1984

• Writers also reflected on the ideas of:
• Darwin
• Karl Marx
• Technological changes
• Rise of youth culture

Totalitarianism

Psychological Manipulation/Physical Control

Characters

Winston Smith

Julia

O'Brien

Big Brother

Lies and Propaganda

Synopsis

Themes

Part 1

• Winston decides to secretly buy a diary to write about his feelings towards the Party
• He writes hoping that one day someone reads it
• After some time, Julia secretly gives him a note which says, "I love you"
• After several weeks, they get to meet together and continue to do so for a few months

Part 3

• With the recent history of totalitarians, including Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union, Orwell warns of the dangers of them and the false dystopias they represent like the one in 1984

• Winston spends weeks in a jail being tortured and brainwashed to agree with the ideas of the Party
• He initially disobeys O'Brien and does not give in until he is forced to betray Julia
• After a few months, he is released because he finallly becomes brainwashed

• In order for the government to stay in control, they must control people not only physically, but also psychologically
• Tools such as propaganda and fear are necessary
• Technology also plays a vital role because it allows for the government to spy on everyone
• This includes cameras, microphones, and even helicopters
• People are always being watched
• Police also have much authority and can arrest you for just thinking wrongly

Ideology

Part 2

• Winston finally gets an opportunity to learn about the Brotherhood, a rebellious group against Big Brother
• O'Brien meets with him and Julia to give them a book about the ideology of the Brotherhood and its leader Emmanuel Goldstein
• After about a week with the book, O'Brien and the Thought Police arrest him and Julia

Isolation

"Down in the street the wind flapped the torn poster to and fro, and the word INGSOC fitfully appeared and vanished. Ingsoc. The sacred principles of Ingsoc. Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure FOR EVER? Like an answer, the three slogans on the white face of the Ministry of Truth came back to him:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" (Orwell, 26)

Torture

Mind Control

• Main Protagonist
• Works at Ministry of Truth
• Secretly hates the government because of the lost of his mother and sister as a child

• Rebels against the government by being with a girl named Julia
• Sees past all the lies the government tells
• Concerned with social issues

• Winston's lover

• Half as old as Winston

• Hates the Party just as much as Winston

• Sensual and pragmatic

• Lives in the moment and more concerned about not getting caught than other issues

• Represents the all seeing and omnipotent leader of Oceania
• Never is seen by Winston or anyone else in 1984 and may even be dead
• Uses Thought Police to control the public
• Originally a revolutionary leader but eliminated other revolutionaries who were in his way of complete control
• Very similar to Joseph Stalin
• Ideology is known as IngSoc

• Inner Party member and agent of Big Brother

• Initially is seen as potential ally to Winston

• Betrays Winston after deceiving him into thinking he was part of the Brotherhood

• Very smart but brainwashed just like most people in Oceania

Works Cited

Orwell, George. 1984. London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1949. Print.

"Characters." 1984 by George Orwell:. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/1/>.

"1984." SparkNotes. SparkNotes. Web. 17 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/1984/canalysis.html>.

"Novel Summaries Analysis." Themes of 1984. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://www.novelexplorer.com/1984/themes/>.

Creating Monsters

• With the defeat of the Nazi war machine and the use of the atomic bomb, World War II came to an end

• Blair was a Socialist

• Joined the Spanish soicialist group known as P.O.U.M. to fight in the Spanish Civil War as a Corporal and later as a 2nd Lieutenant, commanding 30 men

• He was shot in the neck by a sniper which

caused his left side to be paralyzed

and his voice to be temporarily lost

• Famous for several works including Animal

Farm

• Blair died on January 21st, 1950, from

turboculosis

• Real name was Eric Arthur Blair

• Born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, which was part of the British Colony of India

• A King's Scholar from 1917-1921 in Eton, England

• Imperial Police officer in India for 5 years

• 1984 was written from 1947-1948 and published in 1949 at the beginning of the Postmodernism period
• Authors highly experimented with novels, plays, and poetry to try to find style and make use of interior monologues and streams of consciousness
• Literature focused on topics including:
• The American Dream
• Optimism
• Importance of The Individual

• For the past decade, Europe and the rest of the world have been at war, leaving much devastation resulting from fascist regimes such as the Nazis

• ...But there was a new threat to the Western World: The rise of communism
• Communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China began to recover and spread influence over the world
• The Cold War began and would continue for the next half of the century