George Orwell - 1984

Jakub Pařízek
Author‘s life
* 1903, British India
• private school – Eton College
• named after small river near Oxfordshire ->
Orwell
• policeman, journalist for BBC, soldier
• other publications – Animal Farm, Burmese
Days, Homage to Catalonia
• against fascism and communism
• 1 child, 4 proposals, 2 wives
† 1950, London, tuberculousis
 1984
BASIC INFORMATION
• antiutopian novel
• satirical and ironic plot
• written in 1948 -> „predition of the
future“
• around 320 pages
• forbidden in many countries – North
Korea, Belarus
• popular terminology and ideas
• 100 Most Influental Books - Time
 1984
CHARACTERS
• Winston Smith
• Julia
• Big Brother
• Emmanuel Goldstein
• O‘Brien
1984
PLOT
• Winston is desperate about actual world and is curious about the past
• He meets Julia, who shares the same ideas and they can be „free“
together
• They received a book from O‘Brien focusing on criticism of current
regime written by Emmanuel Goldstein
• Later, they are arrested and interrogated -> they are tortured to turn
their mind in behalf of Big Brother
• sad ending – Winston is beaten by the regime
1984
IDEAS AND TERMINOLOGY
• Ingsoc – abbreviation for English Socialism, ideology
• Big Brother – a totalitarian leader of Oceania, could be a paraphrase to Adolf Hitler
• Thought crime – crime realised by having a bad and wrong thoughts
• Thought Police – police punishing thought crimes
• doublethink – believe that two completely opposite facts are the same (f.e. saying that black is white and
also be persuaded and believe it’s the truth)
• Newspeak – inventing a new language that prevents of potentially saying something negative about the
current regime, the current language is name Oldspeak
• Ministries of Love, Peace, Truth and Plenty – ministries carrying some name which is completely opposite of
their work (Ministry of Love aims on preventing people from falling in love and be loyal to Big Brother,
Ministry of Peace focuses on wars and conflicts with other states, Ministry of Plenty are reducing good and
production of food and Ministry of Truth are changing formal sources of information to be beneficial for
them)
• perpetual war – maintaining war status to make sure inhabitants don’t have time to think and get rich
Thank you for your attention.