Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, in relation to Satire and what infulenced the satire
Uploaded by mshiraev on Mar 06, 2005
George Orwell, author of the brilliant political allegory Animal Farm was once quoted to say: "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly against Totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism, as I understand it."
Orwell saw his role as a writer to be the objective conscience of a society - he was trying to express the truth in a particular political system as he saw it.
1984, Orwell’s most famous book and perhaps one of the most important and dark political satires ever written is parodying many different institutions that existed all around the world in 1949 when he wrote the book. At this time, totalitarianism was a stalking fear. With Nazi Germany in the recent past and Russia and China in the present, 1984 was not only a savage social comment, but even a prophecy of what could occur in as little as 35 years time. Some of the satirical techniques used by Orwell in 1984 are irony and pathos, parody of literary works and exaggeration.
In the story itself, Orwell portrays a dystopian and totalitarian state in which the government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought –that is, a thought against the government, which is also called “The Party”– is against the law. The mysterious head of government is the all knowing, all seeing, all giving, beloved Big Brother. Again, ironically he is described as “...a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features." Who else springs to mind’s eye but the face of Joseph Stalin, whose terrible dictatorship destroyed the lives of millions?
The day to day life is controlled by the ever-watching “Telescreens” in which people are watched for every hour of every day. Just by looking in some way “guilty”, for example a nervous twitching or talking in your sleep, you will be sent off to the ministry of love to be tortured and interrogated until you are “reborn”. Big brother must wear you down mentally by brainwashing and physically, by extreme violence so that when they do decide to kill you, you have learned to “love” big brother. This is why Winston comes to the conclusion that “To die hating them, that was freedom”
As the novel progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984, sets out to challenge...