Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1984)

a dystopian novel and "cautionary tale" by British socialist writer George Orwell

• "dystopian" = "bad place"
• cautionary tale = a story with a moral purpose, esp. to warn against bad behavior
  • ex. Aesop's Fables are "cautionary tales"
• Orwell saw the book as a warning

• critics have called it a prophetic (predictive of the future) as well as a warning

we will refer to it as "1948" here

Background

• the book was written a few years after the end of World War II
• and the creation of the United Nations (UN)
  • Orwell had called for the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
  • 1984 shows a world in which these rights are violated by a government

Orwell's background

• journalist, novelist and socialist reformer
• became famous with the novel Animal Farm that was a cautionary tale against and analogy of the failures of the Russian communist revolution

Novel's background

• whereas Animal Farm cautioned against totalitarian communism, 1984 also cautions against the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini (Italian fascist)
• the book was in part a response to Aldous Huxley's "A Brave New World"
  • Huxley's dystopia is of a people controlled/ enslaved by drugs and pleasure
  • Orwell's dystopia was violent

Writing of the novel

• completed in 1948, thus the inversion of the year
• Orwell was dying of tuberculosis while he wrote it, and will himself to complete it

Warnings & prophesies

• excesses and dangers of democracy
• surveillance state
  • whereas Orwell's warning was against state (government) surveillance
  • we have in the West a pervasive corporate surveillance
    • internet and cell phone tracking
    • "personalized" advertising
• propaganda
• cancel culture
• disinformation
• "bread and circuses"

Cultural influence

• "1984"

• Big Brother

• New Speak

• mind control

• Thought Police

Plot

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

unperson

> to remove all information that a person even existed

Winston: = job to rewrite historical records

> memory holes

ex. his family member... and he doesn't remember much about them, or his sister

constant need to revise bc one lie is needed to cover the other

proles

> from "proletariat" = working class

>> socialist revs were supposed give power to the proletariat

<< orwell's

> not monitored, can do what they want

> easy to manipulate, don't have any power

> kept in ignorance

> entertainment:

>> lottery (fake)

>>> ppl hope for it, live for it.. knowing it's a lie.. it represents and escape that they don't control

>>> = a state of helplessness

<< lotto = emotional escape

>> aclohol, pornography

<<< physical escape from reality

> no religion << state doesn't want competition from God

<< the state acts like a religion (confessions, etc.)

Winston

> gets diary from the proles section

> realizes using is treason

O'Brien

> winston thinks he also hates Big Brother

Ch 1: we get Winston's

> doubts

> act of rebellion (diary)

> sees similar attitude in O'Brien

>> not alone

the Two Min Hate

Ch 2

> Winston paranoid from writing in the Diaory ... thinks the Thought Police are coming for him

> Mrs. Parson's kids are Junior Spies

>> theme

> later he just accepts that he's going be caught

Ch 3

> dream of his mother on a sinking ship

>> she was purged 20 yrs ago

>> so he's having doubts about the truth... thinking of his mother is treason

> Winston's attitude towards women

>> lustful, also hates  (has issues)

<< the girl in the office

> "shakespeare" on his lips

>>> remnant of the past (hasn't fully disappared)

>> whistle sounds = control

>> Physical Jerks >> mandatory grotesque exercise

> has thoughts of his childhood

> thinks about the history... the other states, why they're at war

> realized that no one had heard of BB until 1960s, but the published history of him goes to the 1930s

> surveillance: he's repreminand

Ch 4

= the mechanics of the control of information  

> at work

> BB is never wrong

>> W's job to match party records w/ new orders

> uses "speakwrite" machine

> examples of the lies >> less food but told they have more food than ever

> Winston invents Comrade Ogilvy to switch him out for another purged person

Ch V

> lunch w Syme ... who's working on Newspeak

> explains it's to limit thought to make thoughtcrime impossible

<< words and thought

> meets Parsons, father of the kids, who apologizes for them but is proud of them

<< Parsons thereby knows it's all wrong but goes w/ it

>> W sees him as someone who will live throught it.. the idea person the party wants

Ministry of Plenty

> lies about production increases

> W paranoid about dark haired girl

Ch 6

> writes in diary about sex w/a prole prostitite

> thinks about how the party hates sex and wants to remove pleasure from it

>> thereby sex would be a duty not a pleasure or natural process

> W's ex, Katherine, hated sex and left him when they reazlied they wouldn't have children

<< Katherin is also part of his problems w/ women

Ch 7:

> W writes in diary that proles are the only hope for revolution

<< where'd that thought come from?

> The Brotherhood = an oposing revolutionary group << W thinks they can't win

>> only the proles can 85% of the pop

<< but proles dont' have any interest

looks at children's book ... realizes the lies, city a mess, ppl in poverty

> W is starting to doubt the lies

> if party says 2+2 =5 you have to believe it

> W recalls in 1960s having seen original Rev leaders at a Cafe for out-of-favor emembers... and one, Rutherford cries...

W find a photo that proves they were actually in new york and not in the Cafe.. so the memory was wrong

the Winston destroys the photo of them

<< realizes this is clear evidence of a party lie

> he's struggling w/ truth and lies

> writes in Diary about O'Brien

>> thinkinga bout rebellion

> thinks that freeedom = ability to interpret reality on one's own, so 2+2 could be 4

Ch 8:

> goes to prole area

> tries to learn about what had really happened, speaks to an old man at pub who doesn't remember, or avoids it

<< W wanted to know if the rev was really about proles being exploited by capitalists... wants to know if the man was better off before or not

> goes to book store

> Mr. Charrington, the owner

>> takes him upstairs to where there's no telescreen

>> picture of a church on the wall

>> evokes an old rhyme of church bells

<<< the prole has a pict of a churc (religions are banned)

> on way home thinks he's being followed by the dark haired girl.. thinks she will turn him ib

> considers suicide

> calms himself by thinkin ab out O'Brien and a place w/ no darkness (escape) ... but this is disconcerting... thinks instead about BB by looking at coin and remembering the party slogan< W is peece, etc.

Themes:

> reality v perception

> ppls' interactions w/ the state

  >> we see different ppl and the way

> W's questioning growing

<< even though his job is to re-write history ... and he starts questioning the actual