Nineteen Eighty-Four
By analysing the totalitarianism, his mechanisms and developments, we have read this
novel, in which is clearly describe how it works a totalitarian regime, how people are
strictly controlled and manipulated. This is perfectly in line with what Hannah Harendt
said in his work “The origins of totalitarianism”. That’s why we believe that Orwell’s
masterpiece could be the most perfect literary example to describe, denounce and make
us reflect about this horrible page of the recent European history.
“My recent novel Nineteen Eighty-Four” is NOT intended as an attack on socialism, or
on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the
perversity to which a centralized economy is liable and which have already been partly
realized in Communism and Fascism.
I do not believe that the kind of society which I described necessarily will arrive,
but I believe (allowing for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling
to it could arrive. I believe also that totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of
intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical
consequences.
The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English
speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not
fought against, could triumph everywhere.” 1
A DYSTOPIAN NOVEL
“Nineteen Eighty-Four” can be considered a dystopian writing.
The term “dytopia” indicates a “society where nobody would like to live in” and most of
the times it is used with reference to a fictitious society (set in a next future) where the
social tendencies are driven to apocalyptic extremisms. Therefore, the world described
is nightmarish, worrying, distorted and frightening. The term is the opposite of “utopia”,
which represents an idyllic place where everybody would like to live.
There are several topics that define this way of writing:
A) The society described is a hierarchical one, where the class division cannot be
overcome.
B) The propaganda and the educational methods used by the Regime force the
population to adore the State and the Govern, convincing them that their lifestyle is
the best one to have.
C) Individualism is seen as something negative, in opposition with the conformism,
which is necessary.
D) The State is embodied by a leader, adored by the people, characterized by a strong
1
Orwell’s Statement on Nineteen Eighty-Four, July 1949, in ORWELL, G., Orwell and Politics, ed by
P.Davidson, Penguin Classics, 2001, p. 499.
personality
E) The world that exists outside the State is seen as something negative.
F) Any form of rebellion against the rules is punished with prison, torture (both physical
and psychological).
G) Citizens are always controlled by the State.
THE PLOT
Nineteen Eighty-Four is Orwell’s prediction of a universal totalitarian society where
individuals are constantly observed. The title refers to the year when the novel is set
and was probably obtained by switching the last two figures of the year (1948) in which
it was written.
In 1984, the world is divided into three totalitarian States, which are always fighting a
never-ending war against each other: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. In Oceania, that
includes North America, South Africa and Australia, whose capital is London, the society
is ruled by the principles of Socking (the English socialism); the Party is lad by the figure
of the Big Brother, a person no one has ever seen and that controls the life of the people
by watching them through the telescreen placed everywhere in the city and in the
houses.
Everywhere there are the Slogans of the Party “ War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery”
and “Ignorance is Strength”, under the face of the Big Brother.
The protagonist, Winston Smith, an Outerparty member, is the last man that
believes in human values in a totalitarian age. He works at the Ministry of Truth where
he alters the records of the past to fit current Party policy. Winston cannot support the
Party‘s rules and wants to rebel against this tyranny.
That is why he starts to have a love affair with Julia, a young girl that has a much bigger
practical sense than he and that seems not to accept the rules of the Big Brother. The
two lovers decide to try to enter the mysterious “Brotherhood”. In order to do this they
trust in O’Brien, an important person that is considered a friend by the protagonist, and
they manage to get the secret book of Goldstein the leader of the dissidents, where are
written all the explanations of the Party‘s slogans. But once they got this book, they
figure out that O‘Brien is a member of the Thought police. It serves the Big Brother in
order to eliminate any kind of crime and he works at the Ministry of Love, where the
Thought criminals get tortured to reach their re-education. O’Brien’s purpose is to teach
Winston the Doublethink. Winston learns the principles of the system which is at the
base of the State and finds out that it is not enough to confess your crime and obey the
rules: the Big Brother wants to posse your inner soul and your thought!
At the end, Winston gets forced to believe: he has to renounce to the love for
Julia and to the free way of thinking, submitting himself to the Big Brother and loving
him totally.
Mass-Hysteria:
The Two Minutes Hate
“The next moment a hideous, grinding screech, as of some monstrous machine running
without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that
set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had
started.
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed
onto the screen. There were hisses here and among the audience. The little sandyhaired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade
and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been
one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and
than had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death and
had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. […] Before the Hate had proceeded for
thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half people
in the room. […] In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up
and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown
the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired
woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a
landed fish. Even O’Brian’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his
chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the
assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out “Swine!
Swine! Swine!”, and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it
at the screen. […]
The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a
part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining it. […] At those moments his secret
loathing of Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing
like a rock against the hordes of Asia…” 2
This extract, taken from the first pages of the novel, describes the way the Party
uses in order to submit the citizens. It has a simple structure: everybody is obliged to
watch a kind of spot in a telescreen that shows the enemy of the State, Emmanuel
Goldstein. The people who watch have to address all their aggressiveness in those two
minutes, when they face their enemies. Anyway, in the beginning people are able to
control their feelings but then, due to the images that appear in the telescreen which
provoke strong reactions, the feelings start to be uncontrollable and the “animal part”
of the man comes out: they start shouting, screaming, kicking the chairs and throwing
them against the telescreen, in order to destroy their fears. The situation rises to the
top: nobody can resist from acting, and what is incredible, is that they feel a kind of joy
in those action.
I think this extract is important to describe the “brain-wash” that people have in
a totalitarian system: when they face a person that fights for freedom (in this case E.
Goldstein), they feel disgusted and want to find the protection of the Big Brother, their
only source of consolation and protection.
2
1984, George Orwell, pp. 11-16
“…The little sandy-haired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair
in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like “My Saviour!” she extended
her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent
she was uttering a prayer…” 3
The Newspeak
“The Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the
ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. […] It was expected that Newspeak
would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it), by
about the year 2050.”4
This is how it starts the appendix of the book, where Orwell describes a dystopian
language used by the Party as to eliminate unorthodoxly thought in Oceania. This
language is based on the reduction of the words that people can use and explaining the
reason for this is quite easy: if you have a language with certain kind of words (sexual
words, political words, everyday life words, slanguages…), you will have certain kind of
thoughts and if you don’t have a word, you don’t have the concept itself.
“Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this
purpose was indirectly assisted by the cutting of choice of words down to a minimum” 5
The vocabulary is divided in three main groups:

The A vocabulary includes all the words for the everyday life. The syntax is easy:
you add prefix or suffix to change from verb, adjective, noun, opposite, with no
exceptions. Any words could be used in any part of the speech. This made the
language easy to remember and to use.

The B vocabulary contains all the words that refer to the political world. These
words are composed for political purposes, in order to convey a certain way of
thinking in the people that use them. They had to be easy to pronounce, so people
could just say them without thinking about what they were saying. All the words with
a bad connotation were substituted with a blanket word, in order to eliminate the
concept of that crime (e.g. having sex out from marriage just for pleasure was a
crime: they didn’t have a precise word for this, but just “sexcrime”, a general one
that fits for all the occasions where sex was implicated)

The C vocabulary contains scientific and technological words. This is the shortest
part of a “Newspeak Dictionary” because all the words they needed were already
included in the other two sections and any worker could find the words he needed in
the list devoted to his branch of work.
3
4
5
1984, George Orwell, p. 18
1984, George Orwell, p. 312
1984, George Orwell, p. 313
The Newspeak is a brilliant expression of the patriotic sense of the Oceania
inhabitants; this is their own language, the language of the State that permits them to
be free and to be orthodox, but only in the way the Big Brother wants them. Even if it is
a total “brain wash”, it reflects the totalitarian theory of giving an own way of
expression to the citizens. This permits to increase the belonging sense to the State and
to eliminate their personality in order to be in the same line as the Big Brother.
Conclusion
The extracts I have chosen are the clearest examples to describe the patriotic
sense, which emerged from this book. In every page, you can find a particular way of
expression of how the citizens love their State and were happy to live under the
protection of the Big Brother, even if in a bad condition. The everyday collective
manifestation in the squares against the enemies, the women’s “Anti-sex league”, the
happiness of the increase of the working hour in a day for the wants of Big Brother, the
never-ending war against one or the other Super State, the Party‘s slogans… are small
examples of how the life was entirely devoted to the State and to his supremacy.
I enjoyed very much the reading of this novel, it made me reflect about the living
Standard of that precise society, and, what is better, and it made me think about how
our society is strictly linked with that one. We have our “Newspeak” (the SMS slang used
mostly by the teenagers), we can get easily manipulated by the Mass Media, instead of
being informed about what’s going on in the World we sit in front of the television
watching reality shows and soap operas. Moreover, we sometimes gets angry against one
particular case that the press denounces; today is the football, yesterday was it the
dogs, and what will be tomorrow?
In the novel all those kinds of action were used to increase the patriotic sense,
and they reached their purpose, people would have done everything for their State.
Today it is not so. All the “distractions” we have are just used in order not to make us
think about what’s happening in our State. We don’t have a great patriotic sense, we
just shout when Italy scores a goal in the World Championship, that’s all!!