Context

Question 1

where was George Orwell educated?

Answer 1

attended a private boarding school where he experienced punishment and emotional manipulation as a child

he felt oppressed and outraged by the dictatorial control that the schools he attended exercised over their students’ lives — some critics suggest this supplied him with an early model for Winston’s re-education in Part 3 of 1984

educated at Eton, clearly had a wealthy background

because of his background he famously described his family as “lower-upper-middle class” and never quite fit in

Question 2

when did Orwell join the Indian Imperial Police?

Answer 2

in 1922, instead of going to university, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and served as an Assistant Superintendent in Burma

this gave him an insight into the corrupt bureaucracy — he hated his duties, he was required to enforce the strict laws of a political regime he ended up despising

Burma’s brutal military regime inspired the media censorship, propaganda and repression seen in 1984

he resigned in 1937, partly due to illness but partly due to disillusionment with imperialism, dedicating himself to becoming a writer

Question 3

when did Orwell live among the poor?

Answer 3

between 1928 and 1929, he lived among the poor and posed as a tramp in France and England

he wrote a book called ’Down and Out in Paris and London’ detailing his experiences living among the poor

he later lived among destitute coal miners in northern England, an experience that caused him to give up on capitalism in favour of democratic socialism

despite attempts to distance himself from the upper class, many critics claim that he failed to properly empathise with the working class due to his wealthy background

he later wrote another book about the economically depressed industrial areas of North England, which was also highly controversial due to its presentation of working people — a similar controversy surrounding the proles in 1984

Orwell longed to capture the struggles of ‘real’ people, which is why he lived among the poor and told their stories - this is also reflected in Winston’s character, who is just an ordinary man living under an oppressive regime

Question 4

what happened to Orwell in the Spanish Civil War?

Answer 4

in 1937, Orwell joined to fight against the fascist regime under Franco in the Spanish Civil War

he served with an anarchist militia and was shot through the throat by fascist sniper, he also had to flee when his group was falsely accused of secretly helping the Fascists - the amount of propaganda in 1984 mirrors what Orwell experienced during his time in Spain

he and his wife were lucky to escape across the border

he was initially pleased with what he considered to be the realisation of socialism in Barcelona, but he quickly saw that change

he witnessed first hand the nightmarish atrocities committed by fascist political regimes and became disillusioned with the resistance forces who sought to replace the fascist government with an authoritarian regime of their own

made him highly critical of authoritarian regimes and absolute political authority, and provided much of the political satire of 1984

Question 5

what was the impact of the Spanish Civil War on Orwell?

Answer 5

developed his socialist political leanings

when he returned home, British magazines refused to publish his eyewitness accounts, which many argue influenced his conception of the rewriting of history in 1984

Question 6

what happened to Orwell during WW2?

Answer 6

WW2 was declared but Orwell was rejected by the army as medically unfit

so he eventually became a radio producer and writer for the BBC while his wife worked in the government Censorship Department

he was in charge of broadcasting to India and Southeast Asia and disliked this job immensely as he was effectively distributing propaganda to these British colonies — an act that went against both his nature and his political philosophy

he became disturbed by the falseness of his work, the restriction of knowledge and the circulation of propaganda

these experiences gave him an insight into bureaucracy and the creation of propaganda and shaped his conception of the Ministry of Truth - Winston Smith works in the media and is responsible for creating what is, essentially, deceptive propaganda, like Orwell created during WW2

Question 7

the Tehran Conference (1943)

Answer 7

Orwell was influenced by the Tehran conference, which was a meeting between the Allied leaders of the US, UK and USSR to decide who was to control what parts of the world after the war

Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt met to discuss global ‘areas of influence’ and how they should exercise their influence on the rest of the world

the idea of the three ‘superstates’ in 1984 (Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia) comes from this conference

Orwell was disturbed by the positive view of the Russian state presented by the British media, especially since Russia later became the enemy again

this is clearly reflected in 1984 by Oceania’s swift changes of ally and the propaganda accompanying these changes

when Orwell wrote Animal Farm, which satirised how terribly the Russian regime had betrayed its revolutionary aims, publishers refused to be associated with a book mocking one of Britain’s allies, but it later became a bestseller when Russia became the enemy again

Question 8

where was 1984 banned?

Answer 8

since its publication, 1984 has been challenged and banned in various countries due to its revolutionary, satirical, communist, socialist and sexually explicit content

banned in the Soviet Union, nearly banned in the US and the UK

ironic considering the topic of the book — an all powerful government, absolute control and restriction of knowledge (which is effectively what banning books does)

Question 9

Orwell’s socialist views

Answer 9

Orwell was a socialist and believed that wealth should be owned by the whole community and wished to see the people in control

he held the view that capitalism could easily mutate into fascism and mistrusted all governments, especially wartime ones which controlled everything, from what people bought to what they heard on the news

advocated collectivism but attacked all forms of totalitarianism on both sides of the political spectrum

Question 10

key dates

Answer 10

World War 1 (1914-1918)

Russian Revolution (1917)

The Great Depression (1929-1939)

World War 2 (1939-1945)

1984 published (1949)

Question 11

what happened during the Great Depression?

Answer 11

European countries struggled to recover from the damage done to them during the war and the Wall Street Crash in the US threw world capitalism into further recession — huge economic slump

in 1933, almost 2.5 million people were left unemployed in Britain

in Germany in the same year, Hitler was appointed Chancellor — people looked to him as a strong leader during this time of economic and financial struggle, they chose stability

Question 12

extremist groups

Answer 12

in 1922, Mussolini came into power in Italy and in 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany

the Italian Fascists under Mussolini and the German Nazis under Hitler managed to deliver their countries a degree of order and prosperity after the Great Depression

their regimes were founded on intolerance, aggression and racial purity — this links to the idea that people will sacrifice civil liberties for security and stability

this seemed to show that a new type of society was bound to overthrow democracies, and there was a real fear that these would come to Britain — in 1932, the British Union of Fascists launched

Question 13

Russian Revolution (1917)

Answer 13

the communists believed that violent revolution would bring about real change, they seized power and ruthlessly controlled the whole of society in Soviet Russia

under Stalin’s leadership millions of people were tortured and killed and he had absolute control over his nation

Orwell came to realise that communism and fascism were very similar totalitarian systems, despite the fact that they gave opposite excuses for their behaviour, he said that they were both forms of “oligarchical collectivism”

Question 14

1939 Non-Aggression Pact

Answer 14

in 1939, Russia and Germany signed a non-aggression pact to refrain from attacking one another, they then invaded Poland and divided it up between them

Germany suddenly reversed this policy and invaded Russia in 1941 — Britain then became allies with Russia until Russia later became the enemy again

this resembles Oceania’s constant switching of allies and enemies

Question 15

post-war Britain

Answer 15

increased government control over what people bought in shops to what they heard on the radio

the 1945-51 Labour government brought about the nationalisation of major industries (Victory Mansions and Victory Gin in 1984 suggest state ownership) and strict rationing

conditions after the war were somewhat worse than they had been during the war — 1984 is highly reminiscent of the late 40s and post-war Britain

Question 16

what are the Three Year Plans in 1984 reflective of?

Answer 16

Stalin’s Five Year Plans

Question 17

states with similar features to Oceania were all over the world…

Answer 17

Nazi Germany

Communist Russia

Mussolini’s Italy

several superstates, such as the US

Question 18

why is 1984 still relevant?

Answer 18

with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, 1984 may not seem as topical as it once was but it is still relevant today

there are still many one party states (North Korea, China), language is still systematically abused by politicians and journalists in order to manipulate emotion and distort the truth, improvements in technology have led to surveillance that threatens civil liberties, etc

Question 19

Orwell’s concern with language

Answer 19

1984 explores the relationship between language and thought

Orwell was deeply concerned about how imprecise and euphemistic language dulled people’s capacity for critical thought, which he wrote about in his famous essay ‘Politics and the English Language’

Question 20

totalitarian governments witnessed by Orwell

Answer 20

Orwell witnessed first hand the horrific lengths that totalitarian governments in Spain and Russia would go to to maintain their power and wanted to warn readers about the rise of such authoritarian regimes

in 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated and many people supported communism — but Orwell was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelty and oppression he observed in communist countries

Question 21

the Panopticon

Answer 21

Orwell explores the idea of constant surveillance as a tool of mind control

possibly influenced by the writings of 18th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who designed new structures for prisons (known as Panopticons) that would allow the guards to watch prisoners while preventing the prisoners from seeing the guards

Bentham believed that over time prisoners would internalise the surveillance of the guards, they would have to assume they were constantly being watched and monitored, resulting in them behaving accordingly

they would therefore stop engaging in criminal behaviour when released from prison

this is similar to the effect of the telescreen on the citizens of Oceania — Winston has psychologically internalised the Party’s surveillance and monitors his own actions and thoughts accordingly, assuming that he is always being watched

Question 22

Hitler Youth

Answer 22

the Junior Spies in 1984 were influenced by the Hitler Youth, which was a group that instilled fanatic patriotism in children and trained them to monitor their parents for any signs of deviation from Nazi orthodoxy

destroys hope for the future and any chance that future generations would change as they’re being indoctrinated from such a young age, they’ll grow up to see the oppressive regime as normal so will never question it

Question 23

Communist Russia: Orwell’s views on the Russian Revolution

Answer 23

Orwell had watched the communist revolution in Russia

he was at first supportive of the Russian Revolution but changed his opinion after realising that behind the veneer of justice and equality lurked widespread famines, forced labour, internal power struggles and extreme political repression

Question 24

Communist Russia: in what ways did Communist Russia influence 1984?

Answer 24

‘2+2=5’ was a real slogan from the Soviet Union, it was a promise to complete the industrialising Five Year Plan in four years — Orwell seems to be satirising the tendency of authoritarian regimes to suspend reality and bend objective truth to their own ends

much of the Party’s brutality, paranoia and betrayals are drawn from the Great Purges of 1936-38 in the Soviet Union — over 600,000 people died in an official purge of the Communist Party

this era also included widespread repression of the public, police surveillance, execution without trial and an atmosphere of fear

Goldstein seems to represent Leon Trotsky, the revolutionary figurehead who Stalin cast out of the party and denounced as a traitor to the cause — the people of Russia were given a common enemy

Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford symbolise people who were executed or sent to forced labour camps, erased from history

Trotsky’s manifesto (The Revolution Betrayed) has much in common with Goldstein’s book, from the tone of writing to the subjects discussed

Question 25

Nazi Germany

Answer 25

the rise of Hitler and the scapegoating of Jews significantly influenced 1984

Orwell realised that control of the mass media was a key factor in Hitler’s rise, enabling prominent figures and organisations to shape public opinion on a broad scale and only allow the public information that they condone

the intrusive telescreens and the Party’s frequent parades and events are drawn from Nazi Party public propaganda, marches and rallies

Question 26

WW2

Answer 26

1984 was written only a few years after WW2 had ended and many people believed a WW3 was inevitable — making the wars of the novel feel not just realistic but unavoidable, Orwell wanted the book to serve as a warning to his readers

Orwell also included everyday life experiences from WW2 London — unappetising food, inconsistent electricity and the scarcity of basic household goods in 1984 come from Orwell’s experiences with wartime rationing

frequent bombing raids on London appear in 1984 too, echoing the Blitz campaign carried out by Germany on London and surrounding areas that killed over 40,000 people and destroyed almost a million buildings

Question 27

nuclear war

Answer 27

1984 was written three years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Orwell references nuclear powered wars happening in different parts of the world

expresses a fear of technological advancements and how such developments can lead to weapons of mass destruction, also links to the disregard of human life by those in power, who only seek to maximise their power more, regardless of the consequences

Question 28

the nuclear age

Answer 28

in 1949, at the dawn of the nuclear age and before the television had become a fixture in the family home….

Orwell’s vision of a post-atomic dictatorship in which every individual would be monitored ceaselessly by means of the telescreen seemed terrifyingly possible

Question 29

rigid class divides

Answer 29

the rigid class divides in 1984 mirror the class divides seen by Orwell

in 1984, each class wears different uniforms (e.g. black for the Inner Party, blue for the Outer Party), the Inner Party has access to real sugar, bread and coffee while everyone else eats poorly and on rations (reminiscent of post WW2), the Inner Party can also turn their telescreens off and live in luxurious residences, often with servants

the Inner Party represents the upper class bourgeoisie, the Outer Party represents the middle class and the proles represent the working class proletariat

Question 30

how did the world of 1984 not materialise?

Answer 30

the world that Orwell envisioned in 1984 did not materialise

rather than being overwhelmed by totalitarianism, democracy ultimately won out in the Cold War, as seen in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 — leading to a new liberal world order

yet 1984 remains an important novel for its warning against the abusive nature of authoritarian governments as well as it analysis of the psychology of power and the ways that manipulations of language and history can be used as mechanisms of control

it still functions as a warning, to make sure that such regimes seen in Germany, Spain and Russia do not make a reappearance

authoritarian regimes still exist today and there has been a resurgence of far right groups across Europe and the US

Question 31

Karl Marx’s idea of class consciousness

Answer 31

one day the proleteriat will realise that they’re being exploited and will recognise their oppression and rise up to overthrow the bourgeoisie

Question 32

why did Orwell say he writes?

Answer 32

he said he writes becayse he feels that there is some kind of lie that he has to expose and some fact to which he wants to draw attention

he certainly does this in 1984, exposing the terrible nature of political power and the toll that totalitarianism takes on the human spirit

Question 33

the dystopian genre

Answer 33

works of dystopian literature tend to be criticisms of the time in which the author lives, they are often political statements (like Animal Farm)

in his essay ‘Why I Write’ (1947) he stated that he writes from the “desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after”

he used his writing to express his powerful political feelings

Question 34

what did Orwell want to warn his readers of (WW2)?

Answer 34

Orwell wrote 1984 just after World War II ended, wanting it to serve as a warning to his readers

he wanted to be certain that the kind of future presented in the novel should never come to pass, especially since the practices that contribute to the development of such a totalitarian state were abundantly present in Orwell’s time

he lived during a time in which tyranny was a reality in Spain, Germany, the Soviet Union, and other countries, where the people had little, if any freedom, and where hunger, forced labour, and mass execution were common

many things that Winston experiences in the book, such as poor living conditions, rationing, etc was all common during the war – readers in 1949 would’ve been all too familiar with the conditions described in the novel, making it alarming due to its striking resembelance to their own society

Question 35

Stalin and Hitler

Answer 35

1984 mirrors the political climate of the societies that existed all around Orwell at the time of writing

Oceania is a terrifying society reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union — complete repression of the human spirit, absolute governmental control of daily life, constant hunger, and the systematic “vaporization” of individuals who do not, or will not, comply with the government’s values (e.g. Stalin’s purges, the changing of history to suit the governments agenda)

Both Hitler and Stalin distorted the past and rewrote history to maintain the illusion of supreme power - Winston muses that the history books claim that the Party invented airplanes (a claim actually made by the German government during World War II)

Orwell’s speculation of the future in 1984 is actually a mere extension of how the masses were treated under Franco, Hitler, and Stalin

Question 36

what is the effect of having the world of 1984 resemble both Nazi Germany and Communist Russia?

Answer 36

Big Brother can be seen as a mixture of both Stalin and Hitler, both real and terrifying leaders, though both on opposite sides of the philosophical spectrum

by combining traits from both the Soviet Union’s and Germany’s totalitarian states, Orwell makes clear that he is staunchly against any form of governmental totalitarianism, either from the left or the right of the political spectrum

he also demonstrates that dictatorships can come from any political ideology

Question 37

O’Brien’s comment to Winston about why Big Brother is superior to other totalitarian dictators

Answer 37

O’Brien tells Winston that the Party is far superior to Nazi Germany or the Russian Communists because, unlike those other regimes whose enemies were eventually turned into martyrs, the Party converts their enemies before eliminating them so that they cannot become martyrs or act as fuel for any kind of revolt

Question 38

political structure and class divides in 1984

Answer 38

Oceania’s political structure is divided into three segments….

the Inner Party, the ultimate ruling class, consisting of less than 2 percent of the population

the Outer Party, the educated workers, numbering around 18 to 19 percent of the population

the Proles, or the proletariat, the working class

it is clear that Orwell wants the reader to see the class distinctions - for a socialist such as Orwell, class distinctions mean the existence of conflict and class struggle

in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, for example, the few people who comprised the ruling class had a much higher standard of living than the masses, which created widescale tension and undermined cohesion

Question 39

where is Winston’s name derived from and what is the effect of this?

Answer 39

Winston is taken from Winston Churchill, the praised leader of wartime England, while Smith is the most common surname in the English language

this establishes Winston as an ordinary man who makes a valiant effort in extraordinary circumstances

Question 40

what could Julia’s name be an allusion to?

Answer 40

Julia’s name is a possible allusion to Shakespear’s Juliet, reminding the reader of another story of forbidden love, much like the love that exists between Winston and Julia that is also forbidden and eventually destroyed

foreshadows their defeat and the destruction of their love - Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy in which both characters end up dead

Question 41

how is O’Brien similar to the leaders of the 20th century?

Answer 41

O’Brien is not so different from many of the contemporary leaders of the 20th century

for example, Hitler and Stalin used the same kind of torture to keep their power and did it in the name of ‘purity’

O’Brien represents these leaders, who use cruelty and torture as their primary method of control

Question 42

what does Orwell show through O’Brien inducting Winston and Julia into the supposed Brotherhood?

Answer 42

O’Brien asks Winston and Julia if they are willing to commit atrocities against the Party, many of which are no better that the atrocities that the Party commits against its people

Orwell shows that political extremism is not positive under any name - revolutionary groups can rise up under the guise of saving the people from an oppressive regime, only to replace that regime with an equally oppressive one (as the Communist Party did in Soviet Russia)

Question 43

what is Emmanuel Goldstein’s name reflective of?

Answer 43

Emmanuel Goldstein is a traditionally Jewish name, perhaps reflecting the power structure in WW2

by equating Goldstein, the scapegoat and villified ‘enemy’ in Oceania, with the Jewish population, Orwell is therefore equating Big Brother with Hitler, who systematically oppressed and exterminated the Jews

Question 44

what did Orwell say about language in his essay Politics and the English Language?

Answer 44

in his essay titled Politics and the English Languag, Orwell said that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” which is the essence of Newspeak

Newspeak not only eliminates “unnecessary” words, but it also promotes a narrowing of thought and, therefore, awareness

the idea behind Newspeak is that, as language becomes less expressive, the mind is more easily controlled

Question 45

rewriting of history

Answer 45

one of the issues raised in 1984 is the idea that history is changeable, truth is what the Party deems it to be

some Fascist German leaders of the time boasted that if you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, people will accept it as truth

the Stalinists in Soviet Russia perfected this by re-writing people and events in and out of history or distorting historical facts to suit their purposes - e.g. Nikolai Yezhov

Question 46

Freud’s crowd behaviour theory

Answer 46

becoming a member of a crowd unlocks the “unconscious mind”

the super-ego (the moral centre of consciousness) is displaced by the larger crowd, to be replaced by a charismatic crowd leader

William McDougall added to this theory and argued that the overall shared emotional experience in a crowd leads to primitive levels of emotional expression - the crowd becomes the “primal horde”

Freud stated that one must rebel against the leader and reinstate indivdiual morality in order to escape it

Question 47

mob/herd mentality

Answer 47

herd mentality refers to how people are influenced in a crowd to adopt the behaviours and emotions of others

Winston gets swept up in the herd mentality of the crowd during the Two Minutes Hate and finds himself joining in with their chanting and feels adoration for BB

the subconscious mind is unlocked in a crowd

Question 48

when did Stalin rise to leadership? what was the threat of this?

Answer 48

Stalin rose to leadership after Lenin died in 1924 and became leader of the Communist Party - he led a totalitarian dictatorship (the entire Soviet Union did exactly as he commanded)

such totalitarianism threatened to engulf Europe as communism rose up as a renewed threat to liberal democracy and began to spread throughout Eastern Europe

context like this made 1984 so alarmingly believable and even today there are still plenty of dictatorships that bear similarity to the Party, as well as religious movements that employ brainwashing and ‘re-education’ tactics like O’Brien does

Question 49

the treatment of people under Stalin’s rule in Communist Russia: purges and silencing of opposition

Answer 49

Stalin had millions of people murdered or sent to brutal prison camps, anyone suspected of disloyalty or who was percieved as a threat to his leadership were ‘disposed’ of - silencing of opposition

public trials were held where people often plead guilty to crimes they had not even committed, simply to avoid the torture that would result if they defended themselves

he purged the Communist leadership (93 members killed), the armed forces (81 generals and admirals killed) as well as the Communist party (1/3 of all members, which was around a million, were killed)

these were known as the Great Purges, in which political opponents and millions of innocent people were slaughtered

the Great Purge had spread to ordinary people, now anyone suspected or who even looked as they had a will of their own were sent to the Gulag (labour/prison camps) - around 20 million Russians succumbed to this fate and around half died there

forbid Christian and Muslim religion - no love could be directed at any other higher power other than Stalin himself, who sought to present himself as a kind of god-like saving force

Question 50

the treatment of people under Stalin’s rule in Communist Russia: rewriting of history

Answer 50

altered photos and history books to eliminate any material memory of people who had been arrested or murdered - link to Winston’s job in the Ministry of Truth

strictly controlled media and education

Question 51

the treatment of people under Stalin’s rule in Communist Russia: other key aspects of oppression and repression

Answer 51

Russification - enforced the acceptance of the Russian language and customs throughout the Soviet Union

NKVD (later became the KGB) carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions - people would turn in anyone ‘suspicious’ to the secret police and those people were then arrested and never seen again, all traces of their existence wiped from history - direct link to the Thought Police in 1984

everyone had to praise and worship Stalin, newspapers credited him, poets thanked him, people leapt to their feet with applause at the mention of his name, his picture was everywhere, parents taught their children to love him more than themselves - portrayed himself as a god-like figure

links to Big Brother (the posters, propaganda, TMH and how both are portrayed as a god-like figure)

Question 52

Karl Marx (1860s)

Answer 52

the father of communism

dreamt of an equal, classless society in which everyone was looked after and would be free from the oppressive shackles of capitalism

represents an abuse of ideology - the Soviet Union oppressed people under the guise of communism and completely bent the ideology to suit their own agenda, their practice of ‘communism’ was not true communism at all

Question 53

Trotsky

Answer 53

one of Stalin’s political opponents, who Stalin had murdered

believed in utopia and had a very different view on Marxism to Stalin

Goldstein is based on Trotsky

Question 54

the Great Depression (1930s)

Answer 54

hopes for political and economic progress crushed

widespread poverty and unemployment

Question 55

cult of personality

Answer 55

arises when a regime or individual uses mass media, propaganda, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealised, heroic, and worshipful image of a leader, often through unquestioning flattery and praise

the Soviet press constantly praised Stalin, describing him as “Great”, “Beloved”, “Bold”, “Wise”, “Inspirer”, and “Genius”, it portrayed him as a caring yet strong father figure, with the Soviet populace as his “children”

Big Brother, like Stalin, has developed a cult of personality which has resulted in the god-like worship of the supreme leader

Question 56

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Answer 56

a book with documents detailing the Jewish plan for worldwide domination

but this book is actually a fake/forged document written by anti-Semitics and used as propaganda to generate hate and fear towards Jewish people

used by Nazis to justify their actions and provide the people with a common enemy

link to Goldstein’s ‘book’ and the Brotherhood, which may not be real and are just methods of control and ways to provoke fear - creation of a common enemy, scapegoating