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1984 by G. Orwell as a classical totalitarian dystopia

1. Eric Arthur Blair (pen name George Orwell)

2. British author, novelist, essayist, journalist and critic

3. He is the well known author of dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

4. The term "Orwellian" descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices

5. He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism.

6. His first major work, Down and Out in Paris and London, (1933) explored his time eking out a living in these two cities

7. In 1941, Orwell landed a job with the BBC as a producer. He developed news commentary and shows for audiences in the eastern part of the British Empire.

8. Orwell is best known for two novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, both of which were published toward the end of his life.

Personal life facts

1. Orwell was married to Eileen O'Shaughnessy until her death in 1945. According to several reports, the pair had an open marriage.

2. In 1944 the couple adopted a son, whom they named Richard Horatio Blair, after one of Orwell's ancestors.

3. Near the end of his life, Orwell proposed to editor Sonia Brownell. He married her in October 1949, only a short time before his death. Brownell inherited Orwell's estate and made a career out of managing his legacy.

Questions

When did Orwell write his novel 19 84?

What term was used in order to describe totalitarian social practices?

When (the year) did Orwell settle the events of the novel?

Facts about the novel

Bibliography for the project

1. During World War II, George Orwell believed that British democracy, as it existed before 1939, would not survive the war. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was his reaction to this belief that change was inevitable.

2. Originally the novel was titled, The Last Man in Europe but a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eig, Orwell wrote about hesitating between The Last Man in Europe and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Warburg suggested changing the main title to a more commercial one.

3. Orwell originally set the novel in 1980, but he later shifted the date first to 1982, then to 1984. The final title may also be a permutation of 1948, the year in which he wrote it.

4. Literary scholars consider the Russian dystopian novel "We", by Yevgeny Zamyatin ("Мы" Евгений Замятин), to have strongly influenced Nineteen Eighty-Four.

5. The story of Winston Smith begins on 4 April 1984: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” yet he is uncertain of the true date, given the régime’s continual rewriting and manipulation of history.

6. The statement “2 + 2 = 5”, used to torment Winston Smith during his interrogation, was a Communist party slogan from the second five-year plan, which encouraged fulfilment of the five-year plan in four years. The slogan was seen in electric lights on Moscow house-fronts, billboards etc.

1. http://inktank.fi/novel-story-14-little-know-facts-about-the-writing-of-1984/

2.http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/facts.html

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell

5. http://www.gradesaver.com/1984/study-guide/themes

6. http://swlynch.com/2012/09/09/1984-an-alternative-analysis-of-the-classic-dystopian-novel/

7. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21337504

8. http://www.biography.com/people/george-orwell-9429833#personal-life

9. Video "Plot overview (G. Orwell "1984")

The project was prepared by:

Pendiurina Anastasia

gr. 3lm2

Checked by: Armas Svetlana

university lecturer

The Institute of International Relations of Moldova

2015 Chisinau

FULL TITLE · 1984

AUTHOR · George Orwell

TYPE OF WORK · Novel

GENRE · Negative utopian, or dystopian, fiction

LANGUAGE · English

TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · England, 1949

DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · 1949

PUBLISHER · Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

NARRATOR · Third-person, limited

PROTAGONIST · Winston Smith

ANTAGONIST · The Party; Big Brother

SETTING (TIME) · 1984

SETTING (PLACE) · London, England (known as “Airstrip One” in the novel’s alternate reality)

POINT OF VIEW · Winston Smith’s

TIME (TENSE) - Past

Plot overview in 7 minutes (G. Orwell "1984")

Themes

Totalitarianism - In writing 1984, Orwell's main goal was to warn of the serious danger totalitarianism poses to society. He goes to great lengths to demonstrate the terrifying degree of power and control a totalitarian regime can acquire and maintain. In such regimes, notions of personal rights and freedoms and individual thought are pulverized under the all-powerful hand of the government.

Symbols

In 1984, Orwell presents a dystopia, or in other words, the perfect totalitarian state. In composing this novel, Orwell gave the world a glimpse of what the embrace of communism might lead to if allowed to proceed unchecked. The Party is unflawed in its universal control over society, as evidenced by its ability to break even an independent thinker such as Winston, and has mastered every aspect of psychological control, largely through utilizing technological developments (allowing for inventions such as the telescreen) to their advantage.

Poverty vs. Wealth - Oceanian society presents a clear dichotomy in living conditions. The small Inner Party lives luxuriously, with servants and lush, well-furnished apartments. Party members, on the other hand, live in run-down single-room apartments with no amenities and low-quality, tasteless food. The proles live in absolute poverty. The chasm between poverty and wealth in the novel is striking, and is most noticeable during Winston's forays into prole society. The buildings the proles live in are decaying, and the city of London is filled with bombed-out ruins. While the Inner Party comforts itself with luxury, the citizens of Oceania suffer, getting by with the bare minimum in a dying city.

Love/Sexuality - Orwell's discussion of love is not only relegated to romantic love. Through Winston's memories of his mother and the contrast between how she cared for him and his sister and the average Party family is striking. Winston's mother deeply loved her children and did all she could to protect them during the aftermath of the Revolution and the Party's rise to power. In Winston's time, the Party has removed such interfamilial loyalty, demanding that all love and loyalty be reserved for Big Brother and the Party. In this way, the bonds between parents and children are broken. Even worse, children commonly report their parents to the Thought Police, placing the Party above the lives of their mother and father. The Party's eventual goal is to destroy the family unit entirely and have all children raised in Party facilities. The Party has no room for love, unless that love is directed with full force at Big Brother and Oceania.

In ending the novel with Winston defeated in every sense of the term, Orwell clearly suggests that there is no hope for quelling the expansion or growth of such a perfectly established regime. And, more importantly, Orwell warns that at the time, this outcome was within the realm of possibility as long as the world supported and embraced communism.

The glass paperweight (Winston’s desire to connect with the past);

the red-armed prole woman (the hope that the proles will ultimately rise up against the Party);

the picture of St. Clement’s Church (the past);

the telescreens and the posters of Big Brother (the Party’s constant surveillance of its subjects);

the phrase “the place where there is no darkness” (Winston’s tendency to mask his fatalism with false hope, as the place where there is no darkness turns out to be not a paradise but a prison cell)

Independence/Identity - Through its effective psychological manipulation tactics, the Party destroys all sense of independence and individuality. Everyone wears the same clothes, eats the same food, and lives in the same grungy apartments. Life is uniform and orderly. No one can stand out, and no one can be unique. To have an independent thought borders on the criminal. For this reason, writing such as Winston does in his diary has been outlawed. People are only permitted to think what the Party tells them to think, which leads to what Syme refers to as "duckspeak." Independent thought can be dangerous, as it might lead to rebellion.

Propaganda - A major factor in the Party's rule over Oceania lies in its extremely well organized and effective propaganda machine. The Ministry of Truth, which is ironically where Winston works, is responsible for disseminating all Party publications and information. All figures and facts come from the Ministry of Truth, and all are dictated by the Party. In other words, the Party chooses exactly what to tell the public, regardless of what is accurate. The effectiveness of this propaganda machine, which constantly corrects old material to reflect the Party's current position on any subject ranging from chocolate rations to the loyalty of a specific individual, allows the Party to completely dominate the range of information disseminated to the public.

Motifs

Urban decay (London is falling apart under the Party’s leadership);

the idea of doublethink (the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one’s mind at the same time and believe them both to be true)

Analysis of the novel

1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) by G. Orwell

Thank you for your attention

George Orwell (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950)

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