Lit Analysis: 1984

1. The story is set in the year 1984 after the global atomic war, with a protaganist named Winston Smith. He's the typical Party member, goes straight to work then back home again, day in and day out. To the Party, he's one of many. Yet inside his mind, he secretly rebels against the Party and its leader, Big Brother. It starts out with Winston writing down his thoughts, a dangerous crime already, to having an affair with a young woman named Julia, to actually joining the rumored rebel group The Brotherhood. In the end, all turns to be a lie, and the Party reveals that there is no Brotherhood, and that Winston has been under surveillance the whole time. After a long period of torture and re-learning, he is set out in the public again, back to being the Party member no one cares about. This narrative could have been written to prevent this sort of tyrannical government from coming to power, and written as a sort of possible future if this came to pass.


2. There are so many different aspects of the theme in this novel. Orwell expresses the idea of nationalism in both a positive and negative form. "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
It is prominent that the whole idea of futurology and the advancement of technology is what is so controlling and in a way that it is a factor that manipulates how the characters physically act and emotionally feel. Orwell's intention is to show the dangers brought on by this totalitarian government. They controlled the minds and the physicalities of their citizens, and left the proles to rot. By continuously participating in war, they brainwashed their citizens to hate and to rejoice in wartime victory. Also there is the control of every thing that the Party members see: newspapers, TV, books, music, all kinds of information. The government controlled the past, present, and eventually the future.

3. Foreshadowing in the book would be toward the beginning when he says that people who go into the ministry of love come out, but disappear soon afterward. It is not explained until much later why this happens, and turns out to be just about the most important part of the story. The little piece of glass that he carried around with him was an allegory for the beauty found in capitalist materialism.
There are many examples of symbols in the novel. Throughout London, Winston sees posters showing a man gazing down over the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” everywhere he goes. Big Brother is the face of the Party. The citizens are told that he is the leader of the nation and the head of the Party, but Winston can never determine whether or not he actually exists. In any case, the face of Big Brother symbolizes the Party in its public manifestation; he is a reassurance to most people (the warmth of his name suggests his ability to protect), but he is also an open threat (one cannot escape his gaze). Big Brother also symbolizes the vagueness with which the higher ranks of the Party present themselves—it is impossible to know who really rules Oceania, what life is like for the rulers, or why they act as they do. Winston thinks he remembers that Big Brother emerged around 1960, but the Party’s official records date Big Brother’s existence back to 1930, before Winston was even born. By deliberately weakening people’s memories and flooding their minds with propaganda, the Party is able to replace individuals’ memories with its own version of the truth. It becomes nearly impossible for people to question the Party’s power in the present when they accept what the Party tells them about the past—that the Party arose to protect them from bloated, oppressive capitalists, and that the world was far uglier and harsher before the Party came to power. Winston vaguely understands this principle. He struggles to recover his own memories and formulate a larger picture of what has happened to the world. Winston buys a paperweight in an antique store in the prole district that comes to symbolize his attempt to reconnect with the past. Symbolically, when the Thought Police arrest Winston at last, the paperweight shatters on the floor.The old picture of St. Clement’s Church in the room that Winston rents above Mr. Charrington’s shop is another representation of the lost past. Winston associates a song with the picture that ends with the words “Here comes the chopper to chop off your head!”This is an important foreshadow, as it is the telescreen hidden behind the picture that ultimately leads the Thought Police to Winston, symbolizing the Party’s corrupt control of the past. Throughout the novel Winston imagines meeting O’Brien in “the place where there is no darkness.” The words first come to him in a dream, and he ponders them for the rest of the novel. Eventually, Winston does meet O’Brien in the place where there is no darkness; instead of being the paradise Winston imagined, it is merely a prison cell in which the light is never turned off. The idea of “the place where there is no darkness” symbolizes Winston’s approach to the future: possibly because of his intense fatalism (he believes that he is doomed no matter what he does), he unwisely allows himself to trust O’Brien, even though inwardly he senses that O’Brien might be a Party operative.

4. Irony - ex. The names of the four ministries in relation to their jobs: Ministry of Truth covered up the past and changed it, Ministry of Love had to do with policing and torture, Ministry of Plenty worked on rationing, Ministry of Peace had to do with war affairs. Also the slogan of the Party: "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"

    Allusion - ex. the book alludes to previous totalitarian governments such as the Nazis, Mussolini, and the Soviet Union.

Foreshadowing - ex. "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Foreshadowing of something wrong, since clocks don't strike thirteen.

Motif - ex. a recurring feature would have to be the Newspeak word doublethink, which is a major part of the Party government. Newspeak itself is also a motif.

Colloquialism - ex. the dialect and accents of the proles "'Beg pardon, dearie,' she said. 'I wouldn't 'a sat on you, only the buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?' She paused, patted her breast, and belched. 'Pardon,' she said, 'I ain't meself, quite.'"

Symbolism - ex. The Chestnut Tree Cafe, The Bells of St. Clemens nursery rhyme

Juxtaposition - ex. Newspeak words such as goodsex, crimestop, bellyfeel, doublethink

Paradox - ex. Doublethink

Flashback - ex. Winston has flashbacks of his childhood and his marriage to Katherine.

Climax - ex. Winston and Julia getting caught by the Thought Police

Tragedy - In a way, 1984 does remind me of a tragedy. The ending isn't as disastrous as you'd think, but if the Winston of the past saw what would happen to the Winston of the future, I'm sure he'd find it disastrous.

5. Characterization
- The syntax and diction change when Orwell focuses on Winston. Every other character is described normally and unextraordinarily. But when the focus is on Winston, it changes to more philosophical thoughts and writing.
- Winston Smith is a round and dynamic character. He starts out as a cautious yet secretly rebellious citizen who is afraid of the Party and Big Brother. He then changes to a more relaxed and ready for action person, having an affair and joining the Brotherhood. Then, thanks to physical and psychological torture, he turns into the desired Party member, follower of Insgoc, and lover of Big Brother.
-After I was done reading the book, it felt as if I had just learned a sort of history or government lesson. This book showed a very good representation of what a world run by totalitarian governments could be like, and how they take control psychologically and physically.