Imposed Invisible Life (A '1984' Symbol Analysis)

Sydney Studies in English, 2008

This essay considers how 'perspective' and 'choice of language' in George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, position the reader and contribute to the text's representation of power, powerplay and people power. 1 The aims of this essay can be restated in the form of two key questions. What specific features of the narrative in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four construct the text's representation of power, and of powerplay? How do those features position the responder to think and feel about political power and about whether there can be people power? It is important to distinguish, at the outset, between 'narrative', as a general term for story or the telling of story, and 'the novel', as a particular medium or form of narrative. Narratives are everywhere in culture. Not only are they integral to novels but they also permeate films, news reports, and even the everyday stories we use to make sense of life. Narratives always position the listener, reader, or responder in particular ways, expressing partial truths, and creating or constructing certain views of reality while minimizing or excluding others. The novel, on the other hand, is a specific textual form that developed, in the medium of print, during the last three hundred years or so in European societies. Not all cultures and societies have given rise to 'novels', though all have told stories, in visual, oral, or written forms. The European novel's popularity peaked in the nineteenth century. Though in the twentieth century film has eclipsed the novel as predominant narrative form, the novel still remains highly popular and has spread worldwide. For its readers, the novel is such an everyday brough nd similar papers at core.ac.uk

A robust novel in terms of narrative structure, plot, themes and writing style, 1984 was chosen by TIME magazine in 2005 as one of the 100 best English language novels from 1923 to 2005. Retrospectively, TIME's November 23, 1983 issue ran the title heading 'Big Brother's Father' featured with a charcoal colour sketch of George Orwell's mugshot looking towards the ominous one eye. Early January of 2017, Orwell's 1984 shot up to the position of Amazon's best seller. It indicated a sceptical, apprehensive yet an inquisitive readership that was bowled over to discover the astounding modern-day relevance the book displayed. Declared as a 2017 must-read by the New York Times, authoritative scholarship and research regarding 1984 has been abundant.Yet, the novel continues to enthral, stimulate and puzzle. However, at the heart of the novel is a blossoming love story that is often overlooked if not side lined. Firstly, this paper analyses the features of a post-modern world in 1984 manufactured under the patronage of oligarchical capitalismthatleads to the dismantling of regular human interactions. Secondly, it dissects the protagonist, Winston Smith's loss of family and sense of belonging. Thirdly, it highlights the elements of a romance in1984.

1984 and Philosophy, 2018

At the heart of 1984 lies an erotic love story between Winston and Julia. Love and the enjoyment of sex is forbidden by the Party. According to it, sex should be an act of procreation not to be enjoyed (certainly not by the woman), but to be barely endured as a 'duty to the Party'. The liaison is therefore a political act in opposition to the powers that be. But our two heroes have quite different views of how their relationship challenges the Party.

In this paper, we will analyze the theoretical assumptions regarding threat and warning images, with the intention of outlining the productive tension installed between them. Semiotics deals with symbols in the form of text and pictures, and also with their underlying meaning. Hence, the study aims to clarify the differences between the two aspects from semiotic point of view by analyzing the novel 1984 and investigate their hidden meanings, in order to expose the deep meaning of the terms and to unravel its complexities along with the use of their features. To achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers adopt theory of Saussure of the signs and symbols (1915).

2015

1984 is a dystopian novel by George Orwell that clearly describes the life under totalitarian government. Totalitarianism is not merely a political system but also movement that goes beyond private, public, and political sphere. Totalitarian government dreams of uniformity in all aspects of life and they pursue for global domination. In order to reach for global domination and their ideal version of state, totalitarian government does not allow freedom in all aspects of life. The pursuit of global domination requires some strategies to make the society in uniformity. The strategies applied are propaganda, terror, and indoctrination. These strategies make the main characters lose the freedom and become alienated from the self and the society. Alienation and the lost of freedom also lead to inauthenticity, since they are related to each other. Inauthenticity can be caused by repression from external agents in which a person cannot do anything spontaneously since he is being dictated b...

2020

This research aims to explain the way of Big Brother uses his power to shape the social behaviorand mindset in the 1984 novel. Then the writer will analyze on how Winston as the main characterto fight against hegemony and power of the party. In this study, the writer used the qualitativemethods to describe the research of the problem through text, it is literary works studied. The writeralso uses dynamic structuralism approach and hegemony theory to analyze the research of theproblem. To collecting data, the writer review the 1984 novel and some supporting data like readingbooks and internet that related support research. After doing analysis, the results of researchexplained that in shaping the mindset and social behavior in the 1984 novel, Big Brother usedseveral ways such as Telescreen, Tought Police, Four Ministries, The Movie of Two Minutes Hate,and Newspeak. Afterword, Winston using multiple ways against the regime of Big Brother. Some ofthe ways are sex, write down all of the...

International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 2020

This article examines the theme of social-psychological alienation in Orwell's 1984 by focusing on Winston as a character. The theme of alienation has repeatedly studied in the works of Hegel, Marx, Weber, Fromm and Durkheim. However, this article mainly focuses on Seeman's conceptualization of alienation as a theoretical framework. This paper is limited to clarify the term 'powerlessness' because it is the dominant concept in the novel. Since this paper offers an understanding of powerlessness, it is a must to first, clearly present the reasons that led to Winston's feeling of alienation. Understanding Seeman's concept of alienation (especially on how he clarifies the process, circumstances and results of alienation) is significant as the subject of this study. Certainly, the term 'alienation' was not particularly used in the novel, but the concept is clearly shown by the characters, especially Winston. A thematic analysis, combined with Seeman's concept, offers a better perception of the novel where a deep investigation revealed that Winston develops a sense of alienation due to four reasons, which are totalitarianism, fear, Party's control of power and information. The findings of this paper could be of many benefits not only for scholars but also for readers who are aware of the circumstances and factors that could lead to the sense of powerlessness and consequently to social-psychological alienation.

Modernism and Postmodernism Studies Network, 2020

As a literary period, modernism indicated the birth of the new ideas and approaches to art. This period from a political aspect also marked the beginning of the expansion of socialism; for this reason, the literature portrayed the division between the ideas of right-and left-winged intellectuals and how they visualised their ultimate utopias which were based on the political ideas they supported. In time, because of the idealistic approaches of the writers to the issues around them, their realities became a subjective reflection of their political beliefs since their works were highly influenced by them and eventually they started to produce the propaganda of their political views in their literary works. With Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell aims to portray his fears about the future by creating a society in which the external reality is controlled by the authority. In the novel, Orwell reflects the fragmented mind of the modern people through the conflict between his protagonist Winston, who wants to protect the last traces of his humanity, and the Party members that aim to reduce humanity into hollow beings by producing their version of the actuality. As a modernist writer, within the novel, Orwell both experiments with new forms and subject matters with the way he illustrates the psychological effects of constant warfare and criticises the people who have the power in his society for focusing on the control they have over the majority instead of encouraging enlightenment for he believed that their utopia originated a dystopia.

This research paper aims to analyze George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) using stylistic tools in order to reveal the author’s literary aims in creating its dystopian ambiance, namely its sense of hopelessness and disturbance. What readers of literature feel in response to a text is usually reliant on the language and its crafting by the author. Lexis and syntactic devices are two areas that will be investigated as having been manipulated by Orwell in order to achieve his literary aim. Lexical items which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and other elements convey negativity and despondence, while the vocabulary of Newspeak is a special creation that contributes to the sense of disturbance in this fictional world. The syntactic devices of negation, modals, and linking verbs also serve to reinforce the sensation of helplessness and simultaneous dystopian force within the novel.