George Orwell 1984

George Orwell - 1984

George Orwell describes in his masterpiece the fight of a common worker of the middle - class against a system, which is based on inhuman principles. If he will succeed, I will not yet reveal

Summary:

The book describes the life of Winston Smith a Member of the Party. I will show you now, how the society in the novel is constructed. (Folie Pyramide).

In this book the earth contains of three super forces: Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania in which the story is settled and which contains of North-America and the UK.

The story takes place in London, which is no more than a ruin of decaying houses of the first half of the century and all the time bombed by the enemy.

But there are four giant pyramidical buildings which rise themselves dominating from the skyline: The Ministry of Truth, The Ministry of Love, The Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Plenty. These buildings belong to the government, a party lead by a figure called Big Brother, that puts telescreens in every building and public places, so that the members of the party can continuously be watched and heard. The Party uses the Thought Police to control their members and if someone is detected who doesn't think the way the Party wants, he will vanish and be killed, his existence erased and he will be forgotten, even worse, he will never have existed. But you will learn about the whole system later.

The Inner Party is about to create a new language called Newspeak. It is determined to replace the Oldspeak, the normal English. The idea behind Newspeak is that there are only few words and no words that contain material against the Party. I will quote now a passage from the Appendix of the Book, the Principles of Newspeak: "It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought-that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc-should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. (Newspeak erläutern)

Some important Newspeak words:

Thoughtcrime - "Gedankenverbrechen" The crime to have heretical thoughts, means thoughts against the party, their slogans or even Big Brother. (One must love Big Brother)

Ingsoc - name of Big Brother's Party, derived from the Oldspeak words "English Socialism" ("Socialism could be defined as the political and economic theory that the wealth of a people should belong to the people, that everyone should be equal and that there should be security for all") Contrasts

The Characters:

The Story

In the morning Winston met a guy called O'Brien in the office, he didn't talk to him but somehow he is attracted by him, even though he has an ugly face. Later he shared a, like Winston thought, acknowledging glance with him. Acknowledging their mutual hate against the Party. Winston thinks that O'Brien is against the Party, too and as a member of the Inner Party he certainly is far more powerful than Winston. Further he saw a very attractive black-haired girl, he hates her, because she just represents the type of human the party likes, maybe she is even an agent of the Thought Police. Winston hates the Party.

Back home after work he sits in an alcove not visible by the telescreen (telescreen erklären) in his apartment. He takes out an empty book in which he will write a diary. He doesn't know what to write yet.

Then Mrs Parsons, his neighbour's wife, asks him if he can repair something for her. When he goes over to their apartment, he is accused by the kids as a thoughtcriminal, only by game of course, but on this occasion Winston remembers himself, how terrible it would be to have children, because they learn in their school, to listen every word from their parents and tell them right to the Thought Police if important. In this very moment he knew, that proud Parsons, proud of his well educated children, once would be denounced to the Thought Police!

He sits back to his diary and has doubts about what he is doing, he thinks for whom he write his diary. Finally he devotes his diary to a time, "when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone".

Dream of Mother and Sister (drowning), chocolate theft.

The next day in the lunch hour he again sees the black-haired Girl and gets scared. He thinks that she spies upon him. Winston was once married but lost all interest in sexuality during his marriage, because his wife only watched sex as a duty to the Party to produce youth. He is disgusted by this thought. That also explains his hate against all young and pretty females, because they awake sexual feelings in him that he's afraid of.

Winston is convinced that the hope to conquer this cruel system of the Party only lies in the Proles: "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until they have rebelled they cannot be conscious" he wrote in his diary. He has to go out of his apartment and take a walk. As he walks in the Prole Quarters he passes the shop where he bought his diary and enters. He buys a beautiful paperweight of glass with a coral in the middle. He bought it because it remembers him of the past and there are only few things from the past left. It was possession and one possessed nearly nothing anymore. He talks to the shopkeeper and thinks about renting the room above the shop, where there is no telescreen, where he could be for himself.

To give you an impression of the telescreens and the live in this utopian world i have here a text passage: (Text S. 77 - 78)

After he steps out of the shop he again sees the black haired girl, he is now sure he is an agent of the Thought Police but is not capable of doing something even though he would like to kill her.

The next morning in the office he collides with the black-haired girl on the gangway and she gives him notice reading: I Love You. This changes the world for Winston and awakens long suppressed sexual feelings. They meet several times, and soon Winston does not only meet her for making love, but because he's deeply fond of the black-haired girl, her name is Julia. Julia thinks much the same way, like Winston, she also hates the Party but lives obviously straight after the rules of the Party. She thinks this the best way to cover her real thoughts and actions. But Winston soon notices that Julia only want to live in splendour and together with him, but that she doesn't really hate Big Brother like him. But what counts for both, is being together even though they both know that they have no future: "We are the dead" says Winston.

And then another Day in office it happens: O'Brien searches contact to Winston and they appoint a meeting at O'Brien's place. There Winston learns that O'Brien is in the Brotherhood (explain) indeed and he promises him a book of Emmanuel Goldstein, the number one enemy of the state.

But very soon after that it is over, what Winston and Julia both knew happens, the Thought Police arrives in their place and arrests them. What Winston did not know, that the shopkeeper was an agent of the Thought Police. (hidden telescreen)

Winston is sitting now in a cell in the Ministry of Truth and does not know what's going to happen, when O'Brien enters. But he's not a captured but works for the Thought Police, too. From O'Brien Winston learns that he had been watching him for the last seven years and that he is insane. They torture him with pain near the border to death, punch and starve him. O'Brien explains that the Party never kills people that don't believe in their principles; they won't allow a martyr but help the people that are insane. Finally Winston is after nearly being tortured to death and after experiencing incredible pain and suffering willingly to acknowledge the principles of the party but he still feels not for the party. But in the end his feelings are broken, too. He is now a mindless lump human form acting upon instincts and not really thinking ever more. He remembers the words of Julia: "They can't get inside you" But she was wrong, they could." He even met Julia again and they admitted without regret their mutual betraying: "all you care is about is yourself".

As you see the important thing about the novel is not the history itself, but the system of the Party that Orwell describes. The story shows us only how this system effects on the people that are not the way the party wants the people.

The System:

Doublethink

Winston experienced in the novel what it means not to believe, or not to know that 2 +2 equals 5 if the party wishes. That means he does not doublethink. O'Brien called this insane, he called Winston insane.

The whole thing about the party is based on one Newspeak word: doublethink.

Doublethink means actually to deny yourself and accept a lie as the truth and, though, deny oneself's memory and thoughts and accept them as lies. Every member of the party acts upon doublethink, the people are that used to doublethink, that they make the progress within seconds. Winston does not, he notices every alteration of the past or future and it's true that he is in the eyes of doublethink insane. Through doublethink the slogans of the party are true, too.

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

Ignorance is strength: If you accept the party and act as they wish to, if you doublethink, you will have a good and fulfilled life in the sense of the party. Of course this seems to us wrong as it is, but in doublethink you accept the lie you accept that ignorance is strength indeed and think that it is lie if someone says: Knowledge is Strength.

This is valid for the other two slogans, too. Contrasts (Ingsoc)

Winstons writes in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."

The truth is, that if the party wants, that two plus two makes five you have to believe this.

An explanation of doublethink and the contrast it produces to the Party gives us the book by Emmanuel Goldstein: (pp. 223)

The Past:

Winston recognizes that, due to the perpetual alteration of the past by the Party, there exists no evidence for the past except his own memory. And he cannot prove if he's right or wrong. Hs doesn't even know IF his right or not.

With the last sentence "what is done cannot be undone" he relates to the slogan "who controls the present controls the future, who controls the past controls the presence". This slogan shows with which cruelty the Party acts: It changes the past perpetual referring to doublethink, it changes the past and the people don't notice, or deny to notice until they have forgotten the change indeed. The Party changes the past perpetual, when there was an announcement made that not became true, simply all evidence referring to the original announcement is destroyed and replaced by adapted evidence referring to a fake announcement which was never made but is correct. I will illustrate this with an example: Let's presume Big Brother said that infantile mortality will subside in the next year, but actually infantile mortality increased. The job of the Ministry of Truth is now, that this statement of Big Brother is changed to one that says for example: "Big Brother says that infantile mortality will increase slightly in the coming year." And this job was Winston's Job, he worked in the Ministry of Truth and had to alter the past continuously.

Why the past has to be altered is in the book form Emmanuel Goldstein, who does not even exist, as O'Brien admits, but is invented by the Party, who also wrote the book: (pp. 221)

The Party:

The world, in which 1984 is set, hasn't much to do with the world we are in. The Party is guiding permanent war against one of the other super powers, only to devour the goods that are produced and they don't want to distribute to the Proles. Because as long as the Proles have to fight for their survival, they are not able think, why they have to fight so hard for their survival. Winston is right in his assumption that the Power lies in the Proles, but there exists no hope that the Proles will ever understand the problem. The Party Members have enough goods and time to think, but are constantly watched. As O'Brien tells Winston, that the government of Big Brother and the Party is forever. And as long as there is war, there will be no change in the system, the problem is, that no super power is able to defeat another super power, because no one has enough material.

Folie: Time

Symbols:

Orwell uses many symbols in his novel, as for an example the Paperweight, which stands for Winston's search in the past, because the present is most unpleasant. It shows his and Julia's live, in the middle of the Party, isolated, protected and among all: beautiful. When they get captured a Thought Agent shatters the Paperweight and the life of Winston and Julia.

Characters:

Winston:

Winston is a middle class worker and member of the Party, as which he is totally surveyed. He fights against the Party and hates Big Brother.

Julia:

She loves Winston as he loves her and together they spend as much time as they're able to. She does not really hate the Party but wants to live independent and happy (which is not possible in the Party).

O'Brien:

He is a member of the Inner Party and has a meeting with Winston, who believes, that O'Brien is a member of the Brotherhood.

Emmanuel Goldstein:

Emmanuel Goldstein is the enemy of the state; he is the leader of the underground organisation called "The Brotherhood" and wrote a book, concerning the principles of the Party. He is a famous enemy of the Party and an idol to Winston.

Text Passage: (pp. 77)

"Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes,, better houses better recreations-that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed for example, that today forty per cent of adult proles were literateIt was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted, was pure fantasyEverything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."

Text Passage: (pp. 221)

"The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even one's policy, is a confession of weakness."

Text Passage: (pp. 223)

"Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink, For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh fact of doublethink one erases his knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -to arrest the course of history."