1984

1984

1. Characters

   • Winston Smith
     • He is the protagonist a thirty-nine years old man. That is Intellectual, thin and rebel. He hates the totalitarian government. He is in love with Julia. He works in the Ministry of Truth
   • Julia
     • He is physically described as a beautiful dark haired woman. She works for the Fiction Department of the Ministry of Truth. She is pragmatic and optimistic. She enjoys sex and have many sexual relations with Party members.
   • O'Brien
     • He is part of the Inner Party. He is sophisticated, powerful and mysterious. Winston also thinks he is part of the Brotherhood.

2. Setting

   • The story develops in a futuristic dystopia Oceania a city that is probably London. There is a totalitarian government called the Party, with Big Brother as the leader. There is a lot of oppression towards the population, to the point the people against the Party are killed or brain-washed. The Party alters the information in order to control the population. There are few rebels that are against the Party and want to free the people from its control.

3. Audience

   • The audience intended for this novel are teenagers and young adults. Because the author wanted to create conscience among the new generations for preventing a dystopia and political struggle in the future. He wants to show the complexity of political parties, especially communists and how they try to abuse the power given to them for controlling people and beneficiate themselves.

4. Purpose

   • The purpose of the author was to show a possible scenario that would happen in the future if the communist regime continues. So, he created a dystopia where the government controls everything. He represents Stalin or other communist dictators with the character of Big Brother and the Party. The readers can understand the problems that could be created by these regimes.

5. Context

   • The author’s novels and essays were really influenced by the political and social events of the time. At that time Joseph Stalin was the leader of the USSR with a communist regime, and George Orwell was against Stalin and the communist. He was socialist and was against any other political ideology. In many of his novels he shows his political ideologies and he attacks in a passive way Stalin, for example, “Animal Farm”

6. Message

   • The message the author is trying to transmit is a warning related to political regimes and their philosophy. George Orwell was known for being against communism and being anti-Stalin. The author’s message is to show people what would happen if they let a government acquire all the power of a nation and start to control every aspect of the citizen’s life by using governmental entities for controlling and modifying the truth. This is represented on Oceania and the Party with Big Brother as leader, and Winston’s work at the Ministry of Truth as shown in the novel.

7. Variation

   • There are two main variations of language used in this book. First, Newspeak that is an imaginary variation of English created by the author for the book, and it is used during the chapter. This variation was created by the Party for making English easier so everyone can learn it and talk it. The second variation is the variation of the English used by the author for writing the book in 1949, and the English used in the actual times.

8. Author's Information

   • The name George Orwell is only an artistic name, and his real name is Eric Arthur Blair. He was born on 25 June 1903 in eastern India. His father was a British colonial civil servant. In his childhood he traveled to England, and it was there where he studied. After that he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma. In 1927 he resigned and decide to become a writer, after one year he went to Paris for being a fulltime writer, but he wasn’t successful, so George had to find other jobs. In 1933 he published his first book “Down and Out in Paris and London”. And his first novel “Burmese Days” was published in 1934. He was a socialist and volunteered fight against Franco’s Nationalists, after all he had to flee the country. He was known for being a “anti-Stalinist”. He worked for the BBC Eastern Service. In 1944 he finished his anti-Stalinist novel “Animal Farm”. And, in 1949 his best work, the dystopian “1984” was published, that novel was written in the island of Jura in Scotland. Finall

9. IB Themes

   • The IB themes that best fit this novel are Human Ingenuity and Social Organization.Human Ingenuity because the novel shows how people can be persuaded and control by the government when there are misunderstandings and changed information. And, how humans can become slaves of the system without even noticing what they have become. Then social organizations because it shows how a society can be organized in an oppressive way that makes communication and opinion something forbitten by making laws that violated the human rights.

10. Themes

    • This novel discuses many themes like the oppression and rebellion of a dystopia society. Also, the critic to the totalitarian governments in a future situation if not control the power the goverment gets. And, the hope there is in the people in order to end with a problematic situation and fight the oppressive rulers.