1984

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwells unswervingly grim vision of a dystopian future. The
author always intended it as more warning than prophecy, so that even though its title date has
passed, its lessons about the dangers of conformity, mental coercion, and verbal deception
retain their validity and relevance. Orwells careful use of clear, understandable language
makes the unfamiliar world ofNineteen Eighty-Four comprehensible to every level of reader,
and his theme of personal individuality and human emotion, particularly love, trying to
establish themselves in spite of the relentless pressure of the modern industrial state has
perennial appeal to young adult audiences.
The novel depicts a world divided into three totalitarian superpowers that are constantly at
war with one another: Oceania, dominated by the former United States; Eurasia, dominated by
Western Europe; and Eastasia, dominated by China and Japan. Since the novel belongs to the
genre of the dystopia, a negative Utopia, much of its content is necessarily involved in
describing Oceanian societynot only in the features of its everyday life, much of which
reflects British life in 1948 (a year whose inverted numbers may have suggested the novels
title), but also in detailed explanations of the historical origins of Ingsoc and Oceania, as well
as its official language, Newspeak. Orwell, rather clumsily in the view of some critics, gives
much of this information in the form of a book-within-a-book, the supposed handbook of the
revolutionaries, and an appendix to the novel itself about Newspeak.
Not until the second main part of the novel does the story really begin. Winston Smith is a
writer for the ironically named Ministry of Truth, whose chief job is to assist in the constant
rewriting of history so that it conforms with the predictions and pronouncements of Big
Brother, the possibly mythical ruler of Oceania, whose minions in the Inner Party are
nevertheless omnipotent and omniscient. Winston, who was born in 1945 and thus was named
after Britains wartime leader Winston Churchill, vaguely remembers life before the
revolution and the establishment of Ingsoc, and he gradually comes to believe that life was
not always as dreary, mechanical, and deadening as it now is in Oceania, although he has no
means of proving it. Another worker in the Ministry of Truth, Julia, a young woman whom
Winston suspects of spying on him, turns out to be attracted to him, and they enter into a
complicated, dangerous love affair that they both internally believe can only end in disaster.
OBrien, an Inner Party member to whom Winston has been vaguely drawn, provides a ray of
hope when the lovers become convinced that he is a secret member of the Brotherhood, the
revolutionary group committed to the overthrow of Ingsoc and Big Brother. OBrien
naturally, one is almost tempted to sayturns out to be a double agent, and the last part of the
novel depicts in graphic detail Winstons torture and conversion by OBrien into an
unconditional acceptance of the power of the party and Big Brother. To accomplish this
acceptance, Winston must master the mental skill of doublethink, a form of reality control
involving the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in ones mind simultaneously, and
accepting both of them. To some critics, the descriptions and explanations in this section of
the novel are the books weakest parts. This ordeal culminates in Winstons betrayal of his
love for Julia. A broken man, Winston is set free to spend his last days in a semi-alcoholic
stupor, mindlessly cheering on huge mythical victories by the forces of Oceania as he awaits
the inevitable bullet in the back of the head. Nineteen Eighty-Four ends with the chilling
and inescapablesentence He loved Big Brother.

1984 Background
1984 is George Orwells most famous and enduring work, with the possible exception of his
political fable Animal Farm. The novel has been translated into more than 60 languages,
condensed in the Readers Digest, made into two movies, and presented on television.
The widespread impact of 1984 is evidenced by the changes in language that it effected.
Today, the word Orwellian refers to any regimented and dehumanized society. Words like
Newspeak, unperson, doublethink, and thoughtcrime have become part of the
English language. And the familiar phrase Big Brother Is Watching You has become
synonymous with the concept of a totalitarian state.
1984s influence on other twentieth-century works has been considerable: Ray
Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 (1954) shares the theme of repression and the destruction of a
culture (in this case, books), and Anthony Burgesss A Clockwork Orange (1962) shares a
British setting as well as an invented language, much like the Newspeak of Oceania.
Orwell thought of writing 1984 as early as 1940, during World War II but he did not complete
it until 1948 when the Cold War was beginning. The anti-Fascist writing of the 1930s and
1940s had a profound influence on Orwell, and is reflected in his writing.
Moreover, events in Communist Russia also impacted the plot and theme of 1984. From 1922
when Lenin suffered a stroke until 1928four years after his deaththere was a power
struggle between Leon Trotsky Minister of War, and Joseph Stalin then Secretary of the
Communist party. Stalin continued to grow even more influential as a member of the
Politbureau, a small group of party bosses where his function was to manage the day-to-day
activities of the Communist party. In 1921 Stalin became liaison between the Central Control
Commission and the Central Committee; in this capacity he could control the purges designed
to keep the party pure. He used this position to his advantage.
Stalin, along with allies Zinoviev and Kamenev, soon proved invincible as they utilized the
secret police to put down all plots against them. While resisting Trotskys urges to somewhat
democratize the party, they eliminated his followers by sending them abroad. Trotsky was
forced to resign as Minister of War. He was later expelled from the Politbureau, exiled from
Russia, and eventually assassinated by one of Stalins secret police.
From 1928 until World War II, Stalin enjoyed supreme power in Russia. Among the changes
he brought to Russian life were collective agriculture, industrialization with forced labor, and
the build-up of the authoritarian state combined with the annihilation of all political
opposition. In 1928 began the era of the Five-Year Plans, each of which set ambitious goals
for the next five years. The goals of the first Five-Year Plan were never actualized;
nevertheless, the government announced that they had been realized in 1932. Immediately,
another Five-Year Plan went into effect.
Changes were felt in Russian society as well. Freedom to choose ones job was non-existent;
those who resisted were sent to labor camps. Stalins dictatorship was complete when the vast
majority of unskilled workers became controlled by a minority of loyal skilled workers and

bureaucrats who enjoyed certain privileges restricted from the masses. Thus, the gulf between
the classes widened and a new elite was created.
To refute contradictory information, Stalin had histories rewritten to show that Lenin had
favored his accession to power. He enjoyed a certain amount of hero-worship as cities were
named in his honor.
There were critics, however, whom Stalin eliminated during the Great Purges of 1934-1938,
which destroyed all possibility of future conspiracies. By 1936, when Stalin proclaimed the
constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) the most democratic in the
world, this was hardly an accurate description.
Under Stalins dictatorship, the USSR had become a one-party state where elections were a
mockery. Although all were eligible to belong to the Communist party, membership was, in
fact, a privilege. The party was built upon a pyramidical structure with power and privilege
for an elite few. At each level of the pyramid existed organizations to generate propaganda,
train military personnel, and educate bureaucrats. All of these activities were designed to
increase party loyalty and strength. Stalin remained a dictator through World War II until his
death in 1953. Some elements in the plot of 1984 parallel this history.
Five books, in particular, seem to have had a direct impact on the creation of 1984. Fyodor
Zamyatins We (1923), reviewed by Orwell in 1946, provided the idea for a futuristic, antiUtopian frame for the novel. There are several resemblances between the works, both of
which are also derived from H. G. Wells anti-Utopian satire When the Sleeper Walks (1899).
Likewise, Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), to which 1984 is frequently compared,
is set in the future and deals with a regimented society. From Arthur Koestlers Darkness at
Noon (1941), Orwell took ideas about the atmosphere of a totalitarian society. This
concentration camp literature details the struggle of its main character to maintain his
individuality after his arrest and torture. James Burnhams The Managerial Revolution (1941)
gave Orwell the idea for a world controlled by superstates. These powers became the Oceania,
Eurasia, and Eastasia of 1984.
The novels bleak ending prompted readers and critics to take it as an attack on socialism in
general and Communist Russia in particular and a prophesy of what would happen in the West
should communism spread. Orwell was asked if his book should be interpreted as prophesy.
He answered this question in a letter of June 1949:
I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily WILL, but I believe (allowing
of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling 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. (1)
In 1949, some readers were also concerned that Orwell had set the novel in Britain. Orwell
replied, The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the Englishspeaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not
FOUGHT against, could triumph anywhere. (2)
Opinions among critics have not been entirely favorable. Some point to the novels
overwhelming pessimism and its denouement as flawed, claiming the novel obviously is a

reflection of Orwells last illness. Others believe that it should be judged as a period piece
bearing little relevance to todays world. After all, there was no special significance to the
title. Orwell simply transposed the last two numbers of the year in which he finished the book.
Thus, it can be seen that a number of factors influenced the creation of 1984, including
literary sources and historical events. In order to understand the full impact of this novel, the
student needs to be familiar with these influences.

1984 The Principles of Newspeak

Summary
This section defines Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, and sets forth its purpose: to
meet the specific needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism while making all other methods of
thought impossible. When Oldspeak has become obsolete, the last link with the past will have
been destroyed.
The vocabulary of Newspeak has been built by inventing new words, eliminating old words,
and stripping existing words of their finer shades of meaning. Newspeak, based on English,
has three classes of vocabulary words:
1. A words used for everyday life; reserved for simple thoughts, concrete objects, or
physical actions.
2. B words created for political...
(The entire section is 541 words.)

1984 The Plot (Critical Survey of Science Fiction and

Fantasy)
Winston Smith begins a diary, an act tantamount to signing his own death sentence in a
ruthlessly totalitarian state bent on eradicating individuality. He is determined to stay alive
and humanas long as he can. To do so, he must escape the all-seeing eye and all-hearing
ear of the Thought Police behind the omnipresent telescreen.
Winston and Julia, who work in the Ministry of Truth, become lovers and find an illusory
haven above Charringtons shop in the district of the proles, or masses outside the Party.
Earlier, the lovers revealed themselves to OBrien, allegedly a member of the Brotherhood
intent on toppling Big Brother. OBrien sends them the book, supposedly written by
Goldstein, Big Brothers enemy. The Thought Police smash into the lovers refuge and drag
them away to the Ministry of Love.
As he expected, Winston is maniacally tortured, but to his surprise his torturer is OBrien, a
self-styled therapist, determined to return Winston to sanity. Winston masters
doublethink, or the capacity to believe that two plus two equals five, or any other number
suggested. Confident that he has satisfied OBriens insane demands without betraying the
self that loves Julia, Winston is totally unprepared for the horror of what awaits him in Room
101. Knowing that Winston has a phobia of rats, OBrien has devised a wire mask to fit over

his head with a door his tormentors can open into a cage of starving rats. Winston in mindless
terror screams, Do it to Julia! Not me! Internally devastated by the horrible recognition of
his betrayal, Winston accepts self-annihilation as a victory over himself. The last sentence
confirms his conversion: He loved Big Brother.

1984 Places Discussed (Critical Guide to Settings

and Places in Literature)
*London
*London. Capital of a future (from the perspective of 1949, when George Orwell wrote the
book) political unit called Airstrip One in the superstate Oceania that is the setting for the
novel. Londons skyline is dominated by four government ministries, whose enormous bulk
and tasteless architecture distinguish them from the surviving historical structures surrounding
them. Residential sectors of the city segregate members of the unnamed Party from proles
(proletarians), but both Proles and Outer Party members live in crumbling tenement
buildings that are unsanitary, crowded, and poorly maintained. Police patrols are highly
visible; posters of Big Brotherthe ever-present, seemingly loving personification of the
stateare ubiquitous.
The citys squalor is symptomatic of the Ingsoc governments disdain for the welfare of its
own citizens. This is the result of a change in the fundamental principles and core values of
the society; human rights are nonexistent, and all available resources support building and
maintaining government structures that administer and preserve the collective. The life of the
individual is barren; this barrenness is suggested by lack of luxury, beauty, and privacy.
Inner Party member Winston Smith has a fascination with the past that he acts out by paying
clandestine visits to the oldest and meanest areas of the city, where the proles live and work.
Because the proles are considered by Inner Party leaders to be beneath concern, their sectors
are largely ignored by the government and have become de factomuseums of prerevolutionary
culture, customs, and mores. Only within the prole neighborhoods can Winston enjoy the
smell of real coffee, the sounds of unconstrained conversation and songs, and the sights of
uninhibited children playing and adults gathering to talkall of which reminds Winston of his
own childhood and suggest the complexity and fullness of prerevolutionary life.
Victory Mansions
Victory Mansions. Run-down London building in which Winston has a flat on the seventh
floor. The building has bad plumbing, no heat, a broken elevator, and the inescapable stench
of rancid cabbage. The one thing in the building that works flawlessly is its network of
telescreens, which broadcast ceaseless propaganda and, in turn, watch residents through
television cameras.
Charringtons shop
Charringtons shop. Cramped, dilapidated antique store in a prole sector of London that
Winston frequents. He sees the shop as a microcosmic remnant of the past, but it is, in fact, a
carefully maintained surveillance tool. Its upstairs apartment, which Winston rents for trysts

with Julia, becomes the place of their downfall. Though infested by biting bedbugs and large,
aggressive rats, the room also has a private entrance to facilitate Winston and Julias secret
meetings. There they abandon themselves to sensuality only because they think the room has
no telescreen. However, it does have a telescreen, which, ironically, is obscured by something
that would never be found in the home of a Party memberan engraving of a medieval
church. The illusion of privacy leads Winston and Julia to incriminate themselves, and
furthermore leads Winston inadvertently to betray his abject horror of rats to the Thought
Police watching him and Julia through the telescreen.
Ministry of Truth
Ministry of Truth. Government ministry building in which Winston is one of many writers
who revise historical records to match the governments constantly changing definitions of
reality. Each time Oceanias military alliances shift, history must be rewritten to show that
Oceania has always had the same allies and same enemies. Winston often rewrites the same
news stories many times, making something different happen each time, and he comes to
appreciate the power of the government precept that whoever controls the past controls the
future.
Ministry of Love
Ministry of Love. Site of Winston and Julias detention, torture, and reintegration into the
Party. One of four enormous pyramidal steel and concrete structures that dominate the
London skyline, Miniluv has no windows. Standing behind heavily guarded barricades, it is
protected by barbed wire and automatic gun pods. Inside, brilliant lights gleam on sparkling
clean white walls, which Winston comes to think of as the place where there is no darkness,
a phrase he remembers either from a prescient dream or from his confused memory. The
absence of clocks and windows creates a sense that time is suspended or has no influence, an
impression rendered more powerful by the contrast with life outside, where all activities are
maintained on a rigorous schedule. Thus Miniluv becomes a mockery of heaven, and by
extension, Winstons indoctrination and reintegration into the Party by OBrien become a
mockery of the loving inclusion into Paradise and communion with God promised by the
saints.
Golden Country
Golden Country. Place about which Winston dreams frequently. It is an abandoned pasture
that, although once hedged, is being reclaimed by nature. Winston associates it at first with
the distant past, and early in the novel, dreams of having a sexual encounter with Julia here;
after this dream, he awakens speaking the word Shakespeare. Less than a month later,
Winston and Julia have their first sexual experience in a rural spot outside London that
Winston realizes is almost identical to the place of his dreams. In the midst of his first
encounter with Julia, the Golden Country comes to represent for him an animal sensuality
unburdened by reason, the antithesis of calculation and cold restraint. Such freedom, for
Winston, is possible only in a place largely untainted not just by Ingsoc, but also by the
political and philosophical milieu from which it has arisen. The disappearing traces of human
domination and the return of the pasture to an idyllic state suggest perhaps not just a yearning
for the past, but also a hope for the future. Nevertheless, it is a hope so wild that Winston can
hardly allow himself to indulge it except in dream.

Chestnut Tree Caf

Chestnut Tree Caf. Sidewalk coffeehouse associated with Party members who have been
reintegrated and subsequently targeted for vaporization. Early in the novel, Winston destroys
an exculpatory newspaper photograph of three enemies of Big Brother whom he later sees at
the caf, before their disappearances but after their much-publicized but false confessions. A
year later, in the novels final episode, Winston himself, now a doomed outcast, again sits at
the caf, drinking sweetened clove-flavored gin, the caf specialty, and solving newspaper
chess problems. As the telescreen announces a military victory for Oceanias armies, Winston,
who throughout the novel has reacted to such questionable government claims with cynical
skepticism, can no longer resist proclaiming his joy and his love for Big Brother.
Oceania
Oceania. One of three superstates that cover most of the globe. The superstates are
conglomerates of nations and regions that first formed alliances then annealed into new
entities under the pressures of revolution. The three states are engaged in a constant state of
war and shifting alliances, on which Ingsoc broadcasts interminable news bulletins through
the telescreens. Oceania itself comprises the lands of the Western Hemisphere, Australia and
its surrounding islands, the British Islands, and part of Southern Africa. The easternmost
province of Oceania is Airstrip One, which corresponds to what had once been the United
Kingdom.
Eastasia
Eastasia. Superstate that comprises China, Southeast Asia, Japan and its surrounding islands,
and varying portions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
Eurasia
Eurasia. Superstate that comprises most of Europe and northern Asia, from Portugal to eastern
Siberia. When the novel opens, Oceania is at war with Eurasia; when it ends, Eurasia is
Oceanias ally.

Form and Content (Survey of Young Adult Fiction)

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwells unswervingly grim vision of a dystopian future. The
author always intended it as more warning than prophecy, so that even though its title date has
passed, its lessons about the dangers of conformity, mental coercion, and verbal deception
retain their validity and relevance. Orwells careful use of clear, understandable language
makes the unfamiliar world ofNineteen Eighty-Four comprehensible to every level of reader,
and his theme of personal individuality and human emotion, particularly love, trying to
establish themselves in spite of the relentless pressure of the modern industrial state has
perennial appeal to young adult audiences.
The novel depicts a world divided into three totalitarian superpowers that are constantly at
war with one another: Oceania, dominated by the former United States; Eurasia, dominated by
Western Europe; and Eastasia, dominated by China and Japan. Since the novel belongs to the
genre of the dystopia, a negative Utopia, much of its content is necessarily involved in

describing Oceanian societynot only in the features of its everyday life, much of which
reflects British life in 1948 (a year whose inverted numbers may have suggested the novels
title), but also in detailed explanations of the historical origins of Ingsoc and Oceania, as well
as its official language, Newspeak. Orwell, rather clumsily in the view of some critics, gives
much of this information in the form of a book-within-a-book, the supposed handbook of the
revolutionaries, and an appendix to the novel itself about Newspeak.
Not until the second main part of the novel does the story really begin. Winston Smith is a
writer for the ironically named Ministry of Truth, whose chief job is to assist in the constant
rewriting of history so that it conforms with the predictions and pronouncements of Big
Brother, the possibly mythical ruler of Oceania, whose minions in the Inner Party are
nevertheless omnipotent and omniscient. Winston, who was born in 1945 and thus was named
after Britains wartime leader Winston Churchill, vaguely remembers life before the
revolution and the establishment of Ingsoc, and he gradually comes to believe that life was
not always as dreary, mechanical, and deadening as it now is in Oceania, although he has no
means of proving it. Another worker in the Ministry of Truth, Julia, a young woman whom
Winston suspects of spying on him, turns out to be attracted to him, and they enter into a
complicated, dangerous love affair that they both internally believe can only end in disaster.
OBrien, an Inner Party member to whom Winston has been vaguely drawn, provides a ray of
hope when the lovers become convinced that he is a secret member of the Brotherhood, the
revolutionary group committed to the overthrow of Ingsoc and Big Brother. OBrien
naturally, one is almost tempted to sayturns out to be a double agent, and the last part of the
novel depicts in graphic detail Winstons torture and conversion by OBrien into an
unconditional acceptance of the power of the party and Big Brother. To accomplish this
acceptance, Winston must master the mental skill of doublethink, a form of reality control
involving the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in ones mind simultaneously, and
accepting both of them. To some critics, the descriptions and explanations in this section of
the novel are the books weakest parts. This ordeal culminates in Winstons betrayal of his
love for Julia. A broken man, Winston is set free to spend his last days in a semi-alcoholic
stupor, mindlessly cheering on huge mythical victories by the forces of Oceania as he awaits
the inevitable bullet in the back of the head. Nineteen Eighty-Four ends with the chilling

1984 Background
1984 is George Orwells most famous and enduring work, with the possible exception of his
political fable Animal Farm. The novel has been translated into more than 60 languages,
condensed in the Readers Digest, made into two movies, and presented on television.
The widespread impact of 1984 is evidenced by the changes in language that it effected.
Today, the word Orwellian refers to any regimented and dehumanized society. Words like
Newspeak, unperson, doublethink, and thoughtcrime have become part of the
English language. And the familiar phrase Big Brother Is Watching You has become
synonymous with the concept of a totalitarian state.
1984s influence on other twentieth-century works has been considerable: Ray
Bradburys Fahrenheit 451 (1954) shares the theme of repression and the destruction of a
culture (in this case, books), and Anthony Burgesss A Clockwork Orange (1962) shares a
British setting as well as an invented language, much like the Newspeak of Oceania.

Orwell thought of writing 1984 as early as 1940, during World War II but he did not complete
it until 1948 when the Cold War was beginning. The anti-Fascist writing of the 1930s and
1940s had a profound influence on Orwell, and is reflected in his writing.
Moreover, events in Communist Russia also impacted the plot and theme of 1984. From 1922
when Lenin suffered a stroke until 1928four years after his deaththere was a power
struggle between Leon Trotsky Minister of War, and Joseph Stalin then Secretary of the
Communist party. Stalin continued to grow even more influential as a member of the
Politbureau, a small group of party bosses where his function was to manage the day-to-day
activities of the Communist party. In 1921 Stalin became liaison between the Central Control
Commission and the Central Committee; in this capacity he could control the purges designed
to keep the party pure. He used this position to his advantage.
Stalin, along with allies Zinoviev and Kamenev, soon proved invincible as they utilized the
secret police to put down all plots against them. While resisting Trotskys urges to somewhat
democratize the party, they eliminated his followers by sending them abroad. Trotsky was
forced to resign as Minister of War. He was later expelled from the Politbureau, exiled from
Russia, and eventually assassinated by one of Stalins secret police.
From 1928 until World War II, Stalin enjoyed supreme power in Russia. Among the changes
he brought to Russian life were collective agriculture, industrialization with forced labor, and
the build-up of the authoritarian state combined with the annihilation of all political
opposition. In 1928 began the era of the Five-Year Plans, each of which set ambitious goals
for the next five years. The goals of the first Five-Year Plan were never actualized;
nevertheless, the government announced that they had been realized in 1932. Immediately,
another Five-Year Plan went into effect.
Changes were felt in Russian society as well. Freedom to choose ones job was non-existent;
those who resisted were sent to labor camps. Stalins dictatorship was complete when the vast
majority of unskilled workers became controlled by a minority of loyal skilled workers and
bureaucrats who enjoyed certain privileges restricted from the masses. Thus, the gulf between
the classes widened and a new elite was created.
To refute contradictory information, Stalin had histories rewritten to show that Lenin had
favored his accession to power. He enjoyed a certain amount of hero-worship as cities were
named in his honor.
There were critics, however, whom Stalin eliminated during the Great Purges of 1934-1938,
which destroyed all possibility of future conspiracies. By 1936, when Stalin proclaimed the
constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) the most democratic in the
world, this was hardly an accurate description.
Under Stalins dictatorship, the USSR had become a one-party state where elections were a
mockery. Although all were eligible to belong to the Communist party, membership was, in
fact, a privilege. The party was built upon a pyramidical structure with power and privilege
for an elite few. At each level of the pyramid existed organizations to generate propaganda,
train military personnel, and educate bureaucrats. All of these activities were designed to
increase party loyalty and strength. Stalin remained a dictator through World War II until his
death in 1953. Some elements in the plot of 1984 parallel this history.

Five books, in particular, seem to have had a direct impact on the creation of 1984. Fyodor
Zamyatins We (1923), reviewed by Orwell in 1946, provided the idea for a futuristic, antiUtopian frame for the novel. There are several resemblances between the works, both of
which are also derived from H. G. Wells anti-Utopian satire When the Sleeper Walks (1899).
Likewise, Aldous Huxleys Brave New World (1932), to which 1984 is frequently compared,
is set in the future and deals with a regimented society. From Arthur Koestlers Darkness at
Noon (1941), Orwell took ideas about the atmosphere of a totalitarian society. This
concentration camp literature details the struggle of its main character to maintain his
individuality after his arrest and torture. James Burnhams The Managerial Revolution (1941)
gave Orwell the idea for a world controlled by superstates. These powers became the Oceania,
Eurasia, and Eastasia of 1984.
The novels bleak ending prompted readers and critics to take it as an attack on socialism in
general and Communist Russia in particular and a prophesy of what would happen in the West
should communism spread. Orwell was asked if his book should be interpreted as prophesy.
He answered this question in a letter of June 1949:
I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily WILL, but I believe (allowing
of course for the fact that the book is a satire) that something resembling 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. (1)
In 1949, some readers were also concerned that Orwell had set the novel in Britain. Orwell
replied, The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the Englishspeaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not
FOUGHT against, could triumph anywhere. (2)
Opinions among critics have not been entirely favorable. Some point to the novels
overwhelming pessimism and its denouement as flawed, claiming the novel obviously is a
reflection of Orwells last illness. Others believe that it should be judged as a period piece
bearing little relevance to todays world. After all, there was no special significance to the
title. Orwell simply transposed the last two numbers of the year in which he finished the book.
Thus, it can be seen that a number of factors influenced the creation of 1984, including
literary sources and historical events. In order to understand the full impact of this novel, the
student needs to be familiar with these influences.

1984 The Principles of Newspeak

Summary
This section defines Newspeak, the official language of Oceania, and sets forth its purpose: to
meet the specific needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism while making all other methods of
thought impossible. When Oldspeak has become obsolete, the last link with the past will have
been destroyed.
The vocabulary of Newspeak has been built by inventing new words, eliminating old words,
and stripping existing words of their finer shades of meaning. Newspeak, based on English,
has three classes of vocabulary words:

1. A words used for everyday life; reserved for simple thoughts, concrete objects, or
physical actions.
2. B words created for political...
Winston Smith begins a diary, an act tantamount to signing his own death sentence in a
ruthlessly totalitarian state bent on eradicating individuality. He is determined to stay alive
and humanas long as he can. To do so, he must escape the all-seeing eye and all-hearing
ear of the Thought Police behind the omnipresent telescreen.
Winston and Julia, who work in the Ministry of Truth, become lovers and find an illusory
haven above Charringtons shop in the district of the proles, or masses outside the Party.
Earlier, the lovers revealed themselves to OBrien, allegedly a member of the Brotherhood
intent on toppling Big Brother. OBrien sends them the book, supposedly written by
Goldstein, Big Brothers enemy. The Thought Police smash into the lovers refuge and drag
them away to the Ministry of Love.
As he expected, Winston is maniacally tortured, but to his surprise his torturer is OBrien, a
self-styled therapist, determined to return Winston to sanity. Winston masters
doublethink, or the capacity to believe that two plus two equals five, or any other number
suggested. Confident that he has satisfied OBriens insane demands without betraying the
self that loves Julia, Winston is totally unprepared for the horror of what awaits him in Room
101. Knowing that Winston has a phobia of rats, OBrien has devised a wire mask to fit over
his head with a door his tormentors can open into a cage of starving rats. Winston in mindless
terror screams, Do it to Julia! Not me! Internally devastated by the horrible recognition of
his betrayal, Winston accepts self-annihilation as a victory over himself. The last sentence
confirms his conversion: He loved Big Brother.

1984 Places Discussed (Critical Guide to Settings

and Places in Literature)
*London
*London. Capital of a future (from the perspective of 1949, when George Orwell wrote the
book) political unit called Airstrip One in the superstate Oceania that is the setting for the
novel. Londons skyline is dominated by four government ministries, whose enormous bulk
and tasteless architecture distinguish them from the surviving historical structures surrounding
them. Residential sectors of the city segregate members of the unnamed Party from proles
(proletarians), but both Proles and Outer Party members live in crumbling tenement
buildings that are unsanitary, crowded, and poorly maintained. Police patrols are highly
visible; posters of Big Brotherthe ever-present, seemingly loving personification of the
stateare ubiquitous.
The citys squalor is symptomatic of the Ingsoc governments disdain for the welfare of its
own citizens. This is the result of a change in the fundamental principles and core values of
the society; human rights are nonexistent, and all available resources support building and
maintaining government structures that administer and preserve the collective. The life of the
individual is barren; this barrenness is suggested by lack of luxury, beauty, and privacy.

Inner Party member Winston Smith has a fascination with the past that he acts out by paying
clandestine visits to the oldest and meanest areas of the city, where the proles live and work.
Because the proles are considered by Inner Party leaders to be beneath concern, their sectors
are largely ignored by the government and have become de factomuseums of prerevolutionary
culture, customs, and mores. Only within the prole neighborhoods can Winston enjoy the
smell of real coffee, the sounds of unconstrained conversation and songs, and the sights of
uninhibited children playing and adults gathering to talkall of which reminds Winston of his
own childhood and suggest the complexity and fullness of prerevolutionary life.
Victory Mansions
Victory Mansions. Run-down London building in which Winston has a flat on the seventh
floor. The building has bad plumbing, no heat, a broken elevator, and the inescapable stench
of rancid cabbage. The one thing in the building that works flawlessly is its network of
telescreens, which broadcast ceaseless propaganda and, in turn, watch residents through
television cameras.
Charringtons shop
Charringtons shop. Cramped, dilapidated antique store in a prole sector of London that
Winston frequents. He sees the shop as a microcosmic remnant of the past, but it is, in fact, a
carefully maintained surveillance tool. Its upstairs apartment, which Winston rents for trysts
with Julia, becomes the place of their downfall. Though infested by biting bedbugs and large,
aggressive rats, the room also has a private entrance to facilitate Winston and Julias secret
meetings. There they abandon themselves to sensuality only because they think the room has
no telescreen. However, it does have a telescreen, which, ironically, is obscured by something
that would never be found in the home of a Party memberan engraving of a medieval
church. The illusion of privacy leads Winston and Julia to incriminate themselves, and
furthermore leads Winston inadvertently to betray his abject horror of rats to the Thought
Police watching him and Julia through the telescreen.
Ministry of Truth
Ministry of Truth. Government ministry building in which Winston is one of many writers
who revise historical records to match the governments constantly changing definitions of
reality. Each time Oceanias military alliances shift, history must be rewritten to show that
Oceania has always had the same allies and same enemies. Winston often rewrites the same
news stories many times, making something different happen each time, and he comes to
appreciate the power of the government precept that whoever controls the past controls the
future.
Ministry of Love
Ministry of Love. Site of Winston and Julias detention, torture, and reintegration into the
Party. One of four enormous pyramidal steel and concrete structures that dominate the
London skyline, Miniluv has no windows. Standing behind heavily guarded barricades, it is
protected by barbed wire and automatic gun pods. Inside, brilliant lights gleam on sparkling
clean white walls, which Winston comes to think of as the place where there is no darkness,
a phrase he remembers either from a prescient dream or from his confused memory. The

absence of clocks and windows creates a sense that time is suspended or has no influence, an
impression rendered more powerful by the contrast with life outside, where all activities are
maintained on a rigorous schedule. Thus Miniluv becomes a mockery of heaven, and by
extension, Winstons indoctrination and reintegration into the Party by OBrien become a
mockery of the loving inclusion into Paradise and communion with God promised by the
saints.
Golden Country
Golden Country. Place about which Winston dreams frequently. It is an abandoned pasture
that, although once hedged, is being reclaimed by nature. Winston associates it at first with
the distant past, and early in the novel, dreams of having a sexual encounter with Julia here;
after this dream, he awakens speaking the word Shakespeare. Less than a month later,
Winston and Julia have their first sexual experience in a rural spot outside London that
Winston realizes is almost identical to the place of his dreams. In the midst of his first
encounter with Julia, the Golden Country comes to represent for him an animal sensuality
unburdened by reason, the antithesis of calculation and cold restraint. Such freedom, for
Winston, is possible only in a place largely untainted not just by Ingsoc, but also by the
political and philosophical milieu from which it has arisen. The disappearing traces of human
domination and the return of the pasture to an idyllic state suggest perhaps not just a yearning
for the past, but also a hope for the future. Nevertheless, it is a hope so wild that Winston can
hardly allow himself to indulge it except in dream.
Chestnut Tree Caf
Chestnut Tree Caf. Sidewalk coffeehouse associated with Party members who have been
reintegrated and subsequently targeted for vaporization. Early in the novel, Winston destroys
an exculpatory newspaper photograph of three enemies of Big Brother whom he later sees at
the caf, before their disappearances but after their much-publicized but false confessions. A
year later, in the novels final episode, Winston himself, now a doomed outcast, again sits at
the caf, drinking sweetened clove-flavored gin, the caf specialty, and solving newspaper
chess problems. As the telescreen announces a military victory for Oceanias armies, Winston,
who throughout the novel has reacted to such questionable government claims with cynical
skepticism, can no longer resist proclaiming his joy and his love for Big Brother.
Oceania
Oceania. One of three superstates that cover most of the globe. The superstates are
conglomerates of nations and regions that first formed alliances then annealed into new
entities under the pressures of revolution. The three states are engaged in a constant state of
war and shifting alliances, on which Ingsoc broadcasts interminable news bulletins through
the telescreens. Oceania itself comprises the lands of the Western Hemisphere, Australia and
its surrounding islands, the British Islands, and part of Southern Africa. The easternmost
province of Oceania is Airstrip One, which corresponds to what had once been the United
Kingdom.

Eastasia
Eastasia. Superstate that comprises China, Southeast Asia, Japan and its surrounding islands,
and varying portions of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.
Eurasia
Eurasia. Superstate that comprises most of Europe and northern Asia, from Portugal to eastern
Siberia. When the novel opens, Oceania is at war with Eurasia; when it ends, Eurasia is
Oceanias ally.

1984 Historical Context

Totalitarianism
In 1948, when Orwells 1984 was published World War II had just ended. One of Englands...

1984 Literary Style

Point-of-View
Orwells 1984 is told in the third person, but the point of view is clearly Winston Smiths....

1984 Literary Techniques

Orwell arranged Nineteen Eighty-Fourinto three parts, devoting the first two thirds of the
novel to creating the distorted identity...

1984 Compare and Contrast

1948: West Berlin, Germany, is blockaded by the Soviets. The Americans begin an airlift to
help the stranded Berliners....

1984 Topics for Further Study

Explain how history is distorted and hidden from the citizens of Oceania. What is the result?
Discuss how Newspeak works...

1984 Literary Precedents

Written in the tradition of the Utopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps best defined as
dystopia, literally the antithesis of...