George orwell

GEORGE ORWELL

• In this work, set in the future because written in 1948, Orwell imagines that world had been divided in three parts: Oceania (which consists of England, North America, South Africa and Australia), Eastasia and Eurasia. The three powers are always at war, but people don't know why. In Oceania everything is forbidden, even love, and there's a total control of everything so that people can't act freely, they live without any freedom.
• The story is set in Airstrip One, what we know as England. 
• The protagonists of the story are Winston, his lover Julia and O'Brien. There are also other people, but they're not important, so that we can say that there are no other characters. This is important because Orwell want to say that there's no individuality.
• We have a third person narrator, external and omniscient.   

THE PLOT

At 49 Winston decides to take a little piece of freedom and to buy a book to use it as a diary. But having a diary was a crime, as individual expression. All over the pages he writes the sentence "Down with Big Brother", but it's very dangerous because of the telescreens that control everything. Another very important entry that he writes in his diary is that freedom is to say that two and two is four. During a walk, he meets Julia, a member of the Outer party working at the Ministry of Love. She tells him she's attracted by something in his face which shows that he's against the party, that took the power after World War II. Winston and Julia begin having a love affair, but this was forbidden, and when they're discovered, they're made prisoners. They're tortured teaching them the Doublethink and they're obliged to accept that two and two makes five. The torturers make them a brainwash and after that they accept all the lies of the Party. Then they're ready for the last part of the reintegration in the system: Winston is taken to Room 101, where there is a cage containing two rats into which the face of the victim is strapped.

We can divided the plot into 3 parts: the first describes a totalitarian world where the Party tries to control everything, including thought and emotion. The second part tells the development of the love story between Winston and Julia and the friendship with O'Brien, while the last one deals with Winston's punishments. Finally he comes to love Big Brother.         

POLITICAL SYSTEM

People in Oceania are divided into 3 social classes: the Inner and the Outer Party and the Proles, which corresponds to the 85% of the population. Proles live in a different part of the town, called Proles area, that seems like a different world, and live in a normal way. The Proles area is not controlled by the telescreens, because Proles are ignorant and non considered as dangerous because they're unable to react. There are different Ministries: the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) and the Miniplanty.

Children are instructed to be little spies: family is not seen as a group of people who live together in harmony and love each other. Every value is destroyed in this world of no freedom.

NEWSPEAK

Newspeak is the official language of Oceania but there's nobody who really uses Newspeak in speech or writing, only the leading articles are written in this language. The purpose of Newspeak is not only to provide medium of expression for the world-view, but to make all other methods of thought impossible. It's a new vocabulary created from the idea that if you don't have words to express a thought, then it's eliminated from your brain in a certain way. Another reason for developing Newspeak is to make old books unreadable. The new vocabulary is done partly by the invention of new words, and partly by eliminating undesirable words. Generally Newspeak words are divided into 3 groups: the A, the B and the C Vocabulary. The A-Vocabulary consist of the words needed in business and everyday life, for such things as drinking, working and the like. The words of this group are that of the Oldspeak, but their number is very small and the meaning of these words is much more defined. The B-Vocabulary consists of words deliberately constructed for political reason: they're in all cases compound words, and they consists of two or more words merged together in a easy pronounceable form. The C-Vocabulary consists of technical and scientific terms.

DOUBLETHINK

It's a kind of manipulation of the mind. Generally one could say that Doublethink makes people accept contradictions, and it makes them also believe that the party is the only institution that can distinguish between right and wrong. This manipulation is mainly done by the Minitrue, where Winston works. When a person recognizes a contradiction or a lie of the Party, then the person thinks that he's remembering a false fact. With the work of the Minitrue, it's not only possible to change written facts, but also facts that are remembered by the people. This is the last control that the Party has on the citizen.

CHARACTERS

A part from Julia, Winston and O'Brien there are no other important characters.

• Winston: The protagonist is Winston Smith, a member of the Outer party, who works at the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite documents and newspaper articles, because the Big Brother Government must never be in contradiction. His name can say something about the idea Orwell wants to give of him: "Winston" in an important name and reminds to Winston Churchill, England's great leader during World War II, but the last name "Smith" is very common in England. Orwell's Winston is a hero but also a antihero, a common person, also a little naļve, because he opens his mind to O'Brien before being sure that he's also against the Party. We also have a physical description of him (he's middle-aged and physically weak) but the most important thing is his idea that Government wasn't something good. He's the last humanist, because he is the last man believing in human values in that totalitarian age.
• Julia: her name suggests Juliet, a Shakespearean character, connected with romantic love. She's around 25 and works at the Ministry of Love, producing cheap pornography for the proles. Unlike Winston, she's a simple woman, who uses sex for fun and not for rebellion, as Winston does. She's not interested in what Government does, she just uses sex to react, but just because she likes it, not because of a political aim, and this is the deep difference between her and Winston.
• O'Brien: he's a member of the Inner Party and he's often near Winston, showing him to be his friend and to be a rebel. He tries to gain Winston's trusting and before Winston's capture he helps him in his rebellion, teaching him something about the secret organization of the Party. The relationship between O'Brien and Winston seems always like a relationship between a father and a child, and just at the end of the story the reader discover the real intention of him.
• Big Brother: he's not a real person and he's only seen on TV or on the posters where is the sentence "Big Brother is watching you". He stands for all dictators everywhere and he looks like Stalin. For the Inner party, he's a leader, someone they can use to frighten people and justify actions.