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The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is an American classic which exp

lores the human mind when it comes to power, corruption, control, and the ultima
te utopian society. Orwell indirectly proposes that power given to the governme
nt will ultimately become corrupt and they will attempt to force all to conform
to their one set standard. He also sets forth the idea that the corrupted gover
nment will attempt to destroy any and all mental and physical opposition to thei
r beliefs, thus eliminating any opportunity for achieving an utopian society.
The novel shows how the government attempts to control the minds and bod
ies of it citizens, such as Winston Smith who does not subscribe to their belief
s, through a variety of methods. The first obvious example arises with the larg
e posters with the caption of "Big Brother is Watching You" (page 5). These are
the first pieces of evidence that the government is watching over its people.
Shortly afterwards we learn of the "Thought Police", who "snoop in on conversati
ons, always watching your every move, controlling the minds and thoughts of the
people." (page 6). To the corrupted government, physical control is not good en
ough, however. The only way to completely eliminate physical opposition is to f
irst eliminate any mental opposition. The government is trying to control our m
inds, as it says "thought crime does not entail death; thought crime is death."
(page 27). Later in the novel the government tries even more drastic methods of
control. Big Brother's predictions in the Times are changed. The government i
s lying about production figures (pages 35-37). Even later in the novel, Syme's
name was left out on the Chess Committee list. He then essentially vanishes as
though he had never truly existed (page 122). Though the methods and activitie
s of the government seem rather extreme in Orwell's novel, they may not be entir
ely too false. "Nineteen Eighty-Four is to the disorders of the twentieth centur
y what Leviathan was to those of the seventeenth." (Crick, 1980). In the novel,
Winston Smith talks about the people not being human. He says that "the only t
hing that can keep you human is to not allow the government to get inside you."
(page 137). The corruption is not the only issue which Orwell presents, both di
rectly and indirectly. He warns that absolute power in the hands of any governm
ent can lead to the deprival of basic freedoms and liberties for the people. Th
ough he uses the Soviet Union as the basis of the novel's example, he sets the s
tory in England to show that any absolute power, whether in a Communist state or
a Democratic one, can result in an autocratic and overbearing rule. When gover
nment lies become truths, and nobody will oppose, anything can simply become a f
act. Through the control of the mind and body the government attempts, any hope
s of achieving an utopian society are dashed. The peoples' minds are essentiall
y not theirs' anymore. The government tells them how to think. Conformity and
this unilateral thinking throughout the entire population can have disastrous re
sults. Orwell also tells us it has become a "world of monstrous machines and ter
rifying weapons. Warriors fighting, triumphing, persecuting... 3 million people
all with the same face." (page 64).
George Orwell was born in India and brought up with the British upper cl
ass beliefs of superiority over the lower castes and in general class pride. A
theme very prevalent in his novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four certainly no exception,
is this separation in the classes. The masses are disregarded by the Party. T
his is a theme which is "fundamental to the novel, but not demonstrated as fully
as the devastation of language and the elimination of the past." (Kazin, 1984).
Kazin also states in his essay that:
"Orwell thought the problem of domination by class or caste or r
ace or
political machine more atrocious than ever. It demands
solution. Because
he was from the upper middle class and knew from
his own prejudices just
how unreal the lower classes can be to u
pper-class radicals, a central
theme in all his work is the sep
arateness and loneliness of the upper-class
observer, like his belov
ed Swift among the oppressed Irish."
(Kazin, 1984).

This feeling of superiority somewhat provokes and leads to the aforementioned co


rruption of absolute power. As the saying goes, "absolute power corrupts absolu
tely." It is not even so much that the rulers want to become corrupt, but they
cannot grasp the idea of an absolute rule. They, as Kazin stated, cannot compre
hend the differentiation within the system, and thus become corrupt. This ultim
ately prevents achieving an utopian society where the upper class people want to
oppress and the lower class want to rebel.
Orwell had strong anti-totalitarianism points of view and greatly satire
s Socialism, even though he still insisted he was a Socialist in its pure form,
in this novel and in Animal Farm. Many consider that Nineteen Eighty-Four is act
ually an extension of Animal Farm. In Animal Farm, Orwell
"left out one element which occurs in all his other works of fic
tion, the
individual rebel caught up in the machinery of t
he caste system. Not until
Nineteen Eighty-Four did he elab
orate on the rebel's role in an Animal
Farm carried to its mons
trously logical conclusion."
(Woodcock, 1966).
The two books primary connection is through the use of the totalitarian society
and the rebel, and as stated some believe Nineteen Eighty-Four to simply be an e
xtension of Animal Farm. Nineteen Eighty-Four, however, brings everything to an
even more extreme but even scarier is the fact that is more realistic, such as
in a Nazi Germany environment. Nineteen Eighty-Four is considered to have great
pessimistic undertones, Orwell's prophecy if you will. It is also not known wh
ether it was intended as a "last words", though it was his final work, as he col
lapsed and was bed-ridden for two years before he died. He did marry several mo
nths before his death saying it gave him new reason to live. Orwell's creation
of Winston Smith shows a character who is:
"in struggle against the system, occasionally against himself, b
ut rarely
against other people. One thinks of Orwell's ha
ving thrown his characters
into a circular machine and then noting
their struggle against the machine,
their attempts to escape it or c
ompromise themselves with it."
(Karl, 1972).
Orwell writes more about the struggle as a piece of advice than anything else.
This novel was widely considered prophetic, a warning of what could be to come i
f we did not take care. Orwell's method was to introduce the questions, not pro
pose solutions. Most likely he did not have the solution, but it was his "solut
ion" to help bring about the awareness of the existing problem.
The corrupt government is trying to control the minds of their subjects,
which in turn translates to control of their body. Orwell warns that absolute
power in the hands of any government can deprive people of all basic freedoms.
There are similar references in another of Orwell's novels, Animal Farm, support
ing the ideas of corruption and an unattainable utopian society which were prese
nted here in Nineteen Eighty-Four. With this novel, Orwell also introduced the
genre of the dystopic novel into the world of literature.

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