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A Soviet poster depicts Stalin as the
revered leader. Orwell’s dystopia was
shaped by his experience in Spain,
where the Stalinist faction was
ruthless in its pursuit of total control.The Brotherhood. Goldstein is a
despised figure (like Leon Trotsky
was in Stalin’s USSR—the two
even have the same goatee beards),
who is used to unite the citizenship
of Oceania via the daily ritual act of
“Two Minutes Hate,” during which
abuse is flung at Goldstein’s image
on the telescreens.
In a secondhand bookstore,
Smith opens a text “with no name
or title on the cover.” The book
is The Theory and Practice of
Oligarchical Collectivism by
Emmanuel Goldstein. Orwell
inserts full pages from this book
into the text of Nineteen Eighty-
Four to draw the reader closer
to the rebel protagonist and to
reveal the political philosophies
and social theories that have led
to the present. This book within
a book thus serves as a device
to fill in some of the background,
explaining the establishment of
Oceania and the other superstates,
Eurasia and Eastasia, in the global
reorganization following World War
II, and to expose the truth that eachsuperstate has a similar ideological
construct based on keeping their
population compliant.
The persuasiveness of the
passages from Goldstein’s book
reveal the seductive power of words
and language. One of Nineteen
Eighty-Four’s greatest legacies is
the plethora of words and phrases
that have seeped from “Newspeak”
into English. Big Brother, sex crime,
thoughtcrime, and Room 101 are
just a handful of the most common
linguistic creations found in
Orwell’s work.Mastering manipulation
The ways in which the state can
manipulate and control its citizens
are key themes of Nineteen Eighty-
Four. In a totalitarian system,
individual choices and lifestyles
largely become the dictates of an
overarching body of governance.
Oceania’s ruling organization
shows that it is determined to
maintain its grip on power by
weakening personal relationships
and eradicating trust and mutuality.
Orwell traces the psychological
and physical methods by which
the state can coerce, either covertlyPOSTWAR WRITING
or overtly, and try to crush human
feelings and break a person’s spirit.
As Julia remarks: “Everybody
always confesses. You can’t help it.”
The experience of Winston Smith
reveals how the state apparatus
acts on a single, human individual,
making the reader not only feel his
pain but also his burning desire to
fight back against the machine in
whatever ways he can.A modern message
Initial critical reception of Nineteen
Eighty-Four was extremely positive,
referencing the originality of the
bleak vision. Since then, the text
has reached across the globe, been
translated into some 65 languages,
and found new audiences in a
major movie version directed by
Michael Radford and released
in 1984, with John Hurt playing
Winston Smith.
The central concern at the
heart of the dystopia depicted
in Nineteen Eighty-Four is the
danger of allowing those who
rule us to gain too much control.
In a globalized modern era of mass
surveillance, Orwell’s warning
resonates more than ever. ■You want it to happen to the
other person. You don’t give
a damn what they suffer.
All you care about is yourself.
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