“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.”

Context: Dictators such as Adolf Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union inspired Orwell’s hatred of totalitarianism and political authority. 1984 was largely written as a warning against totalitarian society.   In Spain, Germany, and the Soviet Union, Orwell personally witnessed absolute political authority and how regimes used technology as a tool of repression. 

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.

Joseph Stalin may have been Orwell’s inspiration for Big Brother “…the poster gazed from the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features."

Background to Nineteen Eighty-Four The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is based upon two totalitarian dictatorships, Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. The world of Ingsoc (English socialism) bears strong resemblances to the Soviet Union, but much of the detail of the life comes from Germany.

Synopsis 1984 was published in 1949 and is a dystopian novel about a collectivist totalitarian oligarchy called Oceania The Party, which is closely patterned after Soviet Bolsheviks, is lead by Big Brother The novel opens with the protagonist, Winston Smith, committing thoughtcrime by keeping an illegal diary which describes his nightmarish life and hatred of The Party.

Synopsis cont… Winston falls deeper into his hatred of The Party and begins to commit thoughtcrime all the time. He falls in love with a woman named Julia who also hates The Party. Eventually they both attempt to join an anti-Party group called The Brotherhood and this leads to some major problems for Winston and Julia.

Social class disparity in Oceania

Big Brother is Watching YOU The face of a man...with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features Pg 3, 1984

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

The Nuremberg Rallies After 1933, the rallies were held in the first half of September under the label of ("National Day of the (Nazi)Party of the German People"), which was meant to symbolize the [apparent] solidarity between the German people and the Nazi Party.

Germany was know for its flashy ceremony and dubious historical allusions. The 1936 Olympics was a symbol of this sort of showmanship, where Hitler orchestrated an opening ceremony to demonstrate Germany’s superiority and legitimacy as a master race. The lighting of the torch also originated during these games, providing a symbol for Germany’s glory and power.

Like Stalin, Adolph Hitler denied his subjects access to the truth Like Stalin, Adolph Hitler denied his subjects access to the truth. His Third Reich “can be read as a war against memory – an Orwellian falsification of reality...” (Primo Levi) Oceania conducts an unceasing war on memory-evidence that conflicts with the latest official line is systematically destroyed & a false trail is laid in its place.

We do not intend to use the radio only for our partisan purposes 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. - Goebbels

Children of the revolution 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 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.

Hitler youth flourished…

What does this remind you of? “How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal, - tall muscular youths and deep bosomed maidens, blond haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree –existed and even predominated” Nineteen Eighty-Four p63.

Compare… [But] men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments must be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. (Sigmund Freud.) With.... Always …..there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. (O’Brien Nineteen Eighty-Four p.280)

Sigmund Freud – father of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud Adolf Hitler's 1933 rise to power by democratic majority in Germany made Freud a personal historical witness to the phenomenon that he had previously attempted to account for in psychoanalytic terms in his writings.

Hitler, Freud and Nineteen Eighty-four "I am beginning to comprehend," he wrote, "some of the reasons for Hitler's astounding success. Borrowing a chapter from the Roman [Catholic] church, he is restoring pageantry and color and mysticism to the drab lives of 20th Century Germans. This morning's opening meeting...was more than a gorgeous show, it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervor of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral. The hall was a sea of brightly colored flags. Even Hitler's arrival was made dramatic. The band stopped playing. There was a hush over the thirty thousand people packed in the hall. Then the band struck up the Badenweiler March...Hitler appeared in the back of the auditorium and followed by his aides, Göring, Goebbels, Hess, Himmler and the others, he slowly strode down the long center aisle while thirty thousand hands were raised in salute."

Why keep a diary? Anne Frank keeps a diary to explore what she feels and reflect on what she knows. She also keeps it as a way of comforting herself. This activity is difficult for Winston because the activity of diary writing becomes impossible. No privacy exists. ‘Big Brother is watching you.’

Surveillance and control The people of this society are constantly being watched by telescreens (monitors that have an ability to project images and take in images) They are also watching each other. Any small facial gesture or sigh can give you away. It doesn’t matter if you are innocent

Cameras everywhere!

The human need for freedom In the society Orwell imagines, people could not: Love who they want Work where they want Walk where they want Eat what they want Write anything down Weren't allowed to have memories What is someone willing to risk for freedom?

From Nineteen Eight-Four Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If this is granted, all else follows. Thoughtcrime does not entail death, thoughtcrime IS death.

Things you need to take note of when reading the text: The “new” language. Any term that is unfamiliar to you should be noted down and defined. At the start of the novel most words are defined or explained. Words/terms like: newspeak, minitrue, thoughtcrime, proles, Ministry of Love, Hate Week. Doubleplusgood, duckspeak, Oceania

Newspeak The official language of Oceania. Newspeak is "politically correct" speech taken to its maximum extent

Oceania – One of the 3 Superstates. (Political System: Ingsoc) Winston Smith's home. Comprised of North and South America, Britain, Australia, and southern portions of Africa. Newspeak is the official language of Oceania, but standard English is still spoken by many.

The Three Superstates

Education In the world of 1984, language is reduced, so that thoughts are also reduced

The importance of history One of Winston’s jobs is to change the past so that it “fits into” the present beliefs of those in power. No one values history, even personal history is worthless.

Human connections Sex is seen as a nasty thing you do to have babies. “When you make love…you feel happy and don’t give a damn about anything. They can’t bear you to feel like that….If you are happy inside yourself why would you give a damn about Big Brother”

Loyalty to the party transcends even family ties. 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.

The Proles - Proletarians or lower, working classes. Approximately 85% of Oceania's population are in this class. Members of the party viewed them as animals. They are not as rigidly observed as members of the party, and very few (if any) have telescreens in their home. They are permitted to indulge in pornography, prostitution, and other acts considered thoughtcrime, simply because it would be impossible to observe all of them as rigidly as the party observes its own members. Plus, allowing them to indulge in these "little joys" helps to keep the masses content.

To be clear, this is not a text about the individual players, or even the specific government Nineteen Eight-Four can be seen as an account of the forces that endanger liberty and the need to resist them

Why is 1984 important? I believe that George Orwell’s 1984 is vitally important as a dystopian novel because the Party controlled media that he exposes in Oceania is not too far removed from that of our own society. Media has the ultimate influence over nearly every facet of our lives. As new technology increases so will our exposure to their rhetoric. The politicians can say and do whatever they please, but the media ultimately holds the keys to the message. While the nature of journalism is to inform citizens of truthful and tangible facts, the overlooked and mostly ignored reality is that the media are by no means a neutral party in the conveyance of the message. Agendas rule the dissemination of information in our society and I believe that Orwell’s ultimate warning is that blind acceptance and a thoughtless proletariat will eventually find themselves in bondage- knowingly, or not.