Life
George Orwell was the pseudonym di Eric Arthur Blair that was born in 1903 in India. He passed his childhood in England and he studied them. In 1922 Blair joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. Then, he wrote Down and Out in Paris and London in 1933 with the name of George Orwell. In 1945, he published his allegorical novel, Animal Farm. This novel is an anti-Soviet satire, set in pastoral atmosphere. In 1949, he published the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, that is a dystopian novel and is set in a future world in which is present an oppressive totalitarian régime. Orwell was interest in the social and political conditions that he had observed in his own lifetime. He died of tuberculosis in 1950 in a London hospital.
Orwell’s anti-totalitarianism
Orwell talks about anti-totalitarian in his literature, like in Animal Farm and in Nineteen Eighty-Four. He tries to warn society about the dangers of totalitarianism and mystification of power. Orwell had a strong sense of moral awareness and aimed to transform political writing into art.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Power and domination
1984 refers to the future and it is the reserve of 1948, year in which he wrote the novel. He examines the role of the power and the domain in an imaginary society of the future, that reflects totalitarian regimes. Orwell is focused to preserve individually and the personal intellectual. Censorship controlled all the forms of public expressions.
The character of Winston Smith
Winston Smith is the protagonist and his name is symbolic, because Winston derives by Winston Churchill and Smith is the surname most diffuse in London and this suggests the idea that Winston is an “everyman”. He tries to preserve his humanity, but he is forced to surrender in the room 101 and so he becomes a passive and de-personalized member of the Party.
Big Brother
The Big Brother is an image present everywhere in the state of Oceania and looks at all citizen. Indeed, the slogan is “Big Brother watching you” and it is present in a regime in which all the citizen can be spied. The concept of Big Brother is a scary concept.
The instruments of power: newspeak and ‘doublethink’
In this oppressive society there are used two different instruments. The first is the language, a new English that is called “Newspeak”, and its aim is to reduce the possibility of independence. In 2050, the “Oldspeak” will have disappeared and the revolution will be complete. The second instrument is “Doublethink” and is the ability of holding two contrasting ideas at the same time. They use this ability to erase the past, so this “doublethink” represents the cancellation of human conscience and rationally.