Week 2

Anglo-Saxon Literature, Utopian/Dystopian worlds

Hello everyone. This week I have created some video readings from the texts 1984 and
Animal Farm. These take us deeper into the books and explore some of the themes and
writing techniques used in these texts and by authors more generally.

Orwell uses a third person point of view for both of these texts as the narrator and focuses
on a few main characters to document their experience. In Animal Farm we have the key
figures of Napolean, Snowball, Boxer and Clover, who are the main protagonists. They are
the characters through which we understand how this world functions. In 1984, it is
Winston who is our main protagonist. Whilst this is not a love story, clearly there is a kind of
loving relationship between him and Julia. They are brought together by taking a risk in how
people are governed to behave, and it is through their eyes that we see an alternative view
of their world being unveiled to them by the figure that they have been taught to hate –
Goldstein.

In both texts we see the use of propaganda to control how the population acts and thinks. In
1984 Hate week, combined with shows of military might is part of this, but perhaps more
importantly it is the work of revising fact to fit a narrative of ‘truth’ that the population is
exposed to through the various channels, telescreens in the environment and at home
forced on them, with punishment for non-compliance.
In Animal Farm, the seven commandments and ‘four legs good, two legs bad’ are used to
indoctrinate the community, and as new members come to the community, new-borns of all
species, these are educated in the way of the Leaders. We also see the main leaders – the
Pigs – begin to devise how they can take full control of the other ‘lower intelligence’ animals
– the equivalent of ‘the proles’ perhaps in 1984.

It is an interesting thing to consider whether these kinds of actions are ‘new’ or whether
they have always been with us in one form or another, and it is the writing which alerts us
to this in ways that move us that other documentary literature cannot. For instance a
treatise on the ruling aristocracies in Europe or communist/fascist regimes and how they
maintained control may not have the same kind of emotional engagement that 1984 or
Animal Farm has as a fiction. As we noted with Margaret Atwood and ‘The Handmaids Tale’
she states that there is nothing in the book that is not happening somewhere in the world.

We also need to consider what these texts have implications for in the world today.
Substitute the 1984 telescreen for social media: How do we know what we read is truth? If
we are to believe Frances Haugen (see youtube video), facebook uses algorithms to produce
more content that focuses on anger as a way to increase revenue – that people are more
likely to respond to prevocation and click on provocative content than something positive.
We see this in news items: How often do we see ‘happy news’ on the television? Is the news
developed to make us angry about something? Are we more likely to watch it because of
this? These are all things that are open to question.
Secondly, it is arguable that we are seeing a rise in right-wing ideologies and governments
globally. The prime example is what is happening currently in the USA where one party
appears to be attempting to re-write history – both recent and more established. Even now
there are attempts being made to define the elections in 2020 as invalid and state
legislatures are putting into place laws and people that may have the effect of skewing
election results in the Republican favour. This is being described by some quarters in the
media and politics as a continuing ‘slow coup’ and that the future of American Democracy is
at stake. What one group of people describes as the return to free thinking, personal control
and autonomy, another describes as the shift towards authoritarianism: In many ways the
exact work that Winston is doing in the Ministry of Truth.

This week then, I want you to read chapter 5 of Animal Farm: What do you think is
happening here? Does it resonate with anything you have seen on the news or has any
resonance with any recent history?
Secondly, I have copied part of the treatise written by Goldstein. This explains some of the
main tactics used by The Party to sustain control, but it is also useful to consider this as an
alternative ‘essay’ that forms part of Orwell’s thinking – a kind of counterpoint to his own
values and views, playing Devil’s Advocate if you will, as to how he is seeing the world at this
point in time. Again, does this have any resonance in how we see the world of
communication in organisations, politics etc? How close is Orwell in actually representing
how we represent our worlds through language? It is quite a long piece, but it is useful to
see how the terms ‘crimestop, ‘doublethink’ and ‘blackwhite’ are defined. Remember also
that the book was published in 1949 so there are some terms that we do not use in modern
language – it is not only a reflection of a dystopian future but also a reflection of its time.