George Orwell Introduction and background context

George Orwell ( ) 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 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.

Hitler & Nazi’s of Germany

Nazi youth:  tk&feature=player_embedded# tk&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 7- 13) 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 all- embracing 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 bourgeois parties. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler 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