Exploring the thematic aspects and wider implications of the text and my own response to the way the story is concluded.
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four poses many questions about society, government, ideologies; and the implications of a totalitarian state. Some of these question are answered within the book, however, others remain questionable. I consider the book to be one of the most important and illuminating novels of the 20th century, with Orwell changing the status quo. The novel challenges the themes of control, with the use of the "Telescreen", "Hate Week", "Big Brother", "New Speak"; and cults and societies such as "Youth League", "The Spies", "Junior Anit-Sex League", but more significantly the "Brotherhood". This is an underground societies, which is created and falsified by "The Party" (the totalitarian government within 1984) to capture, interrogate and torture the so called members of the society. The implications are felt throughout the book, as the main character Winston Smith sees through the parties mantra to the lies that he is creating on behalf of the party and decides to rebel against them. This is unacceptable and the party has to quash the rebellious attitude by the means of torture and the rehabilitation. This is done in a four step process, the admission by Winston that he is insane, then the psychological manipulation or re-education to the parties way of thinking or ideology and then to "Room 101" for the destruction of all other love apart from the love of Big Brother and finally, death.
The theme of falsification of information and manipulation of people is another important aspect of 1984. The falsification of information is important not just because Winston Smith works in the department where the falsification takes place, but also because the past is changed to reflect the present and the future of "The Party". This is to the extent that even one of the party’s mantras is "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." The practice of this can be seen in chapter 17, "If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth." This falsification of every day information has wider implications on the novel, as this contributes to the manipulation of the people. As the history of the country and the people is ever changing, there is no way to prove that the party has ever been wrong, therefore, that people have to take whatever the party said as truth and forget whatever they remember. The changing of information and forgetting the old is reinforced by the manipulation of the citizens of Oceania (the third state that the world is divided into) by the use of "Doublethink" and "Thoughtcrime". Thoughtcrime is simply any thought that is not in accordance with the principles of Ingsoc. (Ingsco is English Socialism.) The party believes that every crime starts with a thought therefore, if they control thought they control crime, hence thoughtcrime. However, what makes this possible to change the information at will, without the citizens being consciously aware that information was being changed, was the practice of every citizens undertaking doublethink. This is having a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas. Orwell describes it through Winston’s voice as "…to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink." The implications of this on the whole novel are that no one can truly understand or know anything at all, as any information has been falsified but then the citizens are manipulated into forgetting the falsification and forgetting the manipulation. This leaves the whole of society uneasy and unsure of what they know and what they don't know.
Both of these ideas and themes are brought together at the end of the novel to present a new theme of betrayal. "Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me." The last line of this, implying that no matter how hard or what promises a person makes, in some way everyone is betraying someone else. The way in which the novel is concluded is without doubt, symbolic of the fight, struggle and then the over riding power and control that the party has in it citizens. As the novel starts with Winston not knowing or understanding his place in society, then finding Julia and deciding to rebel against the party and finally finding his place in society by being tortured and then rehabilitated to love Big Brother resulting in his death. The ending and conclusion of the novel leaves me considering the implications of a totalitarian state, that want to control every movement and thought of it's citizens and whether we are at a moment in time where we could go either one way or the other. However, I think that George Orwell is proposing that it does not matter what we do now, as we are and have always been heading towards that state of life, with such devices that can trace, watch and know who, when, where, why, how and what you are doing of every minute of every day.
Ideas and concepts for further investigation:
- Orwell's inspiration
- Technology
- Language
- Control (in both mind and actions)
- "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"
- NewSpeak, Doublethink, Thoughtcrime
- Government
- English Socialism
- Society
- Fear mongering
- "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism" (Emmanuel Goldstein "The Book")
- Proletariat
- "Written by a committee"
