Detailed Analysis of 1984 Text – Common Module

Resource Description

WHY

This is a reflection of the composer’s context, beliefs & values. 

WHAT

What the composer chooses to represent. Process of construction – ideas/plot/events of the text. 

HOW 

The language forms and features that they choose to use in representing their ideas. Process of construction – choice of textual form, point of view, techniques, etc.  

WHY 

The audience in engaging with the text is positioned to accept a set of assumptions about the world as the composer’s agenda/perspective/values is privileged over others. 

EFFECT

Messages are conveyed at a micro (textual) level. Messages are conveyed at a macro (universal/conceptual) level. Composer successfully conveys their perspective and achieves their purpose. 

Rubric

Anomalies, Paradoxes and Inconsistencies 

The Texts and Human Experiences Module requires students to consider the ways in which “anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies” in human behavior may challenge our preconceptions as readers. Such deviations in patterns of behavior are to be considered not only among the central figures of 1984 but too the puppeteers of Orwell’s dystopian upper echelons. Must consider the ways in which “anomalies, paradoxes and inconsistencies” in human history have shaped Orwell’s construction of the hellish world that is 1984 as well as our own understanding of the text as a work of fiction, commentary and critique. 

The Role of Storytelling 

The Texts and Human Experiences Module invites students to consider “the role of storytelling” to depict particular lives and cultures, “storytelling” here, comes to stand for the deliberate compositional choices that Orwell has chosen to create the world of 1984. In considering Orwell’s construction of 1984, we are called to consider how history has been represented in fiction, and hence it is crucial to have a foundational understanding of the context in which 1984 was composed in order to understand how Orwell has reconfigured reality into artistry. 

Textual Integrity

Required to consider the ways in which multiple dimensions of 1984, namely “context, purpose, structure, stylistic and grammatical features, and form” come together to forge a work of textual integrity. Textual integrity refers to the capacity for a text to withstand time and place by its careful consideration of prose, structure, technique and exploration of universal ideas. In 1984 we are asked to consider the ways in which humans respond to oppression. 

Characters

Winston Smith

Forty-year old man who lives in Oceania in the year 1984. He has been married but the relationship failed when the couple did not produce a child. He works at the Ministry of Truth where he alters facts in documents that do not conform to the Party’s version of the truth. Winston is frustrated by his restricted life under the rule of the Party and seeks ways to rebel. 

Julia

Twenty-six-year-old woman who lives in Oceania. She works in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. She is against the Party’s doctrines and is Winston’s ally in his attempted rebellion. She is sexually active, cunning and realistic in her approach to life under the rule of the Party. 

O’Brien

Mysterious member of the Inner Party who Winston believes to be his ally. He is highly intelligent and duplicitous, revealing himself to be a zealous Party member who tortures Winston in Room 101 with the aim of making him love Big Brother. 

Big Brother

Is the god-like leader of the Party. Big Brother is considered by the people of Oceania to be omnipresent and omnipotent even though he is never seen in person. He is an enigma. 

Emmanuel Goldstein

Considered the leader of an underground rebellion called the Brotherhood. The people of Oceania believe he wrote a book about how the Party gained and maintains control called The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism and referred to as ‘the book’. He is characterised as intelligent, cunning and mysterious. Like Big Brother, he is an enigma. 

Mr Charrington

Owns the little shop in the proles district in which Winston rents a room. He turns out to be a member of the Thought Police. 

Parsons

Winston’s dim-witted neighbour who is a devotee of Big Brother and the Party. He ends up being turned in to the Thought Police by his children and his subsequently tortured in the Ministry of Love. 

Syme

Colleague of Winston’s at the Ministry of Truth. He is a specialist in Newspeak but is eventually arrested by the Thought Police. 

Ampleforth

Colleague of Winston’s at the Ministry of Truth. He is a specialist in language and a lover of literature, in particularly poetry. He ends up being tortured in the Ministry of Love. 

Context

Thematic Concerns & History 

The thematic concerns explored in 1984 owe themselves to history with Orwell managing effective insight into the historically deployed mechanisms of oppressive regimes that maintained their grip on society by vessels of propaganda, subtle behavioral controls and ultimately fear. 

1984 From The Onset of 1949

1984 was composed in 1949 after Orwell – and the global community in general – had already bore witness to the extremities of fascism and totalitarian regimes such as Hitler’s Nazi Party and Stalin’s regime in Russia. By considering these historical realities, we begin to realize the ways in which Orwell creates a dystopian society of satirical extremes in which every aspect of an individual’s life – including their thoughts – are the subject of control strategies implemented in the name of an oppressive figurehead known as Big Brother. 

Purpose

The purpose of this novel is to warn people about the dangers of totalitarianism and political authority. It communicates ideas about the capacity for individuals to submit to a tyrannical power through fear, even if that means their lives are characterised by hunger, exhaustion, distrust and a lack of individual freedom. The novel paints a confronting portrait of a dystopian world where the tyrannical ruling political party concerns itself entirely with maintaining power at the expense of the lives of the people over which it rules. 1984 also explores the importance of love, emotion and sexual desire, the human desire for the truth regardless of the cost and the relationship between language and human thought. 

Points of Consideration – Fiction & History 

Big Brother 

“Big Brother is Watching You” is a phrase that finds itself echoed throughout much of 1984 and is a phrase that has subsequently entered the lexicon of English idioms. The phrase encourages its subjugated victims to ensure that they remain oppressed. Citizens themselves live in a state of perpetual fear of being accused, falsely or otherwise, and executed. It is important to consider the ways in which oppression has been represented in 1984, and how this may guide our understanding of history as deconstructed by the mechanisms of storytelling – particularly by this use of a maxim. 

Ingsoc 

Ingsoc, the incumbent party of Oceania in the novel, comes to stand for “English Socialism”. This notion demonstrates the reality that – in Orwell’s opinion, at least – no country was immune to socialism, not even England. It is worthy to note, however, that Orwell was no critic of socialism, and believed in a form of the political ideology known as “Ethical Socialism”. The text does, however, remain fairly critical of totalitarianism, one mechanism or leadership style that was used as a vessel to enact socialism in certain states through history by repressive means. 

“Two Plus Two Equals Five”

In 1984, the political dogma that “two plus two equals five” epitomizes the unruly power of the party’s control mechanisms that they might persuade someone to believe the inherently false, in this case that two plus two does, in fact, equal to five. 

Thematic Concerns To Consider 

The Power of Language 

In studying the use of propaganda, false realities, political facades, extinguishment of masses of renegades and opposition throughout history, does 1984 come to be viewed as satire? It is crucial to