Orwell Dystopia Context

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 Political
(Totalitarian)
 “Technology exists as a tool for
K. Grossman stagnation, rather than for
progress”
 “One of the terrifying things
about totalitarian society is
Irving Howe that it systematically destroys
social memory’”
 “For in such a society
[Totalitarian] there is no
Irving Howe longer a sense of the past: man
is deprived of his ancestors”
 “It [1984] uses the portrait of a
nightmare future in order to
Tom Moylan launch a political critique of
the present”
 “Orwell wanted to make
Garner Ash ‘political writing into art”
 “Democracy requires
accountability and consent of
Glenn Greenwald the governed, which is only
possible if citizen know what
is being done in their name”
 “1984 is a warning, not a
Bernard Crick prophecy, a cry of danger not
despair”
 “Cautionary prophecy of what
would come to pass if future
Joseph Pearce generations ceased to be
vigilant in the guarding of
their freedom.”
 “Every line of serious work
that I have written since 1936
has been written, directly or
Orwell indirectly, against
totalitarianism and for
democratic socialism, as I
understand it.”
 “The methods of terror Ingsoc
employs are typical of the
Jeffrey Meyers ruthless means totalitarian
regimes used in the twentieth
century.”
 Winston's defeat is a
“nightmare representation... of
totalitarian political power
Brigid Rooney fuelled not by…the pleasure of
cruelty and domination"
 “Nazi theory indeed
specifically denies that such a
Orwell thing as 'the truth' exists”
Power/Control
 “People with power
Noam Chomsky understand exactly one thing:
violence”
 “Whilst the material world is
completely controlled by Big
Brother, the same influence
Richard Brown cannot be applied to the
internal consciousness of the
individual.”
 “The control of the Party is so
strong that there was never
Robert James
any real alternative to
Reece Winston eventually loving Big
Brother”
 “Big brother also lurks behind
Churchill or any leader whom
E.M Fosters propaganda utilises or
invents.”
Surveillance
 “Fictitious telescreen is
Irving Howe horrible precisely because it is
so close to reality”
 “Surveillance breeds
Glenn Greenwald conformity”
 Edward Snowden
“[Orwell] warned us of the
(about NSA electronic
danger of this kind of
surveillance information”
program)
Language
 “There is quite simply no
Berel Lang on the space left by the narrow and
repressive lines of Newspeak
Manipulation of for imagination, for shades of
Language meaning, for figures of
speech”
 “Language becomes a mind
Jem Berkes control tool”
 “1984 remains Orwell's proof
that language can easily be
Mitzi Brunsdale corrupted for evil
manipulative purposes.”
 “"Language is degraded to
James Topham such an extent that it only
serves the government."”
 “The purpose of Newspeak
was…to make all other modes
of thought impossible…a
Orwell thought diverging from the
principles of INGSOC- literally
unthinkable”.
Women
 “His deformed attitude
towards women in Orwell’s
Daphne Patai personality and writing is so
grotesque”
 “In Orwell’s work…women are
Beatrix Campbell congratulated only when they
stick to their man”
 “Sexual filter's surround all his
Beatrix Campbell female personae”
 “Julia's determination to
exercise her sexuality might
Mitzi Brunsdale be seen... as a form of protest
against the male-dominated
Big Brotherly society”
 “I wanted to try a dystopian
from the female point of view-
Margaret Atwood the world according to Julia, as
it were”
Human Spirit/
Individuality/
Identity/ Love
 “A breakdown in
Olivia Rook individuation, brought about
by a fear of difference””
 “By weakening the sense of
individual identity, they make
it more likely that the average
man will merge his own frail
Chad Walsh identity with the social whole
and cease to demand that he
be called by a name instead of
a number”
 “Individual thought that
disagrees with the collective
Julia Gerhard mentality is measured to be
insane, skewered, and in need
of repair and more discipline”.
 “[Orwell] believed the human
spirit would inevitably
Richard Rees founder in a soulless
mechanical totalitarianism.”
 “A love born not from
Nathan Waddell on tenderness, but from terror. Is
love in 1984 love really love if it’s forced
into existence?”
 “The feeling of sexual desire,
because then you’ll have
another loyalty, other than
Irving Howe that of the Party. They want to
destroy natural human
instincts”
 “Oceania seeks to destroy
Irving Howe spontaneous affection because
that, too, is subversive”
Orwell Himself
 “1984 would have been less
gloomy had he not been so
Orwell to his
ill—it was a very dark,
friends disturbing, and pessimistic
work”
 “Product of a man in despair,
Valerie J. Simms on
given over to the bleakest
Orwell’s pessimism pessimism”
 “Orwell increasingly viewed
Isaac Deutscher reality through the dark
glasses of a quasi mystical
pessimism”
David Aaronovitch
“A decade of political chaos
on the impact of
shaped George Orwell's vision
Totalitarianism on of a totalitarian future”
Orwell
Characters/Plot/
Setting
 “[Winston] rebels against the
S.Lonoff system yet virtually invites it
to destroy him”
 “[Winston’s] struggle is not
impaired by physical force, but
M.Throp by the more subtle means of
creating intellectual
disorientation”
 “Winston's betrayal of Julia
Earl Ingersoll comes as early as their falling
in love”
 “Julia perhaps naively believes
they can beat the Party at its
Thomas Horan own game behind masks of
seeming loyalty”
 “[Winston] he thinks he finds a
father figure, almost a god; but
Robert Mulvihill in fact O'Brien becomes anti
father, almost anti-Christ.”
 “Winston Smith's harrowing
Mitzi Brunsdale
descent to the obliteration of
(plot) his personality”
 “Julia was the Anywoman of
post-war England,
Mitzi Brunsdale
superficially brassy, selfish,
weak, sensual, and
opportunistic”
 “Transport the reader into
David Housewright these worlds and give them a
on settings in sense of who the characters
dystopia: are and why they behave the
way they do”
 Describes the environment of
Oceania as a ‘blitzed
environment’, which reflects
Nathan Waddell on how the novel references the
setting of 1984 Blitz (1941), where London was
systematically bombed by the
Germans, causing complete
structural devastation.