against the Party
Big Brother

 Big Brother is the perceived ruler of Oceania- he looks like a combination of

Hitler and Stalin
 Big Brother’s God-like image is stamped on coins and projected on telescreens -
his face is unavoidable
 The mysterious head of government is the omniscient, omnipotent, beloved Big
Brother, or "BB." Big Brother is described as "a man of about forty-five, with a
heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.“ He is usually
displayed on posters with the slogan "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU."
 Big Brothers nemesis is the hated Emmanuel Goldstein, a Party member who
had been in league with Big Brother and The Party during the revolution.
Goldstein is said to be a major part of the Brotherhood, a vast underground anti-
Party fellowship.
Newspeak

Newspeak is the official language of Oceania

The goal of the Party is to have Newspeak
replace Oldspeak (standard English)
Newspeak eliminates undesirable words and
invents new words -- all to force Party
conformity
Doublethink

Doublethink is the manipulation of the mind by

making people accept contradictions
Doublethink makes people believe that the Party is
the only institution that knows right from wrong
“The Ministry of Truth” (where Winston works)
changes history, facts, and memories to promote
Doublethink
Some Human Experience Themes
 Overarching Oppression & Power
 Technology and Modernization
 Identity/autonomy/ dehumanisation
 The destruction of history and memory
 Consciousness and rebellion
 Relationship/intimacy/sex
Others may include
 The dangers of totalitarianism
 The use of language
 The human spirit