Paradox Examples
- “It was a bright cold day in April”
- Ministries and their function
- Use of ‘victory’ (Victory Mansions are crumbling and falling apart, Victory Gin is difficult to drink, and Victory cigarettes are not well made as the tobacco always falls out)
- Party slogan that “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength”
- “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”
- “2 + 2 = 5”
- “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious”
- Winston seeks hope in the proles but does not empathise with them or feel compassion towards them
- “I wrote it” as O’Brien created the text he uses to foster hatred and exert control
- “Winston Smith” is a political allusion to Churchill but Smith is a common last name
Inconsistency Examples
- Winston rebels but knows he will get caught
- Winston is aware of his inevitable torture and death but is frightened at the thought of being caught
- He works at Ministry of Truth and alters history but keeps a diary to remember the past
- He symbolises hope but is ultimately hopeless
- Winston understands brainwashing purpose of Two Minutes Hate but succumbs to it as he believes “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in”
- He loves Julia but betrays her
- Winston claims “Down with Big Brother” but ends up loving him
Anomaly Examples
- Party ensures no individual thought is present but Winston keeps a diary and says “Down with Big Brother”
- There is no true freedom in Oceania but he believes “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four”
- There is meant to be love and loyalty only to Big Brother but Winston has relationship with Julia
- There is a blind acceptance of ‘the past’ but Winston values his memories
Characterisation of Winston
- “Winston Smith” is a political allusion to Churchill but Smith is a common last name, meaning he fights totalitarianism but is nondescript and part of the collective
- Paradoxical character as he is fatalistic and paranoid, but also idealistic and hopeful
- Represents hope but is hopeless
- His treatment as a criminal mimics that of Stalin’s victims
Characterisation of Julia
- Acts as a vehicle through which Winston lives his transgressive sexual impulses
- Realistic
- Minor rebellions
Characterisation of Big Brother
- Metonym for Party
- Omnipresent
- Figure of authority and totalitarianism
- Allusion to Stalin
- “black mustachioed face”
Characterisation of Goldstein
- Allusion to Leon Trotsky as he is a high-ranking party member that turned into an enemy of the state when power was passed to his rival
- Used as an example to keep population under control
Context
- Representation of the fears of Orwell’s post-war society including economic decline, fear and opposition to totalitarianism and communism, propaganda as a form of manipulation, modern technologies and their abilities, and constant fear, paranoia and uncertainty
- Orwell fought in Spanish Civil War against fascism
- Informed by totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Hitler
- He worked in Ministry of Information to write propaganda and worked as a journalist that was paid by government to falsify information
Purpose
- Didactic to warn of totalitarianism so it can be recognised and prevented
- Warning about tendencies in supposed liberal democracies
- Critique of propaganda and altering history to manipulate masses
- Reiteration of inherent human values and motivations
Form
- Anti-mimetic satire and political allegory of totalitarian regimes such as Stalin and Hitler
- Juvenalian satire as it is an exaggeration to expose flaws in institutions, has bitter and ironic tone, pessimistic, and shows moral indignation
- Dystopian novel featuring a Draconian society
- Tripartite narrative structure split into atmosphere/characterisation, rebellion, and conformity
- Overall linear structure but has some flashbacks
- Metafiction and frame narration as it includes ‘The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism’ to provide contextual understanding of Oceania, Winston’s diary for characterisation and the appendix to give greater understanding of Newspeak
- Third-person limited omniscient perspective limits reader comprehension of holistic narrative
- Inverted hero’s journey as Winston ultimately succumbs to the entity he was fighting
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“Freedom is …”
“Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four”
- Repetition
- Metaphor of mathematical fact
- Individual human experience
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“To die …”
“To die hating them, that was freedom”
- Vehement tone
- Subverted ideas of freedom
- Individual human experience
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“I have not …”
“I have not betrayed Julia”
- Vehement tone
- Individual human experience
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“There was a word …”
“There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity”
- Jargon
- Subverted ideas of individualism
- Individual human experience
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“The sexual act …”
“The sexual act, successfully performed, was rebellion. Desire was thoughtcrime”
- Jargon
- Subverted ideas of relationships
- Individual human experience
Freedom, Individualism and Rebellion
“The animal instinct …”
“The animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces”
- Unnatural metaphor of “animal”
- Subverted ideas of relationships
- Individual human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“Who controls …”
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past”
- Antimetabole
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“All history …”
“All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly”
- Metaphor
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“Your name …”
“Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out”
- Second person perspective
- Individual human experience
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“A desire to kill …”
“A desire to kill … seemed to flow through the whole group … like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic”
- Animalistic imagery
- Simile
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“It was not …”
“It was not the man’s brain that was speaking, it was his larynx … like the quacking of a duck”
- Animalistic imagery
- Simile
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“He had …”
“He had won the battle over himself. He loved Big Brother”
- Nihilistic denouement
- Collective human experience
Power and Control through Language, Reality Manipulation and Psychological Control
“You will be …”
“You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves”
- Second person perspective
- Collective human experience
Subversion of Relationships, Human Selfishness and Weakness, and the Destruction of Morality
“There will be …”
“There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother”
- Anaphora
- Individual human experience
- Collective human experience
