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George Orwell (1903-1950). Life and works 1984 Influences, cultural impact. He was born as Eric Arthur Blair His father, Richard, was a colonial servant His mother, Ida is from Burma He has 2 sisters. 1903, Mohitari (India). education. Parish school in Henley St Cyprian shool
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George Orwell (1903-1950) • Life and works • 1984 • Influences, cultural impact
He was born as Eric Arthur Blair His father, Richard, was a colonial servant His mother, Ida is from Burma He has 2 sisters 1903, Mohitari (India)
education • Parish school in Henley • St Cyprian shool • Wellington and Eton Collage
In 1922 he returned to India where he joined the Indian Imperial Police (standing 3rd from the left) back to India
In 1927 he returned to England … England again…
He settled down in Notting Hill. He lived in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work London, Notting Hill
George is the patron saint of England, while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites … from 1933 he is using his pen name.
Sympathizer of the Independent Labour Party Joined to POUM 1937, Spain - militia
reviews for the New English Weekly BBC Eastern Service editor of Tribune World War II and after
First wife: Eileen O'Shaughnessy Adopted child: Richard Horatio Blair Second wife: Sonia Brownell family
1984 George Orwell
Animal farm (1945) • allegorical short story • reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II • "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others„
history • written on the Scottish island of Jura between 1947–48, despite being critically tubercular • On December 4, 1948, he sent the final manuscript to the Secker and Warburg editorial house that published Nineteen Eighty-Four on 8 June 1949 • The Last Man in Europewas one of the original titles for the novel, but his publisher Fredric Warburg recommended a change in the title
choosing the title • 1948⇒1984 • allusion to the title of the poem "End of the Century, 1984" (1934) by Orwell's first and then wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy • G. K. Chesterton's novel also set in a future London of 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) • Jack London novel The Iron Heel (1908)
utopia/anti-utopia/dystopia • Utopia:is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean • Anti-utopia: intended to be utopia but fallen • Dystopia: is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian(Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
general features of dystopia • Undesirable society • Set in the future • Criticism of current society • Extremely bad life conditions • Form of allegory or parable and may contain moral issues
fears and distresses of post-war English society • WWII effects: strike on the English moral, economy (invasion, Nazism, etc.) • The loss of the British Empire and leading role in the World • The fall of the middle class society • The increase of the government’s power in the society/erosion of a personal autonomy (Labour won the election) • Fear of mass culture/uniform society (communism)
background • Story takes place in Oceania, one of three intercontinental super-states that divided the world among themselves after a global war • London, the "chief city of Airstrip One",the Oceanic province that "had once been called England or Britain • Party: Ingsoc
background • Posters of the Party leader adorn the landscape • the ubiquitous telescreen (transcivingtelevision set) monitors the private and public lives of the populace
Big Brother's face looms on giant telescreens in Victory Square in Michael Radford's 1984 film adaptation
the social class system of Oceania • the upper-class Inner Party, the elite ruling minority • the middle-class Outer Party • the lower-class Proles(from proletariat), who make up 85% of the population and represent the uneducated working class
ministries • Ministry of Peace (Minipax)supports Oceania's perpetual war. • Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty)rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production. Starvation. • Ministry of Love (Miniluv)identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents (beaten and tortured, andsent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world" — until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension • Ministry of Truth (Minitrue)controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Lies.
ideology (The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism)
plot • The story of Winston Smith presents the world in the year 1984, after a global atomic war, via his perception of life in Airstrip One (England or Britain), a province of Oceania, one of the world's three superstates; his intellectual rebellion against the Party and illicit romance with Julia; and his consequent imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education by the Thought Police(Thinkpol) in theMiniluv
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
Winston Smith – the protagonist • a member of the Outer Party works as an editor revising historical records to concord the past to the contemporary party line orthodoxy — that changes daily — and deletes the official existence ofunpersons, people who have been "vaporized"; who have not only been killed by the state, but effectively erased from existence
Julia • Winston's lover, is a covert "rebel from the waist downwards" who publicly espouses Party doctrine as a member of the fanatical Junior Anti-Sex League
O'Brien • a member of the Inner Party who poses as a member of The Brotherhood, the counter-revolutionary resistance, in order to deceive, trap, and capture Winston and Julia
Emmanuel Goldstein • a former leader of The Party, the counter-revolutionary author of The Book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivismand leader of the Brotherhood • He is the symbolic Enemy of the State — the national nemesis who ideologically unites the people of Oceania with the Party, especially during the Two Minutes Hate, and other fear mongering by the Inner Party. It is unknown whether he is real or a fabrication of the Party itself for the purpose of propaganda
2+2=5 (doublethink) • a system of thought that allowed people to believe two contradictory things simultaneously (the chocolate ration is cut to 20 grams and the chocolate ration is raised to 20 grams)
Newspeak • The Principles of Newspeak" is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible
Characteristics of totalitarianism • 1. dominant ideology • 2. one-party system (mass) • 3. unlimited power • 4. control of mass-media • 5. terror (C.J. Friedrich)
