1984 - interpretations Flashcards
Berkes writes about how language can be a powerful tool to
manipulate and control large numbers of people
He states that “language has the power in politics to mask the truth and mislead the public”:
This is evident in 1984 via the use of Newspeak and propaganda
He argues that Orwell wanted to increase public awareness of the power of language to manipulate and control
In 1984, Berkes believes that
“language becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal being the destruction of will and imagination”:
Despite Winston’s attempts to find out information about the past, and to write down his thoughts, his will is ultimately destroyed as he accepts the inevitable and declares his love for Big Brother
Berkes suggests that the role of Newspeak in 1984 is to
“restrict understanding of the real world”:
Where the means to self-expression and information are limited, then a person’s world compresses and gets smaller
Berkes believes that Orwell has created a
perfect totalitarian system, in which the government relies on a “passive public which lacks independent thought and which has a great tolerance for mistakes, both past and present”:
This means that the population is much less likely to threaten the government’s control as they do not question or criticise the status quo
Berkes argues that control of the people of Oceania goes beyond merely using language as a weapon, but is more fundamentally about
“psychological control of the public”:
While the Party does use physical punishment as a tool, it primarily applies psychological tactics, such as the manipulation of people through language, on a continuous basis
1984 also employs the media as a powerful tool for manipulation because
“the public is widely exposed to it, and also because the public trusts it”:
The characters are “slaves of the media” as they follow it and its instructions and misinformation without question
Via the media in 1984, the Party is further able to present their distorted version of reality
“Orwell is making a point about how the media can use language to mask the truth”
Berkes believes that the media in Oceania is
“relying on the principle that a piece of information that is repeated often enough becomes accepted as truth”:
Winston constantly wonders at how his colleagues can accept the misinformation that the media dispenses
This also applies to history, which again is manipulated by the Party so that centres of opposition cannot develop
Even Winston, who knows what is going on with the altering of documents, has trouble recalling who Oceania is meant to be at war with
It is this constant element of doubt that contributes to Winston eventually accepting the Party’s reality
In 1984, Beatrix Campbell, in her work “Orwell – Paterfamilias or Big Brother?”, believed that Orwell
“only holds women to the filter of his own desire, or distaste”:
She believes that women in the novel are presented primarily as sexual objects
Jennifer O’Dee (2013) stated that
“Orwell characterises his women under a misogynistic lens”:
They are classed as mother, wife and sexual being, and women are depicted as belonging in the home, producing and nurturing children
The only woman represented as a “true” woman is Winston’s mother, who dies prior to the novel beginning
Her overall critique is that “Orwell allows his misogynistic beliefs that women belong in the home to dictate his female characters”:
She believes that he pities these women as losing their femininity
According to Deirdre Beddoe (1984), Orwell was not only anti-feminist, but “he was totally blind to the role women were and are forced to play in the order of things”
Orwell was not only anti-feminist, but “he was totally blind to the role women were and are forced to play in the order of things”
Daphne Patai, in “The Orwell Mystique: A Study in Male Ideology” (1984), believed that ”
Orwell positioned human beings “according to sex roles and gender identity and legitimises male displays of dominance and aggression
John Newsinger, in 2018, thought that
Orwell was “unfortunately one of those male socialists who were opposed to every oppression, except that of women”
The critical reception to the book on publication was largely positive, and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Great Britain and the USA
A review for The New Statesman stated that the reviewer did not think he had “ever read a novel more frightening and depressing”
The novel was also praised by Orwell’s contemporaries Bertrand Russell, E.M. Forster and Harold Nicolson
Time magazine said that “How Winston and Julia rebelled, fell in love and paid the penalty in the terroristic world of tomorrow is the thread on which Britain’s George Orwell has spun his latest and finest work of fiction”
