Techniques in 1984
Technique
Symbolism
Example Analysis/Discussion
“Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing.”
“BIG BROTHER IS
WATCHING
YOU”
“Here comes the chopper to chop off your head!” (part of the song about the churches of old London.)
Telescreens - telescreens are a visible symbol as well as the direct means of the Party
’s constant monitoring of its subjects.
They also symbolise the tendency of totalitarian governments to abuse technology.
Big Brother - the ultimate figure of Oceania, is everywhere. A moustached man who is always watching. This symbol strikes both loyalty and fear in the people. They worship this icon, but are continually kept afraid of his power.
Glass Paperweight & St. Clementine
’s Church - These items are symbols of the past that, because of the Party ’s control, no longer have any basis in "reality." When the Thought Police come to lead Winston and Julia away, the glass paperweight is shattered on the ground and symbolise Winston
’s shattered chances at recovering the past.
Red armed prole woman - Winston sees this woman as a symbol of freedom. Party members never sing, but hearing her song through the window of his rented room fills Winston
– and soon, Julia – with hope for the future. What is this hope? That the proles will become cognizant of their plight and rebel against the Party. Winston and Julia also acknowledge the
Prole woman as a symbol of reproductive virility, and thereby, hope for the future. They see her as "beautiful" because of her wideness, largeness, and toughness
Paradox or
Oxymoron
Allusions
"Freedom is Slavery," "War is Peace," "Ignorance is
Strength "
"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,"
An oxymoron is use of contradictory terms to present a statement that generally contains an element of truth (Paradox also means a phrase that contradicts itself - these slogans could also be considered juxtaposition). The three mottos represent oxymorons as all contain what appear to be opposing terms, yet the meaning behind them is true for the world state. Keeping the country at constant war does lead to peace among the people of Oceania. Ignorance is Strength is also true in that an uneducated, easily manipulated populace is easy for the government to use for its own power.
“Winston woke up with the word 'Shakespeare' on his lips ”
‘I think I exist,’ he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity …’ (to
O
’Brien in the MoL)
“..the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.
”
Literature Allusions - Orwell refers to Shakespeare, Chaucer and even, indirectly, Descartes (
“‘I think I exist,’ he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity …’” - indirect reference to Descartes
’ “I think, therefore I am”). These allusions to infamous literary figures may be a message about the importance of language and literature in shaping society
(think about how Newspeak aims to restrict language) and also the complexities of human predicaments.
Historical Allusions - 1984 creates links to history through the use of allusion. The posters of Big Brother strikingly resemble
Adolf Hitler (some think perhaps Joseph Stalin). The supposed leader of the underground movement is Goldstein. The obviously Jewish name of Emmanuel Goldstein and the name of a man responsible for the death of millions of Jewish heritage set up the conflict by relating it to a key turning point in the history of the world.

Techniques in 1984
Technique
Imagery and figurative language
Example Analysis/Discussion
Simile:
“In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight.”
This simile, which compares the Thought Police to bluebottle jellyfish, describes how Oceanians are used to living in fear under a constant state of surveillance, and so they learn to self-regulate.
Foreshadowing “The place where there is no darkness
”
“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres in your skull” —
“He loved Big Brother”
This phrase first comes to Winston in a dream, when he imagines that this is where
O’Brien wants to meet him. Heavy foreshadowing here, because he does indeed get here eventually
– at the Ministry of Love, where the lights never go out. This symbolises Winston’s ultimate, doomed fate. It’s also more of
Oceania’s ironic use of language. The place of NO darkness is metaphorically the darkest and gloomiest location.
The idea of Thought Police is disturbing and Winston believes that he can only truly be himself inside his mind. In fact, this quote foreshadows the mind control that takes place in the
Ministry of Love and ultimately leads to
Winston’s subjugation and loyalty to the Party.
Flashbacks
Rhetoric
“Uncalled, a memory floated into his mind. He saw a candle-lit room…His mother was sitting opposite him and also laughing.”
Appearing only in his dreams and memories,
Winston’s mother represents better, pre-Party days when life was safe and not quite so oppressive. As the novel progresses, however, we also come to see that she represents
Winston’s intense sense of guilt. If Winston didn’t actually kill his parents, then Winston’s mother is the epitome of a pleasant past coloured by the lies and manipulation of the Party. Winston also has flashbacks of the countryside when he visits the opening with Julia, representing a natural and peaceful part of his past.
“The past was dead, the future was unimaginable.
What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side?”
“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable?”
The first-person, limited omniscient narration invites the reader to follow Winston ’s thoughts, as does his use of rhetorical questions. What he questions, we also consider philosophically, both in relation to our own context and the character ’s situation.
The continual reference to O
’Brien’s method of mind control is demonstrated through ‘two plus two equals five’ - only when
Winston truly believes this has the Party succeeded in controlling his mind. At first Winston questions it, yet even he can
’t rebel against their totalitarian torture methods.
Personification
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, IT NEVER
HAPPENED — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death?”
Big Brother is a personification of the Party and its control over the citizens of Oceania and the past.

Techniques in 1984
Technique Example Analysis/Discussion
Motif Urban Decay:
“bombed sites where plaster dust swirled in the air”
Visual Imagery: reoccurring motif of
‘eyes’,
Motif: Urban Decay -proves a pervasive motif in 1984. The
London that Winston Smith calls home is a dilapidated, rundown city in which buildings are crumbling, conveniences such as elevators never work, and necessities such as electricity and plumbing are extremely unreliable. Though
Orwell never discusses the theme openly, it is clear that the shoddy disintegration of London, just like the widespread hunger and poverty of its inhabitants, is due to the Party ’s mismanagement and incompetence.
Big Brothers overseeing eyes, O
’
Brien
’ s gaze that Winston mistakes for a comrades, Winston goes to meet up with Julia and realises that he doesn
’ t even know her eye colour, the telescreens as
‘ electronic eyes
’
(page numbers are approximate and may be based on a different publication to your own)
"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic." Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 16
"The past was dead, the future was unimaginable." Part 1, Chapter 2, pg. 28
"With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm." Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 33
"Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom." Part 1, Chapter 6, pg. 64
"Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema." Part
1, Chapter 6, pg. 69
"If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 72
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." Part 1, Chapter 7, pg. 74
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." Part 1,
Chapter 7, pg. 84
"It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it felt like to sit in a room like this, in an armchair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob: utterly alone, utterly secure, with nobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock."
Part 1, Chapter 8, pg. 100
"Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St
Martin's." Part 1, Chapter 8, pg. 103
"At the sight of the words I love you the desire to stay alive had welled up in him, and the taking of minor risks suddenly seemed stupid." Part 2, Chapter 1, pg. 110-11
"Not merely the love of one person, but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the Party to pieces." Part 2, Chapter 2, pg. 127

Techniques in 1984
"She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead, that from the moment of declaring war on the Party it was better to think of yourself as a corpse. 'We are the dead,' he said." Part 2, Chapter 3, pg. 137
"The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity." Part 2, Chapter 4, pg. 140
"So long as they were actually in this room, they both felt, no harm could come to them." Part 2, Chapter 5, pg. 152
"He had the sensation of stepping into the dampness of a grave, and it was not much better because he had always known that the grave was there and waiting for him." Part 2, Chapter 6, pg. 160
"It's the one thing they can't do. They can make you say anything - anything - but they can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you." Part 2, Chapter 7, pg. 167
"The old feeling, that at bottom it did not matter whether O'Brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back.
O'Brien was a person who could be talked to... O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of lunacy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him to his death. It made no difference." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg.255-6
"There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean." Part 3, Chapter 2, pg. 259
"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull." Part 3, Chapter 3, pg. 268
"'Do you remember writing in your diary,' he said, 'that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at least a person who understood you and could be talked to? You were right. I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.'" Part 3,
Chapter 2, pg. 271
"Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!" Part 3, Chapter 5, pg. 289
"There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterised out." Part 3, Chapter 6, pg. 293
"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.
He loved Big Brother." Part 3, Chapter 6, pg. 300