NEF + THT AO5 Quotes Flashcards
O’Brien is ‘a caricature, a monstrosity . . .the pretensions of all men of power’
George Woodcock
‘It was as a committed socialist that Orwell most felt the need to expose ‘the Soviet myth’.’
Krishan Kumar
‘[Orwell] increasingly viewed reality through the dark glasses of a quasi-mystical pessimism’
Isaac Deutscher
‘This is amongst the most terrifying books I have ever read’ -
Frederic Warburg
Orwell has imagined nothing new . . His world of 1984 is the wartime world of 1944 but dirtier and more cruel’ -
Tom Hopkinson.
[Nineteen Eighty-Four] is a warning, not a prophecy, a cry of ‘danger’, not ‘despair’ -
Bernard Crick
- ‘This linguistic manipulation is fundamental to the society’s creation of a population which is complicit in its own oppression, willingly expressing their love and gratitude to Big Brother.’
Howell, 2016
‘They have hijacked machines and ensured that they are used mainly to further their two aims: conquering the whole globe and stopping people from thinking independently.’
Brown, 2010
- ‘This means that, whilst the material world is completely controlled by Big Brother, the same influence cannot be applied to the internal consciousness of the individual.’
Brown, 2010
‘Through this process [of changing history], Big Brother becomes omnipotent.’
Thorp, 1984 -
- ‘he thinks he finds a father figure, almost a god; but in fact O’Brien becomes antifather, almost anti-Christ.’
Mulvihill, 1986
- ‘Orwell is clearly saying that once one gets into a totalitarian regime there is no way out, no hope through conspiracy or rebellion.’
Mulvihill, 1986
‘[Julia] is totally incapable of understanding the motives which drive Winston to revolt’ -
Deirdre Beddeo
‘predicts a state of things far worse than any of us have ever known’ -
Trilling 1949
‘despite the futuristic settings…[NEF] is a satire of Orwell’s immediate melieu’
- Reilly 1989
‘the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive’/ ‘Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness’
- Zapffe 1933
‘elaborate cat and mouse game suggests a shortage of mice’ -
Lerner 1992
‘Evil thrives on apathy and cannot survive without it’
- Arendt
‘in a totalitarian regime, there are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.’
- Arendt
‘the chief qualification of a mass leader has become undending infallability: he can never admit an error’ -
Arendt
‘Orwell has imagined a world in which the self….is no longer of significant value’ -
Howe
“Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.” -
Beauvoir
“There is no sisterhood, only division and dis-empowerment”
-Wisker
“The Handmaid’s Tale offers a horrific vision of things to come based on the exploration of things as they are”
- Greene
“When a woman loses her reproductive capacity, she loses her primary function and therefore identity”
- Beauvoir
“Memory allows her to…turn stasis into movement” -
Dvorak
“An indictment of ‘excessive feminism’…exemplified in the narrator’s absurd mother”
- Mccarthy
The work that the women do conspires to maintain the subjection of their own kind.
- Goldblatt
Moira is Offred’s rebel alter ego
- Lee Briscoe
Offred’s power is in language. -
Carol Beran `
“while she does not belong to the upper levels of Gilead’s power hierarchy, she is no less responsible for its destruction of freedom”
- Weiss
“responsibility… is to report, to chronicle her time, to warn another world… communication is imperative; she must assume a future audience”
- Rigney
“wants to imagine these men as unique: … but the novel’s only significant male characters are in fact eerily similar”
- Miner
“is not heroic. She is, instead, a passive everywoman, awaiting rescue”
- Macpherson
