giovedì 13 maggio 2021
Orwell
Started from the assumption that to write meant to interpret reality after a careful
observation of what happened at the moment. Auden: to show how the int lecture,
interprets reality, to awaken the readers’ consciousness to take an action in a period
of crisis = present age was a period of crisis and that mankind needed to react to
crisis. Orwell like Auden thought that the form of an art had to be useful to the
massage of an art. One of his most popular work was Animal Farm. He wrote
against any form of totalitarianism after the experience of the failure of 5e Russian
revolution, after dictatorship, after nazi Germany and what was going on in China.
1984 dystopian novel predicted (.?) China
Animal farm is a political allegory. What had inspired Auden to choose the blues
form brought Orwell to choose the political allegory (he also wanted to be
comprehensible - establish a relationship and trigger reaction, political - interpreter
of reality need to take action, topical - all his literary works were about
contemporary social issues). To Orwell literature was a political act and should
always be socially functional and its aim was a moral aim. Moral function of art.
1984> dystopian novel/ anti utopian novel. The first that introduced this word to
literature was Thomas More (lived under Henry VIII, proclaimed head of the Anglican
Church of England). The prototype of the figure of the intellectual that reacts to a
period of crisis is represented by Thomas More, who was executed by Henry VIII
because he refused to accept the act of supremacy. Thomas More was the figure of
the intellectual who reacts to a period of crisis and used the literary act as a device
to awake the reader awareness and consciousness and the necessity to react to a
period of moral crisis. Thomas Moore was catholic and couldn’t accept the act.
Utopia is a book about a dreamlike country where government acts in the name of
the well being of citizens and society. A visionary work about the perfect of
monarchy. Dreamlike world of the future, the intellectual projects his desire about
his perfect government form.
Dystopia therefore is the opposite. Te intellectual projects all his worries about the
possible of a future world considering the present.
1984 point out that present tendencies would probably bring to that nightmarish
future society. So he wanted his readers to check present tendencies, to consider
present tendencies and reflect on them in order to avoid such nightmarish future
world. Necessity to awaken the awareness of readers to the necessity to react to
present tendencies. That’s why he chose the dystopian novel. He rejected then the
difficult interpretation of what is written, the overcomplexity of the modernist art. He
then decided to use the 3rd person omniscient (objective) unobtrusive narrator
(unlike Dickens’s obstructive): everything is perceived through the protagonist’s
viewpoint but the external narrator never comments on situations: he shows
situations through the character’s viewpoint. The narrator takes on the character’s
viewpoint from an external perceptive because he uses the 3rd person.
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giovedì 13 maggio 2021
The plot is important to understand the ultimate goal of the novel. The setting in
place in what it was once London. He devised the future world in three great blocks/
dictatorship: Oceania (=USA, great western power) (London is the capital), East Asia
(Chinese power), Eurasia (=Soviet Union). Orwell had already fore-ran the power of
chine in 1948. The dictator in the west power is the big brother and rules Oceania,
everyone is spied on, there is no privacy in Oceania. The protagonist of the book is
Winston Smith who decides to write a diary but it’s forbidden because no one can
have personal memories nor express his own feelings and emotions freely, because
even the existence of personal feelings is forbidden (because they’re personal. The
idea of the identity is rejected in this world. When Winston decides to write the diary
he has to put his back behind the screen and hide his diary. All of that is expression
of identity is forbidden in Oceania. What is the most powerful instrument that the
party use to destroy the identity of his citizens? The language = Newspeak,
intended to replace old speak (original English). Why? Because when you think you
use the language you posses, if I reduce vocabulary than I can reduce the
possibility to have personal thinking and therefore to realise that you are living under
a dictatorship, under a tyranny. I reduce the possibility to a revolt against the party.
Winston Smith is a journalist whose task is to rewrite all the newspaper articles so
history can be adjusted to support the party. Even history is destroyed. He works in
the ministry of truth which actually is the ministry of lies (because he has to rewrite
history and make it suitable to the aims of the party = to destroy personal identity,
transform the individual into a robot). We are reminded of Dickens concerned about
Victorian education, content centred over child centred; Gradgrind = destroy natural
tendencies. This is the aim of every totalitarian state whose real aim was in the
mask of a false democracy.
Auden wrote the unknown citizen: he is everyone and no one, the common man that
lived in the USA in the consumers society that was a society where citizens are
unaware of accepting to decisions that are not theirs. Marketing’s function = to
destroy personal choice and freedom to choose. This is what happens in London in
Oceania.
Winston is against the oppression of the regime, he records the events on his diary.
He believes in the existence of the objective truth.
1984: Power is power 14/05
Shows the manipulation of the language carried on by the party on the dictatorship
in 1984 in Oceania. In the picture there are expression the party holds in order to
show its policy: «War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength». War is
peace is just the opposite: these expressions (oxymorons, stylistically speaking. The
oxymoron is just apparently contradictory or meaningless) but it is true that war is
peace for the party. If all the population in Oceania is experiencing the state of war,
they’re constantly at war against one of the two powers of the world in 1984, either
east Asia or Eurasia or against both. The population in Oceania is completely
unaware of the necessity to take an action against dictatorship: one of the main
reasons is the constant state of war, because if you are experiencing a state of war,
you’re concerned with the primary necessities (lack of food, because there’s no
storage of food if a country is at war) therefore the lack of freedom is not as
important as survival. War is actually peace for dictatorship.
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Freedom is slavery. Whose freedom? The freedom of the party which controls life in
Oceania in 1984.
Ignorance is strength? Whose strength? The strength of the party which leads
Oceania: if people are ignorant, they’re not aware of their slavery.
Big brother is not a person, is the whole party. If he were a person this wouldn’t
matter: he is the symbol of the party and therefore the symbol of the dictator, the
personification of tyranny or any totalitarian state that one can visualize in a poster.
And the poster is everywhere in Oceania. The poster shows through its statements
the manipulation of the language that the party is carrying on this work on the
language: the transformation of old English into newspeak (new English) and the
main process is to reduce vocabulary. It is not so difficult to understand such a
statement (the poster, freedom) but there’s no reflection behind the reading. People
are deprived of personal thought, way of thinking because when you think you use
the language you possess. The more vocabulary you possess the more able to have
a thought you are. That’s why the most important and powerful instrument thin the
hands of the party is the manipulation of the language (together of other
manipulation such as manipulation of history whose main objective is to deprive the
human being of his memory, memory of a past and so if you destroy memory of the
past you destroy the identity of an individual that belongs to nothing).
What happens in the passage: Winston is in the ministry of love (which is actually
the ministry of hate, because love is hate). Love for whom? For big brother. It is a
sort of Dickens’ workhouses = institution established by government in order to
educate the people of victorian England, those that didn't follow the main
philosophy of Victorianism and puritanism = materialism and hard work. People who
were unemployed, vagabonds, orphans, life of laziness.
Here everything is exaggerated.
Winston (rebel) here is being reeducated because his love for a woman needs to be
transformed into love for bug brother (the party). In the figure of O’Brien we have the
personification of torture, police in Oceania and education goes through torture.
Winston situation is impossible: the torture aims at the real destruction of the human
being’s freedom of thinking [What O’Brien wants Winston to answer is not what he
(W) expects he (OB) would like to listen to but the re-education of Winston will end
when he’ll (W) think what O’Brien wants him to. This is the complete re-education of
the rebel]
Torture = brainwashing. Winston’s personality is being destroyed and reconstructed
through torture.
Here O’Brien explains to Winston that power means power, that the only object of
power is power itself, there’s no other object in Oceania for the party. Power for
power’s sake.
The point O’Brien wants Winston to reflect on is how and why the party maintains
itself in power. «Why we cling to power. What is our motive?»
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Winston answers that «the party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for
the good of the majority…stronger than themselves». This is what Winston thought
O’Brien expected him to think. The ultimate purpose of a dictatorship is power.
Winston under torture was under a feeling of weariness, couldn’t resist anymore to
O’Brien’s torture. The passage wants to highly what happens to a mind of a human
being under torture: everything a human being could say in order to stop sorrow
that is mental and physical, in order to stop pain. Winston was going to think as
O’Brien wanted him to think. Not only to say, but to think it! This is the brainwash of
the mind (by electric shock).
Line 15: O’Brien knew everything, he was one of the most important representatives
of the party. He knew how the world was really like and all was justified by the main
purpose. The lunatic is more intelligent than yourself (thought Winston) - the reason
of the mad people (la ragione dei pazzi) = there’s no reason for resistance.
The manipulation of the language is by torture: O’Brien reverts everything that
Winston thinks.
O’Brien thinks that the masses were frail cowardly creatures (line 9) that cannot
resist torture.
In Oceania no kind of privacy is allowed: you live just because the party wants you
to live and so you must be grateful to the party. The manipulation of the language is
not so difficult to understand if you reflect on education under a totalitarian state:
consider the manipulation of history books. This is very usual in any totalitarian
state, either in Hitler’s Germany or in Mussolini’s Italy.
«One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one
makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship»: proven in Animal farm: the
dictatorship of humans over the animals finished with the revolution of animals in
the form but then is sostitute by the dictatorship of the pigs over all other animals. 2
characters present: representatives of the opposites. Winston = population, frail
cowardly creatures; O’Brien = the party. They’re talking about power and why
should party always maintain it.
Narrative technique: extremely traditional, the omniscient narrator who is not
obtrusive but perceives reality through the protagonist’s viewpoint and readers are
invited to take on Winston’s viewpoint and share his view of reality.
17/05
Why I write (essay)
Here he expresses the objectives of his work as a novelist. Orwell wanted to: be the
spokesman of the moral conscience of society (a), denounce evils while strictly
adhering to truth without supporting any party line (b), find a balance between the
political and the aesthetic concerns (c), be impersonal (d), respond to his political
aims thus avoiding motionless, ornamental, meaningless writing (e).
Power is power
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What O’Brien wants Winston to answer is not what he expects he would like to
listen to but the re-education of Winston will end when he’ll (W) think what O’Brien
wants him to. This is the complete re-education of the rebel.
Winston thinks that O’Brien wants to hear is that the party is concerned about the
well being of the population => this is not the real answer. Manipulation of Winston’s
mind through pain and torture. It is O’Brien that tells what the reply would be. What
is the objective of power? Power for its own sake. There is no other aim except
power itself.
Line 21.
Line 25 “that was stupid...pure power-presently”
We don’t want to keep power for the well being because they’re unable of self
government, but only because they want to keep power for its own sake. This is the
truth, he’s not an hypocrite. Manipola il cervello di Winston attraverso la torture
perché Winston deve pensare come pensa P’Brien deve capire il punto di vista del
partito e lo deve condividere acriticamente, accettazione totale. Accepted without
explanation.
5-3: line 23,26
If the object of power is power then persecution and torture are needed.
Rhetorical device: tautology = lack of explanation. The object is the power. Power is
power. Non c’è differenza tra il soggetto e il predicato. Riduzione dei vocaboli del
lessico; newspeak. Distruzione del pensiero critico attraverso l’uso del linguaggio.
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