Download George Orwell

George Orwell - 1984
Introduction and background context
George Orwell (1903-1950)
• Born Eric Arthur Blair in India
(father was civil servant)
• Moved back to England when
he was 4 years old
• Served in WWII as a Home
Guard in England
• Also worked for the BBC
Eastern Service from 19401943
• Wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in
1949
Historical context of WWII
Nineteen Eighty Four is a satire on trends in international
politics at the end of WW2.
Orwell’s intention is to draw attention to the oppression
and cruelty as he saw in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia,
and even the behaviour of some Western countries.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2YEUhHFMHY
Hitler & Nazi’s of Germany
Nazi youth:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdkg5sPftk&feature=player_embedded#
“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 6)
“In the schools it is not the teacher, but the pupils, who exercise
authority. Party functionaries train their children to be spies and
agent provocateurs. The youth organizations, particularly the Hitler
Youth, have been accorded powers of control which enable every
boy and girl to exercise authority backed up by threats. Children
have been deliberately taken away from parents who refused to
acknowledge their belief in National Socialism. The refusal of
parents to ‘allow their children to join the youth organization” is
regarded as an adequate reason for taking the children away.”
School teacher letter to a friend
(1938)
Hitler Youth
• "My teaching is hard. Weakness has to be
knocked out of them. In my Ordensburgen a
youth will grow up before which the world will
shrink back. A violently active dominating,
intrepid, brutal youth - that is what I am after.
Youth must be all those things. It must be
indifferent to pain. There must be no
weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see
once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and
independence of the beast of prey. I will
have no intellectual training. Knowledge is
ruin to my young men.”
Stalin Youth
 In the Soviet Union, young people were
encouraged to join the political group. They
were called Young Pioneers (aged between 713) and later called Komsomols.
 If you were a Komsomol member you got into
university automatically, so there was great
pressure to join.
Hitler & Stalin:
Post WWII: Stalin & Communism
Totalitarianism
 Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political
system that strives to regulate nearly every
aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian
regimes or movements maintain themselves in
political power by means of an official allembracing ideology and propaganda
disseminated through the state-controlled mass
media, a single party that controls the state,
personality cults, control over the economy,
regulation and restriction of free discussion and
criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and
widespread use of state terrorism.
 As its name suggests, Totalitarianism is a
political system that strives to regulate nearly
every aspect of public and private life. Orwell’s
Totalitarian society (INGSOC) was aimless
 “we are interested solely in power...if you want a
picture of the future...imagine a boot stamping
on a human face – for ever.” (O’Brien pg 280)
 The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is based upon
two totalitarian dictatorships, Soviet Russia and
Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany
 EVER since I have been
scrutinizing political events, I
have taken a tremendous
interest in propagandist
activity. I saw that the
Socialist-Marxist
organizations mastered and
applied this instrument with
astounding skill. And I soon
realized that the correct use
of propaganda is a true art
which has remained
practically unknown to the
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
bourgeois parties.

Volume One - A Reckoning
• We do not intend to use the radio only
for our partisan purposes. We want
room for entertainment, popular arts,
games, jokes and music. But everything
should have a relationship to our day.
Everything should include the theme of
our great reconstructive work, or at
least not stand in its way. Above all it
is necessary to clearly centralize all
radio activities, to place spiritual tasks
ahead of technical ones, to introduce
the leadership principle, to provide a
clear worldview, and to present this
worldview in flexible ways.
-Joseph Goebbels
Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany
The world in Nineteen Eighty Four
Inner Party
(2% of Population)
Outer Party
(13% of Population)
Proles
(85% of Population)
Elements:
 Hate Week
 Two Minutes Hate
 BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING
YOU
 The Telescreen
 INGSOC (the party)
 Thought Police
 Oceania (London, Airstrip One)
vs. Eurasia
 Newspeak
 WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
 Ministry of Truth, Ministry of
Peace, Ministry of Love, Ministry
of Plenty
 Junior Anti-Sex League
 Inner Party (top 2%), Outer Party
(13%), Proles (85%)
 Emmanuel Goldstein (Enemy of
the People)
 The Brotherhood & the book
Newspeak
 The official language of Oceania. Newspeak is
"politically correct" speech taken to its maximum
extent
 In the world of 1984, language is reduced, so
that thoughts are also reduced
 The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we will make
thought crime virtually impossible, because there
will be no words to express it.
Human Connections
 Sex is seen as a nasty thing you do to have
babies.
 All marriages are arranged to produce children to
serve the state. From the time that these
offspring are very young, they are trained as
spies. Many children, turn their parents in to the
Thought Police. Neither the parents nor the
children are supposed to have any love for one
another.
 There is no love in the world of Big Brother.
WHY?
A Novel of Despair?
 NO – George Orwell offers a political choice
between the protection of truth and a slide into
expedient falsehood for the benefit of rulers and the
exploitation of the ruled.
 It is a subversive novel, a protest against immoral
rulers, the authoritarian in every personality and
unquestioning conformism
Nineteen Eight-Four can be seen as an
account of the forces that endanger liberty
and the need to resist them