1984 - George Orwell

”Nineteen Eighty-Four” – Pages 1-40

If there is any doubt of the persistent power of literature it should be banished by the novel “1984” by George Orwell. There is much that reasonant for most of us in Orwell’s dystopia in the face of Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA; the totalitarian State of Oceania, its menacing Big Brother, the history-erasing Ministry of Truth and the sinister Thought Police with their everpresent telescreens. Eventhough the novel “1984” was read by its readers in 1949, the novel was meant to represent a very real threat in near future: a totalitarian regime within the next thirty years.
The threat against privacy is, in Orwell’s opinion, one to be fought against.

Looking at “1984” while pondering over the ideological criticism, one would find traces of certain ideologies in the artifact and the artifact in this particular case being the literary work “1984” by George Orwell. The primary target when doing a ideological reading, is to discover or locate the dominant ideology or the ideologies embedded in the literary work and perhaps the ones that are muted in it. The political ideology of Big Brother in “1984” is shown through a third person narration that clearly understands what Winston experiences living under a totalitarian regime.
The style that Orwell appropriates in relaying this political ideology is one of fear and control. The ‘telescreens’ are constantly watching you and listening in on your conversations; “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaniously ”. In their capability to blare constant propaganda and observe citizens at the same time, the telescreens also symbolize how totalitarian government abuses technology for its own ends instead of using its knowledge to improve civilization and on every wall on every corner there are large posters of Big Brother constantly reminding the population that; “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU ”.
Orwell discusses the technology used, the manner of torture by finding one's darkest fears to manipulate them, and the idea that government benefits from a silent body politic. In articulating these, Orwell displays a controlling political ideology in the most fearful of ways. The depiction of Oceania as a burned out and extinguished area wherein hope and promise have been replaced with destitution add to this. The style in which political ideology is shown to be one in which there is complete fear of the future. There is little hope for the promises and possibilities of human freedom in a setting where Big Brother seeks to control each and every aspect of being.

The language used in this totalitarian regime is called Newspeak. It is a language consisting of as few words as possible and it is Winston’s job, as employed by the Records Department (RecDep) of Minitrue, to ‘rectify’ historical records and newspaper articles to make them conform to Big Brother's most recent pronouncements, thus making everything that the Party says true.
On page 40 line 30 Winston must correct something Big Brother because he has stated something now wrong about Africa; “times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify”. This very bland language is part of the controlsystem placed upon the citizens of the totatitarian regime. It seeks to make it impossible to have an acutal conversation. Children who have grown up with Newspeak would not be likely to be able to commit thought-crime as they would not be able to think.

George Orwell’s dislike for this sort of totalitarian regime is expressed through the character Winston Smith. “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in ”. Winston has absolutly nothing but hatred for the structure of this society and yet he cannot seem to take part in hating The Parties enemy Goldstein, the leader of the mysterious and quite possibly fictitious organisation called “The Brotherhood” and the author of “The Theory and Practise of Oligarchical Collectivism. In real life, Goldstein has been thought to have been a number of people. Most closely, Goldstein has been paralleled to Leon Trotsky close associate of Stalin and later rival of Stalin who branded him a traitor and expelled him from the Sovjetunion.

It can be discussed wether or not Orwell’s prediction of the future and the tolitarian state came true or not. One one hand it did seem to become clear to most of us, that surveillance played a bigger part in our society than we thought after Edward Snowden’s revelations in May of 2013 and before then, Bradley Manning who was convicted in July of 2013 for violations against The Espionage Act. But on the other hand, the prediction of a totalitarian regime in the west such as the one described in “1984”, has of course quite obviously not come true. Eventhough none of Orwell’s predictions have come true for western civilisation, eventhough there undoubtedly is surveillance, there is no way of knowing where we will be in just another 30 years. We just might live the lives of Winston and Julia of George Orwell’s “1984”.