Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: 1984

This Blog is response of Thinking Activity given by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Here I discuss about some questions of 1984. 

Nineteen Eighty - Four

   

Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered a classic of dystopian fiction.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Sixty years after the publication of Orwell's masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, that crystal first line sounds as natural and compelling as ever. But when you see the original manuscript, you find something else: not so much the ringing clarity, more the obsessive rewriting, in different inks, that betrays the extraordinary turmoil behind its composition.

The novel tells the story of Winston Smith, a hapless middle-aged bureaucrat who lives in Oceania, where he is governed by constant surveillance. Even though there are no laws, there is a police force, the “Thought Police,” and the constant reminders, on posters, that “Big Brother Is Watching You.”

Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, and his job is to rewrite the reports in newspapers of the past to conform with the present reality. Smith lives in a constant state of uncertainty; he is not sure the year is in fact 1984.

Although the official account is that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, Smith is quite sure he remembers that just a few years ago they had been at war with Eastasia, who has now been proclaimed their constant and loyal ally. The society portrayed in “1984” is one in which social control is exercised through disinformation and surveillance.

About the author: 

       

“My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience.” 

                              George Orwell, Why I Write

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), 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. Orwell produced literary criticism and poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).In 2008, The Times ranked George Orwell second among "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".Four years later in his essay ‘Why I write’, he explained that ‘what I have most wanted to do is to make political writing into an art’.Its second half, critical of Socialist intellectuals who supported Stalin, was enormously controversial, as was his account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia (1938), which criticises leftist infighting in the context of a broader struggle against Fascism.

His novel Animal Farm (1945) also expresses his hatred of totalitarianism, satirising the developments of the Russian revolution in the style of a fable based on the eponymous farm. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) deals with similar subject matter by describing a dystopian future overseen by the all-powerful Big Brother. Both books have been translated all around the world, and were read differently by conflicting parties during the Cold War. Having adopted a son, Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950.

1, What is dystopian fiction? Is '1984' a dystopian fiction? 

Ans, Dystopian fiction offers a vision of the future. Dystopias are societies in cataclysmic decline, with characters who battle environmental ruin, technological control, and government oppression. Dystopian novels can challenge readers to think differently about current social and political climates, and in some instances can even inspire action.

What Is Dystopian Fiction?

      

Dystopian literature is a form of speculative fiction that began as a response to utopian literature. A dystopia is an imagined community or society that is dehumanizing and frightening. A dystopia is an antonym of a utopia, which is a perfect society.

Dystopian novels that have a didactic message often explore themes like anarchism, oppression, and mass poverty. Margaret Atwood, one of literature’s most celebrated authors of dystopian fiction, thinks about it like this: “If you’re interested in writing speculative fiction, one way to generate a plot is to take an idea from current society and move it a little further down the road. Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future.”

Dystopian fiction can be a way to educate and warn humanity about the dangers of current social and political structures. Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a futuristic United States, known as Gilead. It cautions against oppressive patriarchy.

Characteristics of Dystopian Fiction:

The central themes of dystopian novels generally fall under these topics:

• Government control
• Environmental destruction
• Technological control
• Survival
• Loss of individualism

In George Orwell’s 1984, the world is under complete government control. The fictional dictator Big Brother enforces omnipresent surveillance over the people living in the three inter-continental superstates remaining after a world war.

1984 as a Dystopian Fiction:

1984 tells the story of Winston Smith, a man living in the totalitarian superstate named Oceania. Winston is an employee at the Ministry of Truth, and he is responsible for rewriting historical records so that they match with the current ideas and narrative of the ruling government, the Party, and their leader, Big Brother. Winston has become fed up with the way things are in Oceania. He is tired of being constantly observed and feels like there must be a better way to live. He begins an illegal affair with a woman named Julia, and they rent an apartment in hopes to escape the watchful eyes of the government. In this time, Winston tries to develop a plan to overthrow the government by better understanding it. Unfortunately, Winston trusts the wrong people and is caught, resulting in his torture and ultimate resubmission to the government.

As mentioned previously, Oceania is a totalitarian superstate, and is the prime example of a dystopian society. Oceania is made up of several modern-day countries, including all of the countries in the Americas, southern Africa, Australasia, and the British Isles. Winston Smith lives in London, though England is now called Airstrip One. The citizens of Oceania are under a strong, oppressive regime. There is widespread surveillance, strict rules and regulations, and constant war with the other two superstates, Eastasia and Eurasia. The Party's political philosophy is known as Ingsoc, or English Socialism, but the ideas change regularly to give the Party more control. The citizens are also taught a language named Newspeak, which is a simplified version of English used to control how the citizens think and express themselves. There is no privacy, independence, or self-identity in Oceania. There is only misery, fear, and control.

2,What according to you is the central theme of this novel?

Ans, Themes of the novel

⭐The Dangers Of Totalitarianism

1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. Having witnessed firsthand the horrific lengths to which totalitarian governments in Spain and Russia would go in order to sustain and increase their power, Orwell designed 1984 to sound the alarm in Western nations still unsure about how to approach the rise of communism. In 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated, many American intellectuals supported communism, and the state of diplomacy between democratic and communist nations was highly ambiguous. In the American press, the Soviet Union was often portrayed as a great moral experiment. Orwell, however, was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their citizens.

In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power. The title of the novel was meant to indicate to its readers in 1949 that the story represented a real possibility for the near future: if totalitarianism were not opposed, the title suggested, some variation of the world described in the novel could become a reality in only thirty-five years.

⭐Psychological Manipulation:

The Party barrages its subjects with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the mind’s capacity for independent thought. The giant telescreen in every citizen’s room blasts a constant stream of propaganda designed to make the failures and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant successes. The telescreens also monitor behavior—everywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by means of the omnipresent signs reading “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,” that the authorities are scrutinizing them. The Party undermines family structure by inducting children into an organization called the Junior Spies, which brainwashes and encourages them to spy on their parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party. The Party also forces individuals to suppress their sexual desires, treating sex as merely a procreative duty whose end is the creation of new Party members. The Party then channels people’s pent-up frustration and emotion into intense, ferocious displays of hatred against the Party’s political enemies. Many of these enemies have been invented by the Party expressly for this purpose.

⭐Physical Control: 

In addition to manipulating their minds, the Party also controls the bodies of its subjects. The Party constantly watches for any sign of disloyalty, to the point that, as Winston observes, even a tiny facial twitch could lead to an arrest. A person’s own nervous system becomes his greatest enemy. The Party forces its members to undergo mass morning exercises called the Physical Jerks, and then to work long, grueling days at government agencies, keeping people in a general state of exhaustion. Anyone who does manage to defy the Party is punished and “reeducated” through systematic and brutal torture. After being subjected to weeks of this intense treatment, Winston himself comes to the conclusion that nothing is more powerful than physical pain—no emotional loyalty or moral conviction can overcome it. By conditioning the minds of their victims with physical torture, the Party is able to control reality, convincing its subjects that 2 + 2 = 5.

⭐Language As Mind Control

One of Orwell’s most important messages in 1984 is that language is of central importance to human thought because it structures and limits the ideas that individuals are capable of formulating and expressing. If control of language were centralized in a political agency, Orwell proposes, such an agency could possibly alter the very structure of language to make it impossible to even conceive of disobedient or rebellious thoughts, because there would be no words with which to think them. This idea manifests itself in the language of Newspeak, which the Party has introduced to replace English. The Party is constantly refining and perfecting Newspeak, with the ultimate goal that no one will be capable of conceptualizing anything that might question the Party’s absolute power.

⭐Loyalty

In 1984, the Party seeks to ensure that the only kind of loyalty possible is loyalty to the Party. The reader sees examples of virtually every kind of loyalty, from the most fundamental to the most trivial, being destroyed by the Party. Neighbors and coworkers inform on one another, and Mr. Parson’s own child reports him to the Thought Police. Winston’s half-remembered marriage to his wife fell apart with no sense of loyalty. Even the relationship between customer and merchant is perverted as Winston learns that the man who has sold him the very tools of his resistance and independence was a member of the Thought Police. Winston’s relationship with Julia is the ultimate loyalty that is tested by the events of the book. In Book Two: Chapter VII, Winston tells Julia, “if they could make me stop loving you—that would be the real betrayal.” In the end, the Party does make Winston stop loving Julia and love Big Brother instead, the only form of loyalty allowed.

3, What do you understand by the term 'Orwellian'?

Ans, To describe something as "Orwellian" is to say that it brings to mind the fictional totalitarian society of Oceania described in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In Orwell's novel, all citizens of Oceania are monitored by cameras, are fed fabricated news stories by the government, are forced to worship a mythical government leader called Big Brother, are indoctrinated to believe nonsense statements (the mantra "WAR IS PEACE, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"), and are subject to torture and execution if they question the order of things. 

Orwell’s career as a writer was long and productive – at one time or another he produced novels, journalism, memoirs, political philosophy, literary criticism and cultural commentary. But the term “Orwellian” most often relates to his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, completed a couple of years before his death. The novel presents a vision of a Britain taken over by a totalitarian regime in which the state exerts absolute power over its citizens. 

Nineteen Eighty-Four presents a number of concepts and ideas that have worked their way into the contemporary imagination – and that, in so doing, have shifted somewhat from their original meanings. Big Brother, the all-seeing, all-knowing emblem of totalitarian control, and Room 101, the regime’s torture chamber, for example, are concepts that have developed a life of their own beyond Orwell’s original ideas.

Other concepts, such as the telescreen, doublethink, thoughtcrime, the Two-Minute Hate, memory holes and Newspeak are all introduced in Orwell’s novel to represent the ways in which technology can be marshalled by the state to control its citizens. It is this aspect of absolute state control that is most often conjured up when hearing the term Orwellian.

4, Write in brief about 'Newspeak' - and refer to Orwell & Pinter's essays.

Ans, Definition of newspeak:

 "propagandistic language marked by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings".

Newspeak Comes From 1984

   

The term newspeak was coined by George Orwell in his 1949 anti-utopian novel 1984. In Orwell's fictional totalitarian state, Newspeak was a language favored by the minions of Big Brother and, in Orwell's words, "designed to diminish the range of thought." Newspeak was characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another, the interchangeability of parts of speech, and the creation of words for political purposes. The word has caught on in general use to refer to confusing or deceptive bureaucratic jargon.

Newspeak is all about the simplification of language, paring it back to its bare bones in order to reduce it to pure function. So, for example, the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Love become Minitrue and Miniluv in Newspeak. One can’t help thinking of all the complexities of Britain leaving the European Union that are shoehorned into the term Brexit. 

Orwell was sure that the decline of a language had political and economic causes. Although he had no solid proof, he presumed that the languages of countries under dictatorships, such as the Soviet Union or Germany, had deteriorated under their respective regimes. "When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer," Orwell writes in his essay, "Politics and the English Language." "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought," he continues. Here is the very concept behind the invention of Newspeak.

It’s easy to hear “Newspeak,” the “official language of Oceania,” as “news speak.” This is perfectly reasonable, but it gives us the impression that it relates strictly to its appearance in mass media. Orwell obviously intended the ambiguity—it is the language of official propaganda after all—but the portmanteau actually comes from the words “new speak”—and it has been created to supersede “Oldspeak,” Orwell writes, “or Standard English, as we should call it.” 

In other words, Newspeak isn’t just a set of buzzwords, but the deliberate replacement of one set of words in the language for another. The transition is still in progress in the fictional 1984, but is expected to be completed “by about the year 2050.” Students of history and linguistics will recognize that this is a ludicrously accelerated pace for the complete replacement of one vocabulary and syntax by another. (We might call Orwell’s English Socialists “accelerationsts.”) Newspeak appears not through history or social change but through the will of the Party.

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.

It’s entirely plausible that “alternative facts,” or “altfacts,” would fit right into the “Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary,” though it might easily fall out of favor and “be suppressed later.” 

Orwell then goes on to discuss the difficulty of translating the work of the past into Newspeak. He uses as an example the Declaration of Independence: “All mans are equal was a possible Newspeak sentence,” but only in that “it expressed a palpable untruth—i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or strength.” As for the rest of Thomas Jefferson’s rousing preamble, “it would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak,” writes Orwell. “The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink.” 

Thank you

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