My today's blog is about the novel Nineteen Eighty four (1984) by George Orwell. We also saw movie in classroom and now we have to write a blog about our understanding of the novel after reading novel and watching movie as part of activity assigned by Professor Dilip Barad sir.
Who is George Orwell?
Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, total opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is famous for his novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-four (1949), the latter a profound anti-utopian novel that examines the dangers of totalitarian rule.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"- describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices - is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Two Minutes Hate", "Room 101", "memory hole", "Newspeak", "doublethink", "unperson", and "thoughtcrime",as well as providing direct inspiration for the neologism "groupthink".more about George Orwell.
Background of Novel:-
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
As is characteristic of Orwell, a sentence complex in its implications and simple in its language.
When we saw this sentence, we understood it easily even students of school also understand it, but it not that much easy to understand as it show there is political meaning behind this, so this is the thing which Orwell wants to told that if you make your language complicated then nobody can questions. Behind this sentence One of Orwell's most passionate statements is hiding in plain sight.
In 1946, three years before the publication of this novel, Orwell published an important and influential essay called 'Politics and the English Language'. In it, he sets out and argues the thesis that language 'becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish thoughts' - which is not merely an intellectual sin but a human disaster, because political writing lends itself to 'defense of the indefensible' when it uses euphemism to conceal brutality. 'If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy', he writes, setting out six famous rules for writing:
(1)Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(2)Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(3)If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(4)Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(5)Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(6) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Introduction of Novel:-
Nineteen Eighty-four, also known as 1984, novel, published in 1949 as a warning against totalitarianism. The chilling dystopia made a deep impression on readers, and his ideas entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by very few books. The book’s title and many of its concepts, such as Big Brother and the Thought Police, are instantly recognized and understood, often as bywords for modern social and political abuses. The novel is all about how political party use different language to control people and do change in rules according to them. We can also connect with the other novel of Orwell name, Animal farm in which how they changed the rules and rule on people. For example, 'ALL ARE EQUAL' but 'SOME ARE MORE EQUAL' so in this novel also we found same thing about big brother and other political parties.
1) What is Dystopian fiction? Is 1984 a Dystopian fiction?
Dys - Bad (old Greek)
Topia - place ( old Greek)
What is dystopia in literature??
It is a world in which everything is imperfect and everything goes terribly wrong. Dystopian literature shows us a nightmarish image about what might happen to the world in the near future. Usually the main themes of dystopian works are rebellion, oppression, revolutions, wars, overpopulation and disaster.
Dystopian Literature explores the darkest facets of the human mind and human nature. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dystopia is,
"An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible."
The easiest way to think about Dystopian Literature and dystopias is to consider that a dystopia is often the result of a society's arranging its government and laws around good qualities for a perfect society, such as order, equality, and obedience, and taking those qualities to the absolute extreme. Dystopian Literature, while fiction, can also spookily echo our own past, present, and future. Dystopian Literature is one of the best genres to understand man's inhumanity to his fellow men.
What is opposite of a dystopia?
Utopia- A place , state or condition that is ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws, customs and conditions.
Yes, 1984 is Dystopian fiction, as I mentioned that Dystopian means an imaginary place where everything is bad as possible and in this novel also we can see that Orwell imagine condition of the state Oceania in 1984. In which system of empowerment become system of control. In which nobody allows to do questions and if you ask the it seems that you directly questions, RELIGION, CULTURE and NATION. Orwell used the word TOTALITARIAN.
The story occurs in London, a province of the state Oceania. Beside Oceania, there are two more totalitarian states that controlled world, Eurasia and Eastasia.
Orwell talked about the Oceania is a totalitarian state ruled by a group The Party which leader and dictator is Big Brother Posters of "Big Brother" with the slogan BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU can be found everywhere. People used the slogans like:War is Piece, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Oceania's citizens are divided into three classes-
1)The Inner Party
2)The Outer Party
3)The Proles
They have no right either to a personal life or to personal thoughts, his memory is quite cancelled, the past is considered as something to forget. The Party monitored the citizens through Ministry of True. The Thought Police has set hidden microphones, telescines in all living quarters and in every public area how they can find and spy thought criminals. Children are also thought to spy their parents and report their suspected thoughts. In the Oceania, there are four ministries:
1)Ministry of Peace
2)Ministry of Plenty
3)Ministry of Truth
4)Ministry of Love
They use the language we can say Newspeak : Minipax, Miniplenty, Minitrue and Miniluv. Newspeak is the minimalist artificial language invented by The Party.
So Orwell imagine the situation of The State Oceania in which people are not allowed to stand against government.
2) What according to you is the central theme of this novel?
'Theme’ is an overarching idea, philosophy, and belief used in the literary works by a writer to show these concepts directly or indirectly.
The primary theme of 1984 is to warn readers of the dangers of totalitarianism. The central focus of the novel is to convey the extreme level of control and power possible under a truly totalitarian regime. It explores how such a governmental system would impact society and the people who live in it. Many other themes like,
1)Totalitarianism, Total Control, Pure Power
2)The Propaganda Machine
3)Language as a Tool for Mind Control
4)Physical Control
5)Technology as Power
6)Wealth of the Ruling Class
7)Poverty of The Proles
Totalitarianism: Total Control, Pure Power:-
Totalitarianism is one of the major theme in this novel. It presents the type of government where even the head of the government is unknown to the public. This theme serves as a warning to the people because such regime unleashes propaganda to make people believe in the lies presented by the government. Throughout the novel, there is no proof of Big Brother’s existence in Oceania. The Party exercises complete control not only on the sexual lives of their citizens such as Julia’s and Winston Smith but also on their thoughts, feelings and even writing a diary. The overall monitoring and surveillance of the people through telescreens and subversion of history through the Ministry of Truth are some of the common casualties of such regimes. The third casualty of the totalitarianism is the truth through language. This happens in the shape of mottos such as “War is Peace.”
2)The Propaganda Machine:-
Propaganda is another major theme of the novel. The novel clearly shows the way propaganda is used to control people, along with its impacts and pitfalls. Writer has presented this theme through an organized propaganda machine of the Ministry of Truth in Oceania. Winston Smith is also involved in this propaganda. His work requires distortion of facts and truths and altering historical facts and then propagate them throughout the country. It means that the Party wants to have complete control over the thoughts and actions of the public. This propaganda has also invented new information and new words such as ‘Two Minutes Hate’, ‘Big Brother is watching’ and new mottos. The objective of propaganda is to make people loyal to the Party and the country.
3)Language as a Tool for Mind Control:-
Language is very important for mental and physical control. The Party has employed language to control the masses. The use of words such as Newspeak, doublethink, Ingsoc and various other words speak volumes about this tactic. O’Brien and Winston Smith are engaged in the Ministry of Truth to use and abuse language to rewrite history and distort facts for the public consumption.
4)Technology as Power:-
Another theme that is the use of technology for governing the people. In this novel, the writer shows that the party uses telescreens and some other tools as one of the primary tools control the public. The use of technology to monitor people is very much present in this century as George Orwell had predicted through 1984. The phrase "Big Brother is watching you" as a reference to the technology used by the Party to monitor what the people are doing at all times. "Big brother" represents governmental monitoring through technology. The citizens are never free from the watchful eye of the totalitarian powers that be, so their every word and action can be observed at any time. This is a statement on the risks that technology can pose in the hands of those who benefit from controlling others.
So this are major themes of the novel there are many other themes also which mentioned by Orwell.
3) What do you understand by the term 'orwelian'
'Orwelian' is term used to describe a political system in which the government tries to control every part of people's lives, similar to that described in the novel "Nineteen Eighty Four", by George Orwell.
In other words we can say that orwelian is the questioning language that how you question the language and how government and we can say political party used Language to control people known as Newspeak. They changed the language so people can not do questions. But according to Orwell,
'You have to do questioning the language not the speaker' this is the term 'orwelian'.
Orwell was socialist but he also against of society, and he talked about how this kind of language play an important role to shaped our thoughts and opinions.
4)Write in brief about 'Newspeak' and refer to Orwell & Pinter's essays.
Newspeak is a simplified version of English that was created to fit with the ideas of Ingsoc. Orwell added Newspeak as a commentary on the fact that the English language was being simplified in his time. He viewed the decline in complexity to be correlated with a decline of critical thinking skills, which he believed was being used by politicians to manipulate the people. Orwell largely derived the language from English and Russian. When someone tries to simplify the thing it became meaningless and we can say problematic."When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer".
As Orwell said , "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,"
Newspeak is Idea in which old and effective word are replaced with word which are good in listing for example,
Good - Ungood
'Good' is positive word but when you want to say 'bad' you can't use it in Newspeak you must have to use 'ungood' which sounds positive, we can say one route of the language , so in this novel there is one dictionary named, 'Dictionary of Newspeak' in which people find out the replaced word and if you use old word you will get punishment.
In today's time we saw in social media also people using this kind of language to manipulate the mind of viewers. for example
Friend- Unfriend
When somebody use Newspeak that time his thoughts become narrow and they can't able to say what they actually want to say.
System of TOTALITARIAN use language to restrict, rather than broaden, ideas, Orwell created Newspeak, the official language of Oceania. Without a word for freedom, for example, the concept of freedom cannot exist there.
Conclusion:-
So in this novel Orwell imagine the future of Oceania as there is rule of big brother and people blindly follow his idea blindly and those who tries to go against them they brutally torture them as our protagonist Winston was tortured by member of big brother. And however they want to make sure that people admit that they love big brother. We also see the situation when one can not have language to express their emotions and thoughts as there is everywhere technology even one can not think what they want to think due to thought machine and most importantly one can not die if they don't want to live so situation is too terrible for the people this particular State. Ofcourse it is imagination of Orwell but it quite horrible too think about it.
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