Referat 1984 - George Orwell (first published in 1949) - Main Characters, Interpretation

1984 - George Orwell (first published in 1949)

About the author:

The book Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell was written in 1948 and published in 1949. It is one of Orwell´s most famous books.

George Orwell was born as Eric Arthur Blair in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed. He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles. "Down and Out in Paris and London" was published in 1933. In 1936 he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and "The Road to Wigan Pier" (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and he was wounded. "Homage to Catalonia" is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on he was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there he wrote "Coming Up for Air". During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News. His unique political novel "Animal Farm" was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with Nineteen Eighty-Four, which brought him worldwide fame. George Orwell died in London in January 1950.

The title 1984:

1984 means the year, when everything has changed. The world is divided into three countries: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania compromises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australia and the southern portion of Afrika. Eurasia compromises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass. Eastasia, smaller than the others compromises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and large parts of Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet. Two of the three countries are allied and lead war against the third country. Who is allied and who is the enemy changes from time to time. The novel is set in the year 1984 in London ("Airstrip One") in Oceania, a superpower controlled by the restrictive "Party" and led by the symbolic head Big Brother. Everywhere you can see large posters of him saying: "Big Brother Is Watching You". These are the slogans of the party:

WAR IS PEACE!

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!

IGNORANCE IS STRENGHT!

The entire apparatus of government in Oceania is divided in four Ministries: The Ministry of Truth, which concerns itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerns itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintains law, order and the Ministry of Plenty, which is responsible for economic affairs. The regime has invented a new language, called Newspeak, the official language in Oceania. Newspeak should prevent everybody from thinking wrong, which is called crime think in Newspeak. The vocabulary is reduced, so that there is no way of thinking wrong, because you can't express it.

The Party controls the industry and the production of all goods. But the worst thing is, that it alters the past by rewriting or destroying all old documents. What was true yesterday can be wrong today. It is forbidden to think against the party, to say nothing on public demonstrations.

To have an overlook over all the people the party has organized a secret organisation, the Thought Police, which uses modern telescreens to control each single person. The telescreen receives and transmits simultaneously. In almost every room a telescreen is fixed and everything that happens is transmitted to the Thought Police.

Main Characters:

Winston Smith is a member of the Outer Party, thirty-nine years old and suffers from varicose ulcer. He works in the Ministry of Truth, where he has to rewrite old newspaper articles. He's intelligent, sensible and recognizes the lies of the Party. He wonders how other people oversee the obvious lies and the daily cutbacks of consumer goods. His hope that the totalitarian regime will be overthrown one day lies on the proles.

O'Brian He also works in the Ministry of Truth and he's member of the Inner Party and of the thought-police, but Winston doesn't know that fact. At the beginning of the the story, Winston supposes that O'Brian is a member of the Brotherhood and so O'Brian deceives Winston. He's also intelligent, understands everything and is able to explain everything and talk in a way that makes u want to listen to him. In the end he tortures Winston to destroy his resistance against the Party, and he has a counterargument for every argument of Winston when he interrogates him.

Winston: Does "Big Brother exist?" "Of course he exists. The party exists. Big Brother exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party." "Does he exist in the same way as I exist?" "You don't exist," said O'Brien.

Julia becomes Winston's girlfriend and she's also member of the Outer Party. Winston really loves her, and so they meet secretly in a room which Winston met from an antique dealer in a proles-part of London. She seems to be a perfect Party-member, because she spends much time with organizing campaigns for the Party and screams the loudest during the hate-minutes.

Emmanuel Goldstein is the leader of an underground organisation called "The Brotherhood". Nobody knows if he and the organisation really exists. Goldstein is said to be the author of "The book" which is criticising the party's politics and the structure of society. Party members have to hate him and his picture is shown on the telescreen during the hate-minutes.

Winston Smith, Julia and O'Brian are round characters but all the others are stereotypes, all supporters of the Party who are fascinated by Big Brother.

The story is told by a third person narrator but seems to stick to Winston's point of view.

Plot:

Winston Smith was born before the revolution and is not really satisfied with the system but he doesn't dare to protest. He buys a diary in a stationery one day that is owned by an old man. Winston wants to write a diary to keep at least some remembrances for the future.

One day during the 'Two Minutes Hate' he sees a girl in the Ministry of truth. He feels that he loves her but at the same time he hates her and is afraid of her because he thinks that she is from the Thought Police. But a few days later this girl hands Winston a paper where she tells him that she loves him. Winston and Julia decide to meet in the area around London because there is a smaller risk of being caught there than in town.

Later they lend a room above the old man's stationery because they think it is safe to meet there. They decide to do something against the party. But Julia isn't the only one who gives some signs and so O'Brian comes up one day to Winston and asks him to visit him at home so Winston and Julia visit O'Brian a few weeks later because they think that he is also against the party. O'Brian tells them that he is a member of Goldstein's Brotherhood. Winston and Julia also join this organisation and a few weeks later O'Brian sends them a book by Emmanuel Goldstein where he explains the political system of Oceania. While Winston is reading the book in their room, men of the Thought Police burst in and arrest them. The old man who owns this house turns out not to be an old man but a Thought Police member.

Winston and Julia are separated and taken to the Ministry of love. There Winston is tortured by O'Brian, who is of course not a Brotherhood member.

After some time in the Ministry of love Winston is totally changed and follows every order without thinking. The aim of his torture is that he loses every thought, every idea of getting the party down. They can't kill him as long as he is against them because they don't tolerate any doubts and different thoughts, they don't want any martyrs so they punish him and go on and on with his brainwash. After his release he meets Julia again but he doesn't love her any more, neither does she. So Winston sits everyday in a café, not able to feel anything. The Though Police hasn't just stolen his thoughts; they have made him unable to feel anything, no real love, no hate, no doubts, nothing but love for the Big Brother.

Interpretation:

George Orwell wrote this book in the years 1946 to 1949, just after the 2^nd World War and the breakdown of the Third World. In '1984' he describes a communist system, but it could also be a fascist one - it is a general description of a totalitarian system.

So many parallels to other systems, especially to Nazi-Germany can be drawn: one leader who is mystified; the Inner Party members, who have a lot of privileges; the Thought Police and as equality the GESTAPO. A very interesting fact is also the existence of one enemy who is blamed for everything. Orwell chose the name Goldstein for this enemy which is a Jewish name because of the fact that Jews were the ONE enemy in the Third World but were also prosecuted in the USSR.

The Party has also created a new, sanitised language, called Newspeak to take the place of traditional English with its uncomfortable associations. It is based on short, clipped words which arouse the minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind and which make it impossible to think of measures against the Party. There will be no possibility to commit thought crime as soon as everybody speaks Newspeak, because there will be no words to express it. The purpose of Newspeak is not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc (the Party's ideology), but to make all other modes of thought impossible. When everybody will speak Newspeak, a heretical thought, diverging from the principles of Ingsoc will be unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to minimize the range of thought. Orwell gives real-world examples of Newspeak: "Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern" and there are many others.

Ingsoc, Oceania's political idea is based on the Socialism. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more abandoned. The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, New-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. The purpose of all of them is to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment. Every new political theory leads back to hierarchy.

Orwell also shows the different groups of people in such systems: One group is really convinced that this system is the best for the country, only a few people are against it but most of the people follow without thinking, even if they are not really satisfied.

The system of Oceania is described as much more perfect than all systems that have ever existed in reality. This example should force us to do everything possible to avoid totalitarian systems and dictatorships in future.