Ihave, I’m afraid, a terrible confession to make: I have never been a huge fan of George Orwell’s “1984.” It always seemed, in its extrapolations from present to future, too pat, a little lacking in the imaginative extrapolations we want from dystopian literature.

Seventy years ago, Eric Blair, writing under a pseudonym George Orwell, published “1984,” now generally considered a classic of dystopian fiction.

George Orwell’s 1984 is the expression of a mood, and it is a warning.
The mood it expresses is that of near despair about the future of man,
and the warning is that unless the course of history changes, men
all over the world will lose their most human qualities, will become
soulless automatons, and will not even be aware of it.
(Erich Fromm, Afterword to George Orwell’s 1984, 313)

Newspeak: the Epitome of Parody Techniques in "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

Dissent, Assent and the body in 1984

In this part of our blog we are going to closely analyse intertextual examples from two of the prescribed HSC texts in Module A: George Orwell’s 1984 and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

In the seven decades since its publication, 1984 has never been out of print.
It shot back to the top of the New York Times bestseller list in the three months following Donald Trump's election.

1984 is a dystopian novella by George Orwell published in 1949, which follows the life of Winston Smith, a low ranking member of ‘the Party’, who is frustrated by the omnipresent eyes of the party, and its ominous ruler Big Brother.

The dystopia described in George Orwell’s nearly 70-year-old novel “1984” suddenly feels all too familiar. A world in which Big Brother (or maybe the National Security Agency) is always listening in, and high-tech devices can eavesdrop in people’s homes.

No novel of the past century has had more influence than George Orwell’s 1984. The title, the adjectival form of the author’s last name, the vocabulary of the all-powerful Party that rules the superstate Oceania with the ideology of Ingsoc—doublethink, memory hole, unperson, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Thought Police, Room 101, Big Brother—they’ve all entered the English language as instantly recognizable signs of a nightmare future.

Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother.

The book is set in 1984 in Oceania, one of three perpetually warring totalitarian states (the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia). Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into unthinking obedience to its leader, Big Brother.

Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful Big Brother.

Eric Blair was born and spent his youth in India. He was educated at Eton in England. From 1922-27 he served in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.

Dissatisfied with his life, Winston reasons that it is the Party’s fault. He starts to seek out ways to rebel against the Party, first by starting a journal, then by starting an affair with Julia.
Something big is missing in Winston Smith’s life; he sets out to find fulfillment by engaging in rebellious acts.