Life of George Orwell, his works, books, rules and beliefs.
Introduction to 1984 .
Comparison with Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
Structure and plot.
The World of Nineteen Eighty-Four, geographical background.
Characters
Themes
Style
Comparison between 1984 & Today
My opinion

LIFE
REAL NAME: Eric Blair
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: in India in 1903 (his father was an English minor colonial official)
EDUCATION: first in England at St. Cyprian's preparatory school and after at Eaton.
PERSONALITY: could not stand discipline, independent, indifferent to accepted values
COLONIAL EXPERIENCE: in Burma as an officer in the Indian
Imperial Police; developed an anti-imperialistic attitude
OTHER IMPORTANT EXPERIENCES: social experiment of poverty; stay in Paris; fought in the Spanish Civil War; broadcast for the BBC; was the editor of a socialist weekly.
CHOICE OF PSEUDONYM: “ George ” was very English and suggested common sense; “ Orwell ” was the name of his favourite river.
REPUTATION: internationally known thanks to Animal Farm.
DEATH: 1950.

WORKS
Shooting an Elephant(1934)
Down and Out in Paris and London(1933)
A Clergyman ’ s Daughter(1935)
The Road to Wigan Pier(1937 )
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Animal Farm(1944)
Nineteen Eighty-Four(1948)

Animal Farm & 1984
Both have been turned into motion pictures

Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
, in which describes the period when he left his upper-class life and start with casual labour in restaurant kitchens before begin unemployed
The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) an account of his life and work with the miners of North of England after the Great Depression
Homage to Catalonia (1938) an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side in the
Spanish Civil War
The English People (1947)

ORWELL was the writer of dystopia
Dystopia is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia -
Some academic circles distinguish between antiutopia and dystopia. As in George Orwell's
1984 , a dystopia does not pretend to be utopian, while an anti-utopia appears to be utopian or was intended to be so, but a fatal flaw or other factor has destroyed or twisted the intended utopian world or concept by human misery, poverty, oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution.

In general, dystopias are seen as visions of "dangerous and alienating future societies," often criticizing current trends in culture. It is a culture where the condition of life is "extremely bad," as from deprivation, oppression, or terror. Dystopian politics are often characterized as one or several types of governments and political systems. These systems include, but are not limited to, bureaucracy , socialism , communism , chaos , capitalism , fascism , totalitarianism , dictatorships and other forms of political, social and economical control.
[ These governments often assert great power over the citizens, dramatically depicted in 1984 as the authority to decree that Two + two = five .

In " Politics and the English Language ," George
Orwell provides five rules for writers:
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive voice where you can use the active .
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday
English equivalent.

ORWELL is different from others that he believed that the writer should be independent , and that no good writing could come from allowing the party line.
He insisted on tolerance, justice and decency in human relationship , and warned against the increasing artificiality of urban civilization.
He presented a devastating critique of totalitarianism , warning against the violation of liberty and helping his readers to recognize tyranny in all its form.

He considered himself a democratic socialist and was critical of communism
He hated intellectuals, lying, cruelty, political authority, and totalitarianism
He strongly opposed Stalin and
Hitler -- he was very outspoken during WWII

Nineteen Eighty-Four : is an English novel about life in an authoritarian regime as lived by Winston Smith, an intellectual worker at the Ministry of Truth, and his degradation when he runs afoul of the totalitarian government of Oceania, the state in which he lives in the year that he presumes is 1984.It was one of the most important novel after the second world war.
It is a darkly satirical political novel. The story takes place in a nightmarish dystopia, in
Oceania through indoctrination, fear, lies and ruthless punishment.
It was first published on June 8 1949, is
Orwell's most famous, work, and is the inspiration of the word "Orwellian."

STRUCTURE AND PLOT :
The novel describes a future England, no longer the head of an Empire, but an outpost of Oceania, a vast totalitarian system including north America and the British empire. The work is divided into three parts:
Part one introduces the main character,
Winston Smith, in the context of a regimented, oppressive world.
Part two describes his love for Julia, and the temporary happiness for their relationship.
Part three tell about the imprisonment and torture of Winston by the thought police.

The novel introduced the concepts of the everpresent, all-seeing Big Brother, the notorious Room
101, the thought police who use telescreens
(televisions that contain a surveillance camera – found in almost every room of the apartments of the characters in the novel), and the fictional language Newspeak.

Orwell had originally chosen the year 1980 for his work. But as the writing dragged on due to the progression of his pulmonary
Tuberculosis, Orwell changed it to 1982 and then to 1984.
There are various ideas as to the meaning of the title.
It is widely thought that Orwell simply switched the last two digits of the year in which he wrote it
(1948).

Along with Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World, the world of 1984 is one of the first and most cited characterizations of a realistic dystopia to have appeared in English literature. It has been translated into many languages.

Aldous Huxley and George Orwell had reasons for writing their books. The similar thing about it is that, both of the author's books were a prediction of the future that they believed would soon become. Huxley showed us a world where science and technology ruled the world. For example characters in Brave New World were developed in an incubator and mentally condition to follow orders. As for Orwell he created a world society where Government and political power played a role of world domination. Though different in their sight of the future one thing is clear about their intention to show the world. Both authors wrote the book to warn people about the fast growing of science and technology or how much power government and political parties are gaining.

The World of Nineteen Eighty-Four
The world described in
Nineteen Eighty-Four has striking and deliberate parallels to the Stalinist Soviet Union; notably, the themes of a betrayed revolution, which
Orwell put so famously in
Animal Farm, the subordination of individuals to "the
Party," and the extensive and institutional use of propaganda, especially as it influenced the main character of the book, Winston Smith.

The world is controlled by three forces:
1-Oceania (ideology: Ingsoc – English
Socialism)
It covers the areas of the British Empire and
Commonwealth, the United States of America and Latin America
2-Eurasia (ideology: Neo-Bolshevism)
It corresponds to China, Japan, Korea, and
India,
3- Eastasia (ideology: Death Worship or
Obliteration of the Self). It corresponds to the Soviet Union and Continental Europe.
.

Political Geography in the world of
Nineteen Eighty-Four

The Ministries of Oceania
Oceania's four ministries are housed in huge pyramidal structures displaying the three slogans of the party on their sides.
The Ministry of Peace
Minipax is the newspeak name for the Ministry of Peace, which concerns itself with making war
The Ministry of Plenty
Miniplenty in Newspeak, it is the ministry involved in maintaining ubiquitous poverty in Oceania
The Ministry of Truth
Minitrue is the propaganda arm of the Ingsoc State. They distribute the leaflets, porno, and of course the telescreens. Winston Smith spends his daytime hours “correcting” historical records in Minitrue.
The Ministry of Love
Miniluv is a gigantic windowless building devoted to torture and brutality.
The home of the thought police, it is surrounded by a maze of barbed wire and machinegun towers .

Oceania is a huge country ruled by The
Party, which is led by a figure called “Big
Brother”
The Inner Party (1% of pop.) control the country
The Outer Party (18% of pop.) are controlled by the Inner Party
The Proles (81% of pop.) are the labor power who live in poverty
The Brotherhood is an underground rebellion organization lead by Emmanuel
Goldstein

The Party
In his novel Orwell creates a world in which citizens have no right to a personal life or personal thought.
Leisure and other activities are controlled through strict mores.
The menacing figure of Big
Brother has been variously interpreted to be that of
Soviet leader Josef Stalin and BBC design department's
Roy Oxley.
The three slogans of the Party
, visible everywhere, are:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Winston Smith — the protagonist is a phlegmatic everyman.
Julia — Winston's lover is a covert
"rebel from the waist downwards" who espouses Party doctrines whilst living contrarily.
Big Brother — the dark-eyed, mustachioed embodiment of the Party governing Oceania (a quote of Josef
Stalin), whom few people have seen, if anyone. There is doubt as to whether he exists.

Emmanuel Goldstein — a former Party leader, like the Soviet revolutionary
Leon Trotsky.
O'Brien — the antagonist, a member of the Inner Party who deceives Winston and Julia that he is of the Brotherhood resistance.
Note that the physical existence of Big
Brother and Emmanuel Goldstein is never made clear.

Winston Smith: Main character and the narrator of the story.
Winston is a 39 year old low-ranking member of the ruling
Party
He secretly hates Big
Brother and harbors revolutionary dreams
Winston is thin, frail, contemplative, intellectual
El poder

The first impression of Nineteen Eighty-Four is the sense of loss and the all the finer emotion and values, belong to the past. This is the symbolized by the protagonist, Winston
Smith, the last man to believe in humane values in a totalitarian age.
Smith is the commonest English surname, suggest his symbolic value
Winston evokes Churchill ’ s patriotic appeals for “ blood, sweat and tears ” during the
Second World War
He works at the Ministry of Truth where he alters the records of the past to fit current
Party policy. In private he writes on the creamy paper of an old diary.

Totalitarianism
In writing 1984, Orwell's main goal was to warn of the serious danger totalitarianism poses to society.
He goes to great lengths to demonstrate the terrifying degree of power and control a totalitarian regime can acquire and maintain. In such regimes, notions of personal rights and freedoms and individual thought are pulverized under the all-powerful hand of the government.
Orwell was a Socialist and believed strongly in the potential for rebellion to advance society.
Specifically, Orwell witnessed the rise of communism and the accompanying destruction of civil liberties, honest government, and economic strength.

A major theme of Nineteen Eighty-Four is censorship, which is displayed especially in the Ministry of Truth, where photographs are doctored and public archives rewritten to rid them of "unpersons". In the telescreens, figures for all types of production are grossly exaggerated (or simply invented) to indicate an ever-growing economy, when in reality there is stagnation, if not loss.

A major factor in the Party's rule over
Oceania lies in its extremely well organized and effective propaganda machine. The
Ministry of Truth, which is ironically where
Winston works, is responsible for disseminating all Party publications and information. All figures and facts come from the Ministry of Truth, and all are dictated by the Party. In other words, the Party chooses exactly what to tell the public, regardless of what is accurate. The effectiveness of this propaganda machine, which constantly corrects old material to reflect the Party's current position.

Technology is an extremely important tool that the Party uses to maintain control over its citizens. Without telescreens, the
Thought Police would not be nearly as effective, and propaganda would not be so widespread. The constant supervision of the telescreen effectively imprisons citizens of Oceania in their daily lives, they are always under observation.

The Party destroys all sense of independence and individuality. Everyone wears the same clothes, eats the same food, and lives in the same apartment. Life is uniform and orderly. No one can stand out, and no one can be unique.
To have an independent thought borders on the criminal. For this reason, writing such as
Winston does in his diary has been outlawed.
People are only permitted to think what the
Party tells them to think, which leads to what
Syme refers to as "duckspeak." Independent thought can be dangerous, as it might lead to rebellion

NEWSPEAK
Newspeak , the "official language" of
Oceania, is extraordinary in that its vocabulary decreases every year; the state of Oceania sees no purpose in maintaining a complex language, and so Newspeak is a language dedicated to the "destruction of words.
The goal of the Party is to have
Newspeak replace Oldspeak
(standard English)
Newspeak eliminates undesirable words and invents new words -- all to force Party conformity

Orwell combined various genres and styles in an original way. In fact he used parody and satire. The tone of the book becomes pessimistic, violent and even sadistic in the last part, where Orwell presents
Winston
s final defeat. The novel does not consolation but reveals the author
s acute sense of history and his sympathy.

1984
Telescreens are everywhere
(except for where the Proles live and work .)
Workplace monitoring—
Winston can’t look at a note on his desk or dwell too long on a single document .
Thought Police interpret people’s facial expressions and voice intonations .
Spies—one never knows whom to trust .
Today
]
FBI surveillance
Corporations collecting data on consumers
Internet privacy issues
Drug testing at the workplace or school
Employers monitoring employees’ e-mails, phone calls, or private matters.
cameras – everywhere.
Dictator Arab leaders such as
Gaddafi troops force rebels to retreat or kill.

I think that 1984 seems continuous and dynamic state applied in our present and future, because life is renewable ,changing and developed in all sides of life.
Life does not go without conflict between right and wrong .Tyranny is exist in every place and time ,So there must be both powers until the justice prevail the world and that is the end.

Thanks for your listening
Lobna . S. Elhajjar