Quotations - 1994, Oglivy Flashcards
How is W’s creation of comrade Oglivy here so significant in O’s attack on Oceania in 1984?
Comrade Ogilvy is a fictional character created by W on behalf of BB to celebrate the glories of the party; he does not exist and is a tactic to distract from the incorrect order of the day speech which existed in the times. O uses this character as a figure to satirise the Party and its rewriting of the past.
O introduces Ogilvy as a warped creative vision with W conjuring him up as someone who ‘had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances.’ The mock hero status which Ogilvy holds is added to towards the end of the passage when W toys with awarding him ‘the order of conspicuous merit’ which would be another exaggerated example of Ogilvy’s allegiance to the Party, reminding the reader that he is a model citizen celebrated for war victories and spying. The word ‘conspicuous’ here means that Ogilvy would have stood out for the Party’s highly revered qualities: war and violence.
O introduces these as key elements to the fictional Ogilvy’s character when he is depicted as a child who plays with symbols of war - ‘a drum, a sub-machine gun and a model helicopter.’ The rule of three here helps to enforce the sene of pride which the Party has in Ogilvy’s choice of toys and reminds the reader what the Party’s horrific expectations of a model citizen are, even as an innocent child.
