1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

British first edition cover
Author	George Orwell
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Dystopian, Political Novel
Publisher	Secker and Warburg (London)
Publication date	8 June, 1949
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & e-book, audio-CD
Pages	326 pp (Paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-452-28423-6 (Paperback edition)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984) is an English dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in 1949. It is the story of the life of the intellectual Winston Smith, his job in the Ministry of Truth, and his degradation by the totalitarian government of Oceania, the country in which he lives. It has been translated into sixty-two languages, and has deeply impressed itself in the English language. Nineteen Eighty-Four, its terms and language, and its author are bywords in discussions of personal privacy and state security. The adjective "Orwellian" describes actions and organizations characteristic of Oceania, the totalitarian society depicted in the novel, and the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" refers to invasive surveillance.

In turn, Nineteen Eighty-Four has been seen as revolutionary and politically dangerous and thus been banned by libraries in many countries.^[1] Along with Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, it is among the most famous dystopias in literature.^[2] TIME Magazine selected it as one of the 100-best English-language novels, from 1923 to the present.^[3]

Background

Nineteen Eighty-Four introduces the intercontinental nation of Oceania, one of the world's three superstates that is run by an oppressive totalitarian government. The setting of the story is specifically the island of Great Britain, which has been renamed Airstrip One—a place similar to early twentieth century England. Throughout urban areas are large two-way telescreens as well as posters of "Big Brother", the supposed leader of Oceania (although the man himself is never seen in the flesh), with captions reading "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU".

The populace of Oceania, belonging to three classes—Inner Party members, Outer Party members and members of a lower-class proletariat ("the Proles")—is subordinate to ruthless government control. This is accomplished and regulated by a "Ministry of Truth" in which the protagonist, Winston Smith works as an Outer Party member. Smith spends his days constantly rewriting and altering history to satisfy the government (which includes destroying all evidence of how history has actually happened)—amending newspaper articles of the past so to remove all reference to individuals who the state has identified as "unpersons" (people who the state declares as having never existed).

The story begins on April 4, 1984 at 13:00 hours: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…" The date's relevance is questionable, because it is what Winston Smith perceives. In the story's course, he concludes that the date is irrelevant, because the State can arbitrarily alter it to be whatever it says it to be. The year 1984 and its world are chronologically transmutable onto any society that surrenders its freedom to the State.

The novel does not give a full history of the world up to 1984. Winston's recollections, and what he reads from Emmanuel Goldstein's book, reveal that at some point after the Second World War, the United Kingdom descended into civil war, eventually becoming part of the new world power of Oceania. At roughly the same time, the Soviet Union expanded into mainland Europe to form Eurasia; the third world power, Eastasia—an amalgamation of east Asian countries around China and Japan—emerged some time later.

There was a period of nuclear warfare during which hundreds of atomic bombs were dropped, mainly on Europe, western Russia, and North America. (The only city that is explicitly stated to have suffered a nuclear attack is Colchester.) It is not clear what came first—the civil war which ended with the Party taking over, the merging of the British Empire and the United States, or the external war in which Colchester was bombed.

During the Second World War, Orwell repeatedly expressed the idea that British democracy as it existed before 1939 would not survive the war, the only question being whether its end would come through a Fascist coup d'état from above or by a Socialist revolution from below. (Orwell greatly supported and hoped for the latter, to the extent that he joined and loyally participated in the British Home Guard throughout the war, in the expectation that it would become the nucleus of a revolutionary militia). Later during the war Orwell admitted that events had proven him wrong: "What really matters is that I fell into the trap of assuming that 'the war and the revolution are inseparable'."^[4]

History

George Orwell wrote most of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the island of Jura, Scotland in 1948, and it was published on June 8, 1949 by Secker and Warburg, although he had been writing it since 1945. The novel's predecessors include We (1921), by Yevgeny Zamyatin, a tongue-in-cheek account of a regimented far-future dystopia which served as the inspiration for much of 1984's storyline; and Swastika Night (1937), by Katharine Burdekin, about a totalitarian dystopia where all true history has been erased, except for isolated fragments in secret, forbidden books.

Title

The original title was The Last Man in Europe, but publisher Frederic Warburg suggested changing it to a more marketable title.^[5] Orwell's reasons for the title are unknown. He may only have switched the last two digits of the year in which he wrote the book, and '1948' became the distant, scarcely imaginable '1984'. He may have been alluding to the centenary of the socialist Fabian Society founded in 1884. It may allude to Jack London's novel The Iron Heel (in which a political movement's power reaches its acme in 1984), or to G. K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill (also set in 1984), or to a poem by his wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, titled "End of the Century, 1984".

Orwell's inspiration

In the essay Why I Write, Orwell explains that all the serious work he wrote since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism." [1] Therefore, Nineteen Eighty-Four is an anti-totalitarian cautionary tale about the betrayal of a revolution by its defenders. He already had stated distrust of totalitarianism and betrayed revolutions in Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm. Coming Up For Air, at points, celebrates the personal and political freedoms lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Much of Oceanic society is based upon Stalin's Soviet Union. The "Two Minutes' Hate" was the ritual demonisation of State enemies and rivals; Big Brother resembles Joseph Stalin; the Party's archenemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, resembles Leon Trotsky, (both are Jewish, both have the same physiognomy, and Trotsky's real surname was 'Bronstein'); doctored photography is a propaganda technique and the creation of unpersons in the story, analogous to Stalin's enemies being made nonpersons and being erased from official photographic records; the police treatment of several characters recalls the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge.

Biographer Michael Shelden notes^[6] these influences: the Edwardian world of his childhood in Henley — for the golden country; being bullied at St. Cyprian's — empathy with victims; his policeman's life in the Indian Burma Police — the techniques of violence; and suffering censorship in the BBC — capriciously-wielded authority.

Specific literary influences include Darkness at Noon and The Yogi and the Commissar by Arthur Koestler, The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London; Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley; We (1923) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, which Orwell read in the 1940s; and The Managerial Revolution (1940) by James Burnham, predicting permanent war among three totalitarian superstates, broadly equivalent to those in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell told Jacintha Buddicom that he would write a novel stylistically like A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.

The overseas service of the BBC, controlled by the Ministry of Information, was the model for the Ministry of Truth. The Senate House, where the Ministry of Information was housed, is the architectural inspiration for the Ministry of Truth. Nineteen Eighty-Four's world reflects the socio-political life of the UK and the USA, i.e. the poverty of Britain in 1948, when the economy was poor, the Empire dissolving, while newspapers reported imperial triumphs, and wartime ally Soviet Russia was becoming a peacetime foe. Oceania is a metamorphosed future British Empire that geographically includes the United States, and whose currency is the dollar. As its name suggests, it is a naval power, with much militarism focused on venerating sailors serving aboard floating fortresses greater than Dreadnoughts. Moreover, most of the fighting by Oceania's troops is in defending India (the "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire).

Story

Ministry of Truth bureaucrat Winston Smith is the subject of the story; although unitary, it is in three parts. The first part is about the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four as lived and seen by Winston Smith; the second is about his (illicit) sexual relationship with Julia and his intellectual rebellion against The Party; the third is about his capture and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education in the Ministry of Love.

The Oceania of Nineteen Eighty-Four parallels Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. It is a totalitarian country of omnipresent, two-way television surveillance by The Party. Informants are everywhere; Winston and Julia's sexual transgression is betrayed. They are incarcerated at the Ministry of Love for torture, brainwashing, and re-education, via each one's worst fears, in Room 101. The degradation re-educates them to love only Big Brother and The Party. Afterwards, disgusted by his love affair with her, he gives himself—mind, body, and soul—to Big Brother; like-wise Julia. On release, each admits to the other that the one betrayed the other to survive, something they had vowed to not do, and then become embarrassed and disgusted over the betrayals.

There is thematic likeness between Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm: the betrayed revolution; the individual person's subordination to the Party collective; the rigorously enforced distinction among membership in the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the Proletariat. There are direct parallels to societal activities: the Cult of Personality for Big Brother; Joycamps (concentration camps, the gulag); Thought Police (the Gestapo, the NKVD); compulsory, regimented, daily exercise; the Youth League (the Hitler Youth, the Little Octobrists, Young Pioneers).

There is extensive, institutionalised, total propaganda, like in the Nazi and Communist regimes. Winston Smith's job is rewriting historical documents to match the contemporary party line that changes daily. He re-writes and re-prints newspaper articles and re-touches photographs, to remove persons rendered unpersons by Party order, from the collective memory, i.e. society's official records.

Plot

A pyramid chart of Oceania's social classes; Big Brother atop, The Party in middle, the Proles at bottom.

The intellectual Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, lives in the ruins of London (the chief city of Airstrip One [a front-line province] of Oceania), who grew up in the post-World War II United Kingdom, during the revolution and the civil war. When his parents disappeared in the civil war, the Ingsoc (Newspeak: "English Socialism") Movement, put him in an orphanage for training and employment in the Outer Party.

Winston's squalid existence consists of living in a one-room apartment, eating a subsistence diet of black bread and synthetic meals washed down with victory gin. He is discontented with his life, and keeps an illegal journal of politically incorrect, negative thoughts and opinions about The Party.

If detected, the journal, and any eccentric behaviour, would result in torture and death by the hand of the Thought Police. He explains thoughtcrime in the journal: Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death. The Thought Police have two-way telescreens in every Party household and public area, and hidden microphones and anonymous informers to spy on potential thoughtcriminals who could endanger The Party's security. Children are indoctrinated to spy and report on suspected thought criminals—especially their parents.

The Ministry of Truth exercises total control of all mass communications media in Oceania. Winston Smith works in its Records Department, where he revises official historical records to match The Party's contemporary version of the past. The Party's present needs require continual revision of past events so that they reflect the current shifts of The Party's orthodox view of history. Winston Smith's job tasks are perpetual; he re-writes the official record, and re-touches official photographs to remove people officially rendered unpersons. The original (true and accurate) document is dropped into a memory hole leading to an incinerator. Although he likes his work, especially the intellectual challenge of revising a complete historical record, he also is fascinated by the true past, and eagerly tries to learn more about that forbidden truth.

One day, in the office, he encounters Julia, a mechanic repairing the Ministry of Truth's novel-writing machines, and the two begin a clandestine relationship, regularly meeting either in the country or in a rented room atop an antiques shop in the proletarian area of the city. The shop owner exchanges facts about the pre-revolutionary past with Winston, sells him period artifacts, and rents the room to him and Julia. The lovers think their hiding place a paradise, believe there is no telescreen, and think themselves alone and safe.

As their relationship progresses, Winston's views begin to change, and he finds himself relentlessly questioning Ingsoc. Unknown to him (and the reader), he and Julia are under surveillance by the Thought Police. When he is approached by Inner Party member O'Brien, Winston believes that he has made contact with the Resistance or Brotherhood which is opposed to the ideals of the Party. O'Brien gives Winston a copy of "the book", a searing criticism of Ingsoc believed to have been written by the dissident Emmanuel Goldstein, leader of the Brotherhood. This book explains the nature of the perpetual war, and exposes the truth behind the Party's slogan, "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

Winston and Julia are eventually apprehended by the Thought Police in their supposed sanctuary, which actually contains a hidden telescreen, and are then interrogated separately in the Ministry of Love, where opponents of the regime are tortured and usually executed but sometimes released (only to be executed at a later time). O'Brien appears at the Ministry of Love, and reveals that he will help Winston "be cured" of his hatred for the Party by subjecting Winston to numerous torture sessions. During one of these sessions, he explains to Winston that the purpose of the torture is not to extract a fake confession, but to alter the way Winston thinks. O'Brien also assures Winston that once he is cured, meaning that he accepts reality as described by the Party, he will be executed.

The party intends to achieve this with a combination of torture and electroshocks, continuing until O'Brien decides that Winston is "cured". Eventually, Winston is sent into Room 101, the most feared room in the Ministry of Love, where a person's greatest fear is forced upon them as the final step in their "re-education." Since Winston is morbidly afraid of rats, a cage of the hungry vermin is placed over his eyes, so that when the door is opened, they will eat their way through his skull. In terror, as the cage is placed onto his head, he screams, "Do it to Julia!" So ends the torture and Winston returns to society, apparently brainwashed by party doctrine.

After his release, Winston and Julia again meet in a park, by chance. They remember, with distaste, the "bad" feelings they once shared. Both acknowledge having betrayed the other, and find themselves apathetic. It is finally revealed that the torture and "reprogramming" have been successful; happily reconciled to his own impending execution, and accepting of the Party's versions of the past and present (Winston shortly celebrates a possibly fabricated, though accepted as fact, bulletin describing Oceania's recent decisive victory over Eurasia), he finally accepts love towards Big Brother.

The novel is followed by an Appendix on Newspeak.

Ingsoc (English Socialism)

Main article: Ingsoc

Ministries of Oceania

Oceania's four ministries are housed in huge pyramidal structures, each roughly 930 feet high and visible throughout London, displaying the three slogans of the party (see below) on their facades.

Ministry of Peace 

Newspeak: Minipax.
Conducts Oceania's perpetual war.

Ministry of Plenty 

Newspeak: Miniplenty.
Responsible for rationing and controlling food and goods.

Ministry of Truth 

Newspeak: Minitrue.
The propaganda arm of Oceania's regime, controlling information: literature, propaganda, the Party organization, and the telescreen programs. Winston Smith works for the Records Department (RecDep) of Minitrue, "rectifying" historical records and newspaper articles to make them conform to Big Brother's most recent pronouncements, thus making everything that the Party says true.

Ministry of Love 

Newspeak: Miniluv.
The agency responsible for the identification, monitoring, arrest and torture of dissidents, real or imagined. Based on Winston's experience there at the hands of O'Brien, the basic procedure is to pair the subject with his or her worst fear for an extended period, eventually breaking down the person's mental faculties and ending with a sincere embrace of the Party by the brainwashed subject. The Ministry of Love differs from the other ministry buildings in that it has no windows in it at all.

The ministries' names are an example of doublethink — “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.” (Part II, Chapter IX - chapter I of Goldstein's book)

The Party

The ideal set up by the Party was something very huge, terrible and glittering—a world of steel and concrete of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons—a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts, wearing the same clothes and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with a lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked wastepipe.

– (Page 77, chapter VII)

The citizens have no right to a personal life or to personal thought. Leisure and other activities are controlled through a system of strict mores. Sexual pleasure is discouraged; sex is retained only for the purpose of procreation, although artificial insemination (ARTSEM) is more encouraged.

The mysterious head of government is the omniscient, omnipotent, beloved Big Brother, or "B.B.", usually displayed on posters with the slogan "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU". It is never made clear whether Big Brother is an actual person or whether he is a fictitious leader created as a focus for the love of the Party. It is possible that the conflict between Big Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein is in fact a conflict either between two leaders who are either fictitious or dead, and whose true purpose is to personify both the Party and its opponents—or, perhaps, even to personify "doublethink" by presenting a fictitious person to love and one to hate. Interestingly, the description of the posters on the first page of the book reveals some parallels with Big Brother and the real world wars. The narrative describes the face to be "about forty-five", which if correct would make "Big Brother" born in 1939, the year WWII was declared. The poster is said to be "so contrived that the eyes follow you around when you move", a device which is also seen in the well known WWI poster which reads "Britons "want you"" along with a picture of Lord Kitchener.

Big Brother's political opponent (therefore a criminal) 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 the leader of the Brotherhood, a vast underground anti-Party fellowship. It is never truly explained whether the Brotherhood exists or not, but the implication is that Goldstein is either entirely fictitious or was eliminated long ago. Party members are expected to vilify Goldstein, the Brotherhood, and whichever superstate Oceania is currently warring via the daily "Two Minutes Hate."

A typical Two Minutes Hate is depicted in the novel, during which citizens ridicule and shout at a video of the hated "bleating" Goldstein as he releases a litany of attacks upon Oceanic governance (indeed, the image ultimately morphs into a bleating sheep) on a background of enemy soldiers (in the book's portrayal of the Two Minutes they are Eurasian, but after the switch to the war with Eastasia, it is expected that the background changes to Eastasian soldiers).

The three slogans of the Party, on display everywhere, are

• WAR IS PEACE
• FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
• IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Each of these is of course either contradictory or the opposite of what is normally believed, and in 1984, the world is in a state of constant war, no one is free, and everyone is ignorant. The slogans are analysed in Goldstein's book. Though logically insensible, the slogans do embody the Party. If anybody (like Winston) becomes too smart, they are whisked away for fear of rebellion. Through their constant repetition, the terms become meaningless, and the slogans become axiomatic. This type of misuse of language, and the deliberate self-deception with which the citizens are encouraged to accept it, is called doublethink.

One essential consequence of doublethink is that the Party can rewrite history with impunity, for "The Party is never wrong." The ultimate aim of the Party is, according to O'Brien, to gain and retain full power over all the people of Oceania; he sums this up with perhaps the most distressing prophecy of the entire novel: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake… We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

– Part III, chapter III

See also: Inner Party and Outer Party

Doublethink

Main article: Doublethink

The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

– Part II, chapter IX - chapter I of Goldstein's book

Political geography

Not all boundaries are given in detail in the book, so some are speculation. Note: At the end of the novel, there are news reports that Oceania has captured the whole of Africa, though their credibility is uncertain.

The world is controlled by three functionally similar totalitarian superstates engaged in perpetual war with each other:

• Oceania (ideology: Ingsoc or English Socialism)
• Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism)
• Eastasia (ideology: Obliteration of the self, usually rendered as "Death worship").

Oceania covers the British Isles, Australia, Polynesia, and the Americas, Eastasia corresponds to China, Japan, Korea and Northern India. Eurasia corresponds to the Soviet Union and Continental Europe.

That the British Isles are in Oceania rather than in Eurasia is commented upon in the book as a historical anomaly. North Africa, the Middle East, South India, and Southeast Asia form a disputed zone which is used as a battlefield and source of slaves by the three powers. Goldstein's book explains that the ideologies of the three states are the same, but it is imperative to keep the public ignorant of that. The population is led to believe that the other two ideologies are detestable. London, the novel's setting, is the capital of the Oceanian province of Airstrip One, the former United Kingdom.

The war

Further information: Perpetual war

Eternal War
The attacks described as black (Eurasian) and white (Oceanian) arrows in the last chapter of the novel.
Date early 1970s–present Location North Africa Southwest Asia Southeast Asia Central Asia Casus belli Economic and social stability Eurasian takeover of Western Europe Oceanian revolution Result eternal stalemate Territorial changes East Asian unification European-North African unification American-Oceanian-British unification Southern Africa, West/South Asia disputed zones
Combatants
Oceania	Eurasia	Eastasia
Commanders
Big Brother
Strength
Unknown
Casualties
Unknown

The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is built around a never-ending war involving the book's three superstates, with two allied powers fighting against the third. But as Goldstein's book explains, each superstate is so strong it cannot be defeated even when faced with the combined forces of the other two powers. The allied states occasionally split with each other and new alliances are formed. Each time this happens, history is rewritten to convince the people that the new alliances were always there, using the principles of doublethink. The war itself never takes place in the territories of the three powers; the actual fighting is conducted in the disputed zone stretching from Morocco to Australia, and in the unpopulated Arctic wastes. Throughout the first half of the novel, Oceania is allied with Eastasia, and Oceania's forces are combating Eurasia's troops in northern Africa.

Midway through the book, the alliance breaks apart and Oceania, newly allied with Eurasia, begins a campaign against Eastasian forces. This happens during "Hate Week" (a week of extreme focus on the evilness of Oceania's enemies, the purpose of which is to stir up patriotic fervor in support of the Party), Oceania and Eastasia are enemies once again. The public is quite abnormally blind to the change, and when a public orator, mid-sentence, changes the name of the enemy from Eurasia to Eastasia (still speaking as if nothing had changed), the people are shocked as they notice all the flags and banners are wrong (they blame Goldstein and the Brotherhood) and tear them down. This is the origin of the idiom, "we've always been at war with Eastasia." Later on, the Party claims to have captured India. As with all other news, its authenticity is questionable.

Goldstein's book explains that the war is unwinnable, and that its only purpose is to use up human labor and the fruits of human labor so that each superstate's economy cannot support an equal (and high) standard of living for every citizen. The book also details an Oceanian strategy to attack enemy cities with atomic-tipped rocket bombs prior to a full-scale invasion, but quickly dismisses this plan as both infeasible and contrary to the purpose of the war.

Although, according to Goldstein's book, hundreds of atomic bombs were dropped on cities during the 1950s, the three powers no longer use them, as they would upset the balance of power. Conventional military technology is little different from that used in the Second World War. Some advances have been made, such as replacing bomber aircraft with "rocket bombs", and using immense "floating fortresses" instead of battleships, but they appear to be rare. As the purpose of the war is to destroy manufactured products and thus keep the workers busy, obsolete and wasteful technology is deliberately used in order to perpetuate useless fighting.

Goldstein's book hints that, in fact, there may not actually be a war. The only view of the outside world presented in the novel is through Oceania's media, which has an obvious tendency to exaggerate and even fabricate "facts", and the rocket bombs ostensibly fired by the enemy. Goldstein's book suggests that the three superpowers may not actually be warring, and as Oceania's media provide completely unbelievable news reports on impossibly long military campaigns and victories (including a ridiculously large campaign in the Sahara desert), it can be suggested that the war is a lie. Julia even goes so far as to suggest that the rocket bombs that land on London are launched by the Party from other parts of Oceania.

Even Eurasia and Eastasia themselves may only be a fabrication by the government of Oceania, with Oceania the sole undisputed dominator of the world. On the other hand, Oceania might as well actually control only a rather small part of the world and still brainwash its citizens into believing that Oceania dominates the whole Earth or - as in the novel - that they are battling/allying with (a fabricated) Eurasia/Eastasia.

It is noted in the novel that there are no longer massive battles, but rather expert fighters occasionally appearing in small skirmishes; this is relatively paradoxical considering the massive amounts of resources wasted to keep the war effort running.

Living standards

By the year 1984, the society of Airstrip One lives in abject squalor and poverty. Hunger, disease, and filth have become the norm. As a result of the civil war, atomic wars, and enemy (or possibly even Oceanian) rocket bombs, the urban areas of Airstrip One lie in ruins. When travelling around London, Winston is surrounded by rubble, decay, and the crumbling shells of wrecked buildings. Much of the population of Oceania go barefoot most - if not all - of the time, despite The Party reporting large quantities of boots being produced; Winston believes it likely that very few, if any, boots were actually produced at all.

Apart from the gargantuan bombproof Ministries, very little seems to have been done to rebuild London, and it is assumed that all towns and cities across Airstrip One (and Oceania) are in the same desperate condition. Living standards for the population are generally very low — everything is in short supply and those goods available are of very poor quality. The Party claims that this is due to the immense sacrifices that must be made for the war effort. They are partially correct, since the point of continuous warfare is to be rid of the surplus of industrial production to prevent the rise of the standard of living and make possible the economic repression of people.

The Inner Party, at the top level of Oceanian society, enjoys the highest standard of living. O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, lives in a clean and comfortable apartment, and has variety of quality foodstuffs such as wine, coffee, and sugar, none of which is available to the rest of the population. Winston, for example, is astonished simply that the lifts in O'Brien's building actually work, and that the telescreens can be turned off. Members of the Inner Party also seem to be waited on by slaves captured from the disputed zone; O'Brien's servant, Martin, is described as having Asiatic features, which would identify him as an Eastasian or eastern Eurasian national, possibly a former soldier captured in battle.

Although the Inner Party enjoys the highest standard of living, Goldstein's book points out that, despite being at the top of society, their living standards (apart from the slaves) are significantly lower than pre-Revolution standards. O'Brien says the social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. The proles, treated by the Party as animals, live in squalor and poverty. They are kept sedate with vast quantities of cheap beer, widespread pornography, and a national lottery, but these do not mask the fact that their lives are dangerous and deprived—proletarian areas of the cities, for example, are ridden with disease and vermin.

However, the proles are subject to much less close control of their daily lives than Party members. The proles, which Winston Smith meets in the streets and in the pubs, seem to speak and behave much like working-class Englishmen of Orwell's time. In addition, the prole criminals whom he meets in the first phase of his imprisonment are far less subdued and intimidated than the intellectual "politicals", some of them rudely jeering at the telescreens with apparent impunity.

As explained in Goldstein's book, this derives from the social theory which the regime believes in—and which seems to work—that revolutions are always started by the middle class and that the lower classes would never start an effective rebellion on their own. Therefore, if the middle classes are so tightly controlled that the regime can penetrate their very thoughts and their most minute daily life, the lower classes can be left to their own devices and pose no threat.

As Winston is a member of the Outer Party, more is shown from its living standards than any other group. Despite being the middle class of Oceanian society, the Outer Party's standard of living is very poor. Foodstuffs are low quality or synthetic; the main alcoholic beverage — Victory Gin — is industrial-grade; Outer Party cigarettes aren't manufactured properly.

Possibility of change

One of the most powerful and disturbing themes of 1984 is the realization that the Party and Oceania will never fall; the populace is becoming increasingly inured to their rule, until any possibility of overthrow will be gone. When writing in his journal Winston thinks to himself that the only hope for the overthrow of the Party lies in the Proles. The Proles are 85% of the population, and if they were organized they would overthrow the government through sheer numbers. However there are problems with this theory. First, there is no one to "awaken" the Proles. A person with the skills and courage to lead the Proles would have been vaporized by the Thought Police long before he or she ever had the chance to organize a rebellion.

The Brotherhood, as discussed in greater detail, appears to be a fictional creation of the Party to catch potential thought criminals, such as Winston, and probably does not exist. While being tortured Winston asks O'Brien if the Brotherhood exists. O'Brien simply tells him that he will never know, not even if he lived out the rest of his life. The Brotherhood therefore does not appear to present a threat.

As described in greater detail, the Perpetual War does not pose a threat to Oceania because none of the powers are fighting to annihilate the other. At the end of the novel Winston is following the events of the Africa Campaign and which it appears that Oceania may become threatened by a major loss in Africa. However, a flank attack by the Oceanic army routs the enemy forces, thus ending any hope of a foreign invasion.

Themes

Nationalism

Nineteen Eighty-Four expands upon the subjects summarised in Orwell’s preparatory essay, Notes on Nationalism (1945): [2]. In it, Orwell expresses frustration at the lack of vocabulary needed to explain an unrecognised phenomenon that he felt was behind certain forces. He addresses this problem in Nineteen Eighty-Four by inventing the jargon of Newspeak.

A fictional society, to which the readers have no preconceived bias, was a tool in illustrating why Orwell thought examples shown below were different manifestations of the same forces at work, despite their being ideologically incompatible.

Positive nationalism is apparent in the novel, in the Oceanians’ undying love for Big Brother, whose physical existence is doubtful. In 'Notes on Nationalism', Orwell lists Celtic Nationalism, Neo-Toryism and British Zionism as examples of positive nationalism.

Negative nationalism is apparent in the novel, in the Oceanians’ undying hatred for Goldstein, whose continued existence is doubtful. In 'Notes on Nationalism', Orwell lists Stalinism, Anti-Semitism and Anglophobia as examples of negative nationalism.

Transferred nationalism: In the novel, an orator, mid-sentence, alters the alleged enemy of Oceania, and the crowd instantly transfer their same feelings of hatred toward the new alleged enemy. In Notes on Nationalism, Orwell describes transferred nationalism as swiftly redirecting emotions from one power unit to another, as if not by reasoned change in opinion, but as if one’s beliefs are serving one’s loyalties, which can be altered, but with the original fanaticism intact. Orwell lists Communism, Political Catholicism, Pacifism, Color Feeling, and Class Feeling as examples of transferred nationalism.

O'Brien, in one of his most conclusive statements, describes nationalism for its own sake: “The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

Sexual repression

The Party imposes antisexualism on its members (sponsoring the Junior Anti-Sex-League, etc.), since sexual attachments might diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party. Julia describes party fanaticism as "sex gone sour"; Winston, aside from during his affair with Julia, suffers from an ankle inflammation, alluding to Oedipus the King and symbolizing an unhealthy repression of the sex drive.^{[citation needed]} In part III of the book, O'Brien tells Winston that their neurologists are working on removing the orgasm from humans - Orwell supposed that the sufficient mental energy for prolonged worship requires the repression of a vital instinct, such as the sex instinct. This possibly alludes to the restrictions on sexuality imposed by authorities (civil, political, religious or otherwise, such as in the German National Socialism), be it consciously or by selective pressures on doctrine.

Futurology

It is not clear to what extent Orwell believed his work was prophetic.

His character O'Brien described his view of the future of the world:

"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face …for ever." (Part III, chapter III)

This is in stark contrast to Orwell's own forecast in the essay England Your England, as seen in The Lion and The Unicorn (1941):

"The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianised or Germanised will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies. It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture. The Stock Exchange will be pulled down, the horse plough will give way to the tractor, the country houses will be turned into children's holiday camps, the Eton and Harrow match will be forgotten, but England will still be England, an everlasting animal stretching into the future and the past, and, like all living things, having the power to change out of recognition and yet remain the same."

However, the geopolitical climate of Nineteen Eighty-Four is strikingly similar to Orwell's summary of the ideas of James Burnham, in the essay 'James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution' [3] (1946).

"These people will eliminate the old capitalist class, crush the working class, and so organize society that all power and economic privilege remain in their own hands. Private property rights will be abolished, but common ownership will not be established. The new ‘managerial’ societies will not consist of a patchwork of small, independent states, but of great super-states grouped round the main industrial centres in Europe, Asia, and America. These super-states will fight among themselves for possession of the remaining uncaptured portions of the earth, but will probably be unable to conquer one another completely. Internally, each society will be hierarchical, with an aristocracy of talent at the top and a mass of semi-slaves at the bottom."

Appendix on Newspeak

Further information: Newspeak

The novel includes an appendix "The Principles of Newspeak", written in the style of an academic essay. It describes the development of Newspeak, the artificial language invented and, by degrees, imposed by the Party to standardise thought to reflect the ideology of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible" (see Sapir–Whorf hypothesis).

There is a literary debate about whether the appendix should be read as part of the narrative, in which case it offers a more hopeful ending. As it is written in Standard English and refers to Newspeak, Ingsoc, Party members etc. in the past tense (for instance, "Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were being constantly devised", p. 422), some critics (Atwood,^[7] Benstead,^[8] Pynchon^[9]) claim that for its writer Newspeak, and the totalitarian government, is a thing of the past. The opposing view is that as the novel has no hint of a frame story, Orwell wrote the appendix as an essay in the same past tense in which the novel is told, meaning "our" for his and the readers' common reality.

Cultural impact

"Happy 1984" - Stencil graffiti found on the Berlin Wall in 2005. The object depicted is a DualShock video game controller.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a significant impact on the English language. Many of its concepts, such as Big Brother, Room 101, thought police, doublethink and Newspeak, have entered common usage in describing totalitarian or overarching behaviour by authority. Doublespeak or doubletalk is a subsequent elaboration on the word doublethink. The adjective "Orwellian" is often used to describe any real world scenario reminiscent of the novel. The practice of suffixing words with "-speak" and "-think" (groupthink, mediaspeak) arguably originated with the novel.

Censorship attempts

Nineteen Eighty-Four was banned in the USSR for its perceived condemnation of communism and the Soviet leadership in particular. In 1981, Jackson County, Florida challenged the novel on the grounds that it contained pro-communist material and sexual references. [4], [5], [6], [7]

Other media

Main article: Nineteen Eighty-Four in popular media

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been adapted for the cinema twice, for the radio twice, for television three times, has been made into a play, and has another film version on the way set for a due date as early as 2009 (see links in the table below). References to its themes, concepts and elements of its plot are also frequent in other works, particularly popular music and video entertainment; for an incomplete but extensive list of these adaptations and references, see the main article. Nineteen Eighty-Four was the inspiration for David Bowie's Diamond Dogs album. It was an acknowledged inspiration for the graphic novel, and later film, V for Vendetta. The original working title for the film Brazil was 1984½.

See also

• 1984, the 2009 film
• 1984, the 1984 film
• 1984, the 1956 film
• 1984 (television commercial)
• 1984 (opera)
• 1985 (Anthony Burgess novel)
• Animal Farm
• Asch conformity experiments
• Big Brother Awards
• Censorship under fascist regimes
• Cult of personality
• Dystopia
• Language and thought
• Mass surveillance
• Stalinism
• Totalitarianism

Notes

References

• Aubrey, Crispin & Chilton, Paul (Eds). (1983). Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1984: Autonomy, Control & Communication. London: Comedia. ISBN 0-906890-42-X.
• Hillegas, Mark R. (1967). The Future As Nightmare: H.G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-0676-X
• Howe, Irving (Ed.). (1983). 1984 Revisited: Totalitarianism In Our Century. New York: Harper Row. ISBN 0-06-080660-5.
• Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel. London: Secker & Warburg. [8]
• Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. A novel. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. [9]
• Orwell, George (1977 (reissue)). 1984, Erich Fromm (Foreword), Signet Classics. ISBN 0451524934. 
• Orwell, George (2003 (Centennial edition)). Nineteen Eighty-Four, Thomas Pynchon (Foreword); Erich Fromm (Afterword), Plume. ISBN 0452284236. 

Afterword by Erich Fromm (1961)., pp. 324–337.

Orwell's text has a "Selected Bibliography", pp. 338–9; the foreword and the afterword each contain further references.

The Plume edition is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Harcourt, Inc.

The Plume edition is also published in a Signet edition. The copyright page says this, but the Signet ed. does not have the Pynchon forward.

Copyright is explicitly extended to digital and any other means.

• Orwell, George. 1984 (Vietnamese edition), translation by Đặng Phương-Nghi, French preface by Bertrand Latour ISBN 0-9774224-5-3.
• Shelden, Michael. (1991). Orwell — The Authorised Biography. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-69517-3
• Smith, David & Mosher, Michael. (1984). Orwell for Beginners. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. ISBN 0-86316-066-2
• Steinhoff, William R. (1975). George Orwell and the Origins of 1984. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472874004. (bibrec)
• Tuccille, Jerome. (1975). Who's Afraid of 1984? The case for optimism in looking ahead to the 1980s. New York: Arlington House. ISBN 0-87000-308-9.
• West, W. J. The Larger Evils – Nineteen Eighty-Four, the truth behind the satire. Edinburgh: Canongate Press. 1992. ISBN 0-86241-382-6

External links

Electronic Editions

Note that Nineteen Eighty-Four will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2044 and in the European Union until 2020, although it is public domain in countries such as Canada, Russia, and Australia.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Nineteen Eighty-Four

The following free online or downloadable editions of Nineteen Eighty-Four are available:

• (English)
• (With publication data)
• (Project Gutenberg Australia e-text)

Other

• Full summary of 1984
• On-line comic version of 1984
• MP3 of NBC University Theater radio dramatization (originally aired August 27, 1949)
• The 1984 Index attempts to quantify how close American society is coming to fulfilling Orwell's vision

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