What are the most important Dystopian features used in chapter one of George Orwell’s 1984?

What are the most important Dystopian features used in chapter one of George Orwell’s 1984?

In the opening chapter of George Orwell’s 1984 it sets us up for a dystopian novel as we immediately read a number of examples that can be classed as dystopian literature. We expect that the society will be insecure yet futuristic, along with a corrupt government, and manipulating language messing with our brain.
The first point is that there is no freedom in this city. There is one quotation in the second paragraph mentioning a poster with the words BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU captioned beneath a huge face of the leader of the society, this shows that you don’t have the opportunity of doing what you want to do. In the third paragraph there is also a quote indicating that there is no freedom in 1984. “The instrument (the telescreen it was called) could be dimmed, but there is no way of shutting it completely. The telescreen was actually acting as a sort of CCTV surveillance camera as it couldn’t be completely switched off and only had one programme.
A further feature showing that the 1984 community is a dystopia is the manipulating language George Orwell uses. One example of this is the Victory Gin and Victory Cigarette. The readers will presume that as it has got Victory before the name, it means you have deserved it and you feel triumphant, however it was actually cheap products that the civilians of the society used as they were so desperate. A final case of changing language is the three slogans of the party, “War is peace, Freedom is slavery and Ignorance is strength.” The quote is typical dystopian word play because they try and make people believe that those three slogans are the right ways of life. This is a form of brainwashing.
In 1984 we also see the feature of poor living conditions. There is a number of quotations in the first few paragraphs that prove this, such as: “The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats”, “And Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle” and “His skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades.” The quote noting the fact about the varicose ulcer shows that the health care is poor in the city because people who have varicose ulcers generally tend to be old.
My final, yet most important feature in 1984 that is typically dystopian is focusing on one person. This factor is really important in a dystopian novel as the reader really getting to grips with one character, which I feel is really essential in any book. We likewise feel sympathy for the character because he is just an average person living a harsh way of life. We ourselves know that he is a normal man as his name, Winston Smith, is named after Winston Churchill (British PM during World War II) and Smith, which was the most popular name in that time. Moreover, we were able to understand more about the resident’s feelings towards the government and what they think of the country as a whole. The readers see the country Winston was living in through his eyes and gain an understanding of how dystopia really is. These are the reasons why the focus on one person feature is the best feature in any dystopian novel.

Overall, in any dystopian book you would assume to see a corrupt government that torment and brainwash people’s minds, manipulative language being used by the author and a society with strict rules and no freedom. These are all good features of dystopian literature and that should be included in a dystopian novel. All of those features were in the opening chapter of 1984, and that’s probably why it’s one of the best dystopian novels written.