Riassunto esame Letteratura inglese, Prof. Zuccato Edoardo, libro consigliato 1984, George Orwell

The story takes place in London. Society is very hierarchical and oligarchic:

1. Big Brother: figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days.

2. Inner Party: controls the country and the Outer Party.

3. Proles: labor party living in extreme poverty. Paradoxically they have more freedom because

they are considered less threatening. They are materialistic and ignorant. Winston believes

that the Proles are the only hope for a rebellion.

1984 shows a society where there is no fraternity or mutual support. It depicts an authoritarian gov-

ernment where each state is completely isolated, there are no communications whatsoever. Every-

thing is controlled by a rigid dictatorship ruled by the Big Brother:

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• Everyone is constantly spied by this sort of divine entity: “the Big Brother is watching you”.

Any sound, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up.

• People referred to others by the term “comrade”.

• There are the Thought Police and the Thoughtcrime: the arrests happen at night and peo-

ple simply disappeared. The name is removed from the registers, every record of everything

the person has ever done is wiped out, and the one-time existence is denied and then for-

gotten. The person vaporized.

• Spies is an organisation who turns children into ungovernable little savages: they adore the

Party, their ferocity was against the enemies of the State, foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, and

thought criminals. It is almost normal for people to be frightened of their own children.

• There are four Ministries:

1. Ministry of Truth: it covers news, entertainment, education, and fine arts.

2. Ministry of Peace: it deals with wars.

3. Ministry of Love: it deals with law and order.

4. Ministry of Plenty: it covers economic affairs.

CHARACTERS

1. Winston Smith

Winston is the main character who works for the Ministry of Truth. He is 39 years old and lives in

London, the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania.

He could not remember how things were before the Revolution. Additionally, he could not remem-

ber a time when his country had not been in war. At this time Oceania was at war with Eurasia and

allied with Eastasia. Before, Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia, even though Winston re-

membered that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years prior to the

story.

He also tried to remember when he had first heard mention of Big Brother: maybe sometimes in the

Sixties. Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days.

Winston could not even remember at what date the Party itself had come into existence. The Party

claimed to had invented aeroplanes, but Winston remembered aeroplanes in his childhood, but he

could prove nothing as there was never evidence.

Winston is an intellectual who feels the need to fight and criticize society. He expresses the ideals

of rebellion and desire for freedom that were so dear to Orwell. He is the perfect representation of

the everyman that decides to step up to make a change. He’s a sort of tribute and model that should

inspire the rebellion. He starts writing the diary first for the future; he had this thing in mind for long.

It seems to him that when he had begun to be able to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the

decisive step.

His search for justice in a world where everything is controlled leads him to his defeat. His sacrifice

at the end embodies the death of hope, bravery, the possibility to fight totalitarian governments.

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2. Big Brother

The leader and figurehead of the Party that rules Oceania. His face is a mixture of Stalin and Hitler’s

features. It is never determined whether he exists or not, but everyone believes blindly in him. A deep

cult of personality is formed around him.

3. O’Brien

O’Brien is a member of the Inner Party.

This mysterious character expresses the vagueness and corruption of the governments. The reader

never truly understands if he is truly dedicated to the Party or he’s an ex-rebel who got tortured and

brainwashed. He’s shady and enigmatic, just like the identity of the Big Brother or the Party.

4. Julia

Julia is Winston’s lover.

Julia’s opposition is based on instinct and not reason. She hasn’t got a general vision of society and

politics. As a result, her weak reasons are proven when the Party asks her to betray Winston to prove

her loyalty.

She has a different attitude toward sex than Winston; for him, sex has always been a degrading prac-

tice, something corrupted, while for Julia it’s a form of freedom. When he first sees Julia he thinks

about raping her and then kill her, because he believes his attraction toward her is disturbing (this

could be a reference to Brave New World by Huxley as John feels the same towards Lenina). When

they make love, he appreciates the fact that she has been with different men.

5. Emmanuel Goldstein

Ostensibly a former leading figure in the Party who became the counter-revolutionary leader of the

Brotherhood, and author of the book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.

Goldstein is the symbolic enemy of the state—the national nemesis who ideologically unites the peo-

ple of Oceania with the Party, especially during the Two Minutes Hate and other forms of fearmon-

gering.

6. Mr. Charrington

An undercover officer of the Thought Police masquerading as a kind and sympathetic antiques

dealer amongst the proles. 4

THEMES

1. Society of control

The book wants to show what happens when the principles of totalitarianism are carried to the ex-

treme. Orwell emphasizes the traits of real totalitarianism:

• Constant surveillance.

• Manipulation of reality according to the State’s wishes. For example, this leads to redefinition

of truth and history.

• Cancellation of individual personality.

• Brainwash as a form of complete submission that includes psychological manipulation and

physical control. People are so submitted to the Party that they accept whatever is being told

them, even if it’s contradictory.

• No freedom of thoughts and action.

There’s no way out the dictatorship: everything is organized from the beginning, which is why it’s so

difficult to fight it and why this novel feel so suffocating. Orwell thought you could fight it thanks to

a military intervention from outside, which is excluded in this case. There’s a game of chess in the

conclusion, an allegory of the loosing game he has played through the novel.

All regimes invent an internal dissident, in this case it’s Goldstein, whose book is based on Trotsky’s

work against Stalin. Power is a game itself, so it needs some kind of players that are involved in the

game, who feel involved and motivated into the fight.

2. History and memory

An important element is the relationship between history and memory. Totalitarian state must look

perfect, infallible; therefore, the past must be constantly rewritten.

Winston works in the department of the Ministry of Truth, where people edit photos and newspa-

per according to the Party’s needs. Additionally, literature of the past is obviously erased or rewrit-

ten because it helps developing human conscience.

Orwell’s totalitarianism has an element of emotional indifference and destruction of language. Con-

formism, both mental and emotional, has reached the point where police is no longer necessary.

People obey spontaneously because they’ve been brainwashed. Instead, the proles are like ani-

mals who cannot see the roots of the government’s power, they are not aware of who they are and

only follow instinctive needs: drink, eat, work, have fun. Meanwhile, the Government can concentrate

on suppressing the last heretics, including Winston, the “last European man”.

1984 depicts lower classes as something abandoned to itself. However, in modern totalitarianism

it’s the contrary, they are constantly indoctrinated. Orwell was disappointed at the lack of emanci-

pation and development of the working classes, as they could vote and had access to education,

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but they were only interested in entertainment, sport, radio, tv. In addition, they are skeptical about

political change, showing pessimism.

3. Language

Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, is a powerful tool, because it allows the government

to erase words and concepts related to them, and in doing so modify truth and history. It is a special

language invented and introduced gradually in the book, followed by an appendix at the end of the

book that explains the principles of this language. By 2050, the government will eliminate the old

language and substitute it with the Newspeak.

Orwell uses a very realistic style and a pessimistic tone. His aim is to involve the reader in the world

he creates, and make him feel the characters’ feelings: frustration, anguish, sadness, resignation.

4. Recurring Dreams

Dreams are a recurrent theme in 1984.

The first reference is to Winston’s dreams about rats related to death of his mother. Rats might be

a symbol of the Plague, an allegory of the German occupation of France.

Winston also dreams of the Golden Country that symbolizes the pastoral European landscape, the

beauty obviously lacking in Winston’s life.

At the end of the novel, Winston’s recurring dream eventually becomes true in Room 101.

5. Critique of Totalitarianisms

Orwell criticized totalitarian states, but he also blinks the eye at liberal thinkers who had overvalued

technology, science and progress and undervalued archaic elements such as genocide and slav-

ery.

Rationalism makes it difficult to see that modern totalitarianism has an irrational base. Hitler had

understood that instinct survived in our ties and exploited it: his policies provide security and desire

of collective excitement, revenge, cult of domination, and national pride.

Jack London had understood the centrality of primitive violence of men very well; he sets his novel

in the wild west of 1800. British intellectuals hadn’t understood this. Orwell accused them of living

in their libraries and developing a cult of power: they were fascinated by communism and fascism

even though they didn’t approve of totalitarian regimes. For them, communism and socialism were

meant to bring back hierarchy in the chaos of contemporary society. Many artists that sympathized

with fascism/communism thought they could preserve their independence, but Orwell knew well it

was an illusion, because you cannot be independent emotionally, physically and mentally in a soci-

ety that it’s not free. 6

6. Literary references

There are some literary references throughout the book:

1. The prole’s song shows the impossibility to forget one’s past, and anticipation of the finale:

It was only a 'opeless fancy,

It passed like an Ipril dye,

But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred,

The