Nineteen Eighty-Four
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| Plume (Centennial Edition) | |
| Author | George Orwell |
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| Publisher | Secker and Warburg |
| Released | June 8 , 1949 |
| Media Type | Paperback , Hardcover , e-book , audio-CD |
| Pages | 368 (Paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0452284236 (Paperback edition) |
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a political novel that George Orwell wrote in opposition to totalitarianism .[1] It tells a story set in a dystopia in which an omnipresent state wields total control.
Along with Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World , Ray Bradbury 's Fahrenheit 451 , and Yevgeny Zamyatin 's We (and possibly Anthony Burgess ' A Clockwork Orange ), Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of the most famous and most cited works of dystopian fiction in literature [2] . The book has been translated into many languages. Nineteen Eighty-Four and its terminology have become a byword in discussions of privacy issues. The term "Orwellian " has come to describe actions or organizations reminiscent of the society depicted in the novel.
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Novel history
Title
Originally Orwell entitled the book The Last Man in Europe, but his publisher, Frederic Warburg, suggested the change. (Crick, Bernard. "Introduction," to George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)). Published on June 8 , 1949 , the bulk of the novel was written by Orwell on the island of Jura, Scotland in 1948 , although he had been writing small parts of it since 1945 . It begins on April 4 , 1984 at 13:00 ("It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen...").
Theories
The original working title of The Last Man in Europe was a natural evolution of the theme of the novel itself. When the publishers requested a new title Orwell did not object. It has been suggested that he had originally chosen to call it Nineteen Eighty, but as his writing dragged on due to the advance of his tuberculosis he changed it to Nineteen Eighty-Two and then to Nineteen Eighty-Four. Some have suggested that Orwell simply switched the last two digits of the year in which he wrote the book (1948), but others have suggested that it may also have been an allusion to the centenary of the Fabian Society , a socialist organization founded in 1884 . Other theories link it to Jack London 's novel The Iron Heel , in which the power of a political movement reaches its height in 1984, or to G. K. Chesterton 's The Napoleon of Notting Hill , also set in that year. Further suggestions are that it refers to a poem that his wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy , had written, called End of the Century, 1984. The only real knowledge is that the working name was The Last Man in Europe because it related to the storyline of the book, and that the publishers wanted to change the name for purposes of mass marketing.
Orwell's inspiration
In his essay Why I Write, Orwell clearly explains that all the "serious work" he had written since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism". (Why I Write ) So Nineteen Eighty-Four can be seen as a cautionary tale against totalitarianism, and in particular the betrayal of a revolution by those claiming to defend/support it (as Stalin did 1928 onwards). However, as many reviewers/critics have stated, it should not be read as an attack on socialism as a whole, but on totalitarianism (and potential totalitarianism).
Orwell had already set forth his distrust of totalitarianism and the betrayal of revolutions in Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm . Coming Up For Air , at points, celebrates the individual freedom that is lost in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Orwell based many aspects of Oceanian society on the Stalin -era Soviet Union. The "Two Minutes' Hate", for instance, being based on Stalinism's habitual demonization of their enemies and rivals, and Big Brother himself bears a resemblance to Stalin. The motif of "Two plus two make five " is taken directly from a Soviet propaganda poster during Stalin's industrialization drive.[citation needed ]
Orwell's biographer Michael Shelden recognizes, as influences on the work: the Edwardian world of his childhood in Henley for the "golden country;" his being bullied at St. Cyprian's for feelings of victims toward tormentors; his life in the Indian Burma Police and his experiences with censorship in the BBC for models of authoritarian power. Specific literary influences Shelden mentions include Arthur Koestler 's books Darkness at Noon and The Yogi and the Commissar ; Jack London 's The Iron Heel (1908); Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World (1930); Yevgeny Zamyatin 's Russian novel We (1923), which Orwell first read in the 1940s; James Burnham 's The Managerial Revolution (1940).[3] Orwell personally told Jacintha Buddicom that at some point he might write a book in a style similar to that of H. G. Wells's Modern Utopia .
His work for the overseas service of the BBC , which at the time was under the control of the Ministry of Information , also played a significant role as the basis for his Ministry of Truth (as he later admitted to Malcolm Muggeridge ). The Ministry of Information building, Senate House (University of London) , was the Ministry of Truth's architectural inspiration.
The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four also reflects various aspects of the social and political life of both the United Kingdom and the United States of America . Orwell is reported to have said that the book described what he viewed as the situation in the United Kingdom in 1948 , when the British economy was poor, the British Empire was dissolving at the same time as newspapers were reporting its triumphs, and wartime allies such as the USSR were rapidly becoming peacetime foes ('Eurasia is the enemy. Eurasia has always been the enemy').
In many ways, Oceania is indeed a future metamorphosis of the British Empire (although Orwell is careful to state that, geographically, it also includes the United States , and that the currency is the dollar ). It is, as its name suggests, an essentially naval power. Much of its militarism is focused on veneration for sailors and seafarers, serving on board "floating fortresses" which Orwell evidently conceived of as the next stage in the growth of ever-bigger warships, after the Dreadnoughts of WWI and the aircraft carriers of WWII . And much of the fighting conducted by Oceania's troops takes place in defence of India , which was of course the British Empire's "Jewel in the Crown".
The party newspaper is The Times , identified in Orwell's time (and to some degree even at present) as the voice of the British ruling class - rather than, as could have been expected, a publication which started life as the paper of a revolutionary party (like Pravda in the Soviet Union).
O'Brien , representative par excellence of the oppressive Party , is in many ways depicted as a member of the old British ruling class (in one case, Winston Smith thinks of him as a person who in the past would have been holding a snuffbox , i.e. an old-fashioned English gentleman ).
It is natural that such comparisons and references would crop up in a book by Orwell — a man who started as a loyal servant of the British Empire in the Colonial Police at Burma , became bitterly disillusioned with the Empire and seeker after a revolution , and rediscovered his British patriotism during WWII .
The world of Nineteen Eighty-Four
The novel focuses on Winston Smith , who stands, seemingly alone, against the corrupted reality of his world: hence its original working name of The Last Man in Europe. Although the storyline is unified, it could be described as having three parts, and indeed has been published by some in such a fashion. The first part deals with the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four as seen through the eyes of Winston; the second part deals with Winston's forbidden sexual relationship with Julia and his eagerness to rebel against the Party; and the third part deals with Winston's capture and torture by the Party.
The world described in Nineteen Eighty-Four contains striking and deliberate parallels with the Stalinist Soviet Union and Hitler's Nazi Germany . There are thematic similarities: the betrayed-revolution , with which Orwell famously dealt in Animal Farm ; the subordination of individuals to "the Party"; and the rigorous distinction between inner party, outer party and everyone else. In the book, people are encouraged to be engaged in group activities, possibly a reference to the collectivism described in Ayn Rand 's Anthem . There are also direct parallels of the activities within the society: leader worship, such as that towards Big Brother, who is as much a reference to the non-existent character of Uncle Sam as he is to actual dictators like Stalin and Hitler ; Joycamps, which are a reference to concentration camps or gulags ; Thought Police , a reference to the Gestapo or NKVD ; daily exercise reminiscent of Nazi propaganda movies; and the Youth League, reminiscent of Hitler Youth or Octobrists /Pioneers.
There is also an extensive and institutional use of propaganda ; again, this was found in the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin . Orwell may have drawn inspiration from the greatest propagandists of the time, the Nazis; compare the following quotes to how propaganda is used in "Nineteen Eighty-Four":
- Nazis
- “The broad mass of the nation ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.” — Adolf Hitler, in his 1925 book Mein Kampf
- “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” — Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels [citation needed ]
- “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Nazi Reich Marshal Hermann Göring during the Nuremberg Trials