'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell : Brief Overview & Discussion.

“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

"Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past."

Introduction : This blog is written as a response to the Thinking Activity assigned by my professor Dr Dilip Barad Sir regarding George Orwell's magnum opus 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' novel. In this blog, I will be discussing a few questions related to the themes, main concepts, and the impact upon knowledge area of students after studying the novel in detail.

Introduction to 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' Novel : 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' most famously known as '1984' is a scientific futiristic fiction and dystopic novel originally published in 1949 and written by prominent figure amongst Modernist English authors, Eric Arthur Blair famously known by his pen name as George Orwell. The title is curious because Orwell thought to keep '1948' as the title of the novel, but he could not manage to publish it in 1948 but into a following year, so he put '4' in place of '8' and so did vice-versa. This novel has been hold up for the date of its publication and remains most celebrated text in the history of English Literature. It contains elements like dystopic society, totalitarianism and its corollary horrors, rule of one idea and due to which the people of the nation have to be the part of despeakable plight, the manipulative and deceptive use of language, distortion of history for the benefit of ruling party, socialism, ignorance of the majority of mass, passivity of the learned ones, and struggle of the opposing party who functions against the injustice of the ruling party - see the novel a fictional world fraught with the abhorrent realities of the modern world of today - are some of the chief characteristics of the novel 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.' On 24th March, 2022, we had movie-screening of the movie '1984' directed by Michael Radford which was released in the titular year of the novel, i.e., in 1984.

1 : What is a dystopian fiction? Is '1984' a dystopian fiction?

Answer : We can refer to the various dictional meanings in order to understand the word 'Dystopic Fiction' as follow : 

› Glossary of Literary Terms : 'The term dystopia (“bad place”) has come to beapplied to works of fiction, including science fiction, that represent a veryunpleasant imaginary world in which ominous tendencies of our presentsocial, political, and technological order are projected into a disastrous futureculmination. Examples are Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986). Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), set in a bleak, post-nuclear landscape, represents a dystopian extreme.' 

› Merriem-Webster Dictionary : 'an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives' 

The term ‘utopia’, literally meaning ‘no place’, was coined by Thomas More in his book of the same title. Utopia (1516) describes a fictional island in the Atlantic ocean and is a satire on the state of England. The English philosopher John Stuart Mill coined ‘Dystopia’, meaning ‘bad place’, in 1868 as he was denouncing the government’s Irish land policy. He was inspired by More’s writing on utopia. 

Now we can justify the fact of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' being a dystopian fiction. To further defend its dytopic characteristics, we can take help of the original text : 

For the very first dystopic vision concerning political propagandas is seen in the first chapter when the Hate Week is rather imposed upon the progeny of the Ingsoc state :

'Winston made for the stairs. It was
no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was sel-dom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.'

In further course of the same chapter, we find deceptive use of language to bewilder the mass into submission under the rule of The Party : 

'Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH'

So, we can find a similarity with the first slogan that is 'War Is Peace' with the Gujarati poem 'Parthane Kaho Chadhave Baan' (Ask Partha to Bow the Arrow) by Gujarati poet Kavi Nanhalal Dalpatram concerning the Mahabharata epic and its dynastic war between two cousin races - Kauravas and Pandavas : 

'પાર્થને કહો ચડાવે બાણ

હવે તો યુદ્ધ એ જ કલ્યાણ

કહો કુંતાની છે એ આણ

પાર્થને કહો ચડાવે બાણ' 

English translation in my words : 

'Ask Partha to bow the arrow,

Now the war is only prosperity,

Tell that it is Kunti's vow,

Ask Partha to bow the arrow.' 

But, nowadays we find that people using the only phrase 'યુદ્ધ એ જ કલ્યાણ' as alike The Party's slogan 'War Is Peace' using the lines out of context and making war once and for all ultimate and prior solution to any problem in the day-to-day life, which is terrible thing to use the language in a such way which does nothing but harm and leads to the mass-massacre eventually.

2 : What according to you is the central theme of this novel? 

Answer : Well, if one goes through the novel, one can find several themes like abandonment, alienation, passivity to the government, nervous psychic breakdowns of the characters, subtle air of despotic rule, poverty, mass-ignorance, deceptive use of language, distortion of historical texts, and so on giving tinge of a totalitarian dystopian world.

But, if I am to assert the central them of the novel, I would consider 'Oligarchic Autocracy' as the central theme of the novel, for the whole plot-story circles around the theme asserted as well as the physical and mental condition of the characters find its root into the totalitarian rule of The Party of Big Brother - an autocrat politicians who is never ever seen, but always mentioned with reverence by the people who support his idea of ruling the state, instead of serving the state. The death of individual freedom and the subjugation of the subjects by tyrranical punishment in 'Room 101' are all the direct suggestive milestones of the autocratic rule in the name of democracy over any given state. Even children were not left to be embroiled in the service of The Party, they were taught to be the spy of their home and surroundings in the Ingsoc state ruled over by Big Brother in the name of Democracy.

3 : What do you understand by the term 'Orwellian'?

Answer : The term 'Orwellian' is named after George Orwell and his way of writing novels which depicted the subtle political concerns, the relationship between state and people, political parties and voters, how the use of language shapes our opinions and way of thinking, totalitarianism, seizing the freedom of speech and action of the people, tyrannical imposition of love for the leader ruling the state, and whatnot! People will be apprehended solely on the grounds of having protesting thoughts against established rules by The Party, which Orwell writes in the novel as 'Thoughtcrime.'

I have come across an informative video which may help further to understand the term 'Orwellian' :

4 : Write in brief about 'Newspeak' - and refer to Orwell & Pinter's essays.

Answer : The basic concept of the term 'Newspeak' refers to the dictionary which is prepared by the 'Ministry of Truth' which is in fact the 'Ministry of Propaganda.' The aim to compose the dictionary was to eradicate certain words which can taken into account for criticism of The Party and its subjugative policies, so that no one can find expression for the feelings aroused by constant oppression laid by The Party.

Now let us glance at what the novel has to say about 'Newspeak.' In the first chapter it occurs as follow : 

'The Ministry of Truth—Minitrue, in Newspeak [Newspeak was the official language of Oceania. For an account of its structure and etymology see Appendix.]—was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH'

Next comes the part of the striking essays ever written in the historical sea of English literature. One is 'Politics and the English Language' written by Geroge Orwell in April, 1946 and another is 'Art, Truth and Politics' which is the Nobel Lecture delivered on video by the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature Harold Pinter (1930–2008), who was at the time hospitalised and unable to travel to Stockholm to deliver it in person. A privately printed limited edition, 'Art, Truth and Politics: The Nobel Lecture' was published by Faber and Faber on 16 March 2006. 

So, let us have some excerpts from both essays concerning the English language and its relation to politics and authorship : 

> 'Politics and the English Language' :

'Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.'

> 'Art, Truth & Politics' :

'So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.'

'Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.'

So, we found in both the references that there seems a quest of truth sought by both the brances of different disciplines : Art and Politics. But time and again we find the endorsement of 'Poetical Truth' even though be it illusive lie at all, rather than the 'Political Truth' which - from the surface - seems promising and quite nearer to the real things being mentioned, but is not so.

Thank you!