George Orwell’s 1984

*//bookstats Written in 1949 in England, first published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. the same year. Set in 1984, London (‘Airstrip One’ in the book’s alternate universe), England 3rd person omniscient narrator that never enters the action

George Orwell 1903 - 1950 Eric Arthur Blair was born in India, 1903 Family moved to England in 1907 Worked in the police force in Burma for several years and lived in Paris for two years before returning to London. Was wounded fighting for the republicans in Spain in 1986. Served in the home guard during WW2, working for the BBC. Regularly contributed political and literary commentary in several papers. Gained fame from Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Died in London January 1950. George Orwell 1903 - 1950

*//plotsynopsis Winston Smith

*//theme CONTROL ”History is written by the victors” “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past” “…if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered.” “History has stopped. Nothing exists except in an endless present in which the Party is always right.” “…process of continuous alteration.” ” The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”

*//theme CONTROL ” Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” “Keeping the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world was achieved by continuous warfare.” “The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate…” ”... belief that BIG BROTHER is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible.” ” …to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out.” “Power is not a means, it is an end.” Proles – the only that can cause a change in the world, bring the party down, so they must be kept in ignorance of things ever being different. Poverty – the people will be too preoccupied surviving from day to day to think of rebellion. War – use up the surplus after supplying the polulation with the bare neccessities, keep morale to a neccessary pitch, justify handing all power to a small group Doublethink - the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

*//CONTROL offreedom&technology Facecrime/thoughtcrime ”... no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.” ”... everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers” “If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.” Crimestop - the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought.

*//CONTROL of language "The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought.“ “…make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” ”... eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained.” “…seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself…”

*//self - CONTROL “…anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous.” “…just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it.” “…possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away.”