Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1984): Difference between revisions

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


* "dystopian" = "bad place"
* "[[Dystopia (literature)|dystopian]]" = "bad place"
*cautionary tale = a story with a moral purpose, esp. to warn against bad behavior
*cautionary tale = a story with a moral purpose, esp. to warn against bad behavior
**ex. Aesop's Fables are "cautionary tales"
**ex. Aesop's Fables are "cautionary tales"

Revision as of 15:03, 13 October 2022

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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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 & phrophesies[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • "1984"
  • Big Brother
  • New Speak
  • mind control
  • Thought Police