Rewriting History, Marxist Elements in Orwell's "1984" and Their Outcome on Love
Rewriting History.
Marxist Elements and their Outcome on Love in Orwell’s 1984
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel which presents an exagerated version of a totalitarian regime which not only controlled everything but which also could not be removed by any means. Orwell’s novel drew attention, back in 1949 when the novel was published, upon how this world would look like if a totalitarian regime would truly take over. My aim for this essay is to analyze Orwell’s novel with respect to the marxist elements present in the novel and also to illustrate their impact upon the protagonist’s feelings.
Marxism and especially Stalinism are present in Orwell’s novel through certain elements: countinuous surveillance, control of the mind, the cult of personality and a supposed “equality” between the Party’s members. Isaac Asimov, in his essay Review of 1984, considers Orwell as a writer with not much of an imagination, accusing him of not developing in the novel the actual communist actions which were happening in reality. “Orwell imagines Great Britain to have gone through a revolution similar to the Russian Revolution and to have gone through all the stages that Soviet development did. He can think of almost no variations on the theme.” I believe, though, that Orwell was an extraordinary visionary who pictured a society chained in nothing but governmental controll, a society which cannot be defeated. A communist concept presented in the novel is that of the powerless individual and of the high disregard the Party had for individualism. Everybody must form a group with everybody – this is the recipe for power, according to any communism regime.
In 1984, history is continuously rewritten and in this way, the population’s memories are restricted only to what appears in the remaining articles after rewriting; it can be seen as another way of mind control. Winston himself discovers that most of what the Party states is lies and towards the end of the
Marxist Elements and their Outcome on Love in Orwell’s 1984
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel which presents an exagerated version of a totalitarian regime which not only controlled everything but which also could not be removed by any means. Orwell’s novel drew attention, back in 1949 when the novel was published, upon how this world would look like if a totalitarian regime would truly take over. My aim for this essay is to analyze Orwell’s novel with respect to the marxist elements present in the novel and also to illustrate their impact upon the protagonist’s feelings.
Marxism and especially Stalinism are present in Orwell’s novel through certain elements: countinuous surveillance, control of the mind, the cult of personality and a supposed “equality” between the Party’s members. Isaac Asimov, in his essay Review of 1984, considers Orwell as a writer with not much of an imagination, accusing him of not developing in the novel the actual communist actions which were happening in reality. “Orwell imagines Great Britain to have gone through a revolution similar to the Russian Revolution and to have gone through all the stages that Soviet development did. He can think of almost no variations on the theme.” I believe, though, that Orwell was an extraordinary visionary who pictured a society chained in nothing but governmental controll, a society which cannot be defeated. A communist concept presented in the novel is that of the powerless individual and of the high disregard the Party had for individualism. Everybody must form a group with everybody – this is the recipe for power, according to any communism regime.
In 1984, history is continuously rewritten and in this way, the population’s memories are restricted only to what appears in the remaining articles after rewriting; it can be seen as another way of mind control. Winston himself discovers that most of what the Party states is lies and towards the end of the
Bibliography: Asimov, Isaac. Review of 1984. http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm. Web. 31.05 2013 K., Ramesh. Socio-Cultural Matrix in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/ojs/index.php/JLCMS/article/viewFile/374/413. Web. 31.05 2013 Substance, Oliver. The Tendency of Man. Nineteen Eighty Four. http://www.helium.com/items/197697-marxist-criticism-1984-by-george-orwell Web. 31.05 2013 Orwell, George. 1984. Planet eBook.com. http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/1984.pdf Google Books. Web. 31.05 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_%28Nineteen_Eighty-Four%29#Existence http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Davidovici_Tro%C8%9Bki