George Orwell (1903-1950)

George Orwell (1903-1950)

1. Life and works

2. 1984

3. Influences, cultural impact

1903, Mohitari (India)

He was born as Eric Arthur Blair

His father, Richard, was a colonial servant

His mother, Ida is from Burma

He has 2 sisters

education

Parish school in Henley

St Cyprian shool Wellington and

Eton Collage

back to India

In 1922 he returned to India where he joined the Indian Imperial Police

(standing 3rd from the left)

… England again…

In 1927 he returned to England

London, Notting Hill

He settled down in Notting Hill.

He lived in poverty, sometimes homeless, sometimes doing itinerant work

1933, Down and outin Paris and London

… from 1933 he is using his pen name.

George is the patron saint of England,

while the River Orwell in Suffolk was one of his most beloved English sites

1937, Spain - militia

Sympathizer of the Independent Labour Party

Joined to POUM

World War II and after

reviews for the

New English Weekly

BBC Eastern Service

editor of Tribune

family First wife: Eileen

O'Shaughnessy

Adopted child: Richard Horatio Blair

Second wife: Sonia Brownell

homage to Catalonia

The Road to Wigan Pier

1945, Animal Farm

1948, his best-known work is publised

1950, died in tuberculosis

19841984George Orwell

Animal farm (1945) allegorical short story reflects events leading

up to and during the Stalin era before World War II

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others„

1948 1984

history

written on the Scottish island of Jura between 1947–48, despite being critically tubercular

On December 4, 1948, he sent the final manuscript to the Secker and Warburg editorial house that published Nineteen Eighty-Four on 8 June 1949

The Last Man in Europe was one of the original titles for the novel, but his publisher Fredric Warburg recommended a change in the title

choosing the title 1948 19⇒ 84 allusion to the title of the poem

"End of the Century, 1984" (1934) by Orwell's first and then wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy

G. K. Chesterton's novel also set in a future London of 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Jack London novel The Iron Heel (1908)

utopia/anti-utopia/dystopia

Utopia: is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean

Anti-utopia: intended to be utopia but fallen Dystopia: is the idea of a society in a repressive

and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian (Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)

general features of dystopia Undesirable society Set in the future Criticism of current society Extremely bad life

conditions Form of allegory or parable

and may contain moral issues

fears and distresses of post-war English society WWII effects: strike on the

English moral, economy (invasion, Nazism, etc.)

The loss of the British Empire and leading role in the World

The fall of the middle class society The increase of the government’s

power in the society/erosion of a personal autonomy (Labour won the election)

Fear of mass culture/uniform society (communism)

background

Story takes place in Oceania, one of three intercontinental super-states that divided the world among themselves after a global war

London, the "chief city of Airstrip One", the Oceanic province that "had once been called England or Britain

Party: Ingsoc

background Posters of the Party leader

adorn the landscape the ubiquitous telescreen

(transciving television set) monitors the private and public lives of the populace

Big Brother's face looms on giant telescreens in Victory Square in Michael Radford's 1984 film adaptation

the social class system of Oceania the upper-class Inner Party,

the elite ruling minority the middle-class Outer Party the lower-class Proles (from

proletariat), who make up 85% of the population and represent the uneducated working class

ministries Ministry of Peace

(Minipax) supports Oceania's perpetual war.

Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty) rations and controls food, goods, and domestic production. Starvation.

Ministry of Love (Miniluv) identifies, monitors, arrests, and converts real and imagined dissidents (beaten and tortured, and sent to Room 101 to face "the worst thing in the world" — until love for Big Brother and the Party replaces dissension

Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Lies.

ideology (The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism)

plot The story of Winston Smith presents the world

in the year 1984, after a global atomic war, via his perception of life in Airstrip One (England or Britain), a province of Oceania, one of the world's three superstates; his intellectual rebellion against the Party and illicit romance with Julia; and his consequent imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education by the Thought Police (Thinkpol) in the Miniluv

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

Winston Smith – the protagonist a member of the Outer Party

works as an editor revising historical records to concord the past to the contemporary party line orthodoxy — that changes daily — and deletes the official existence of unpersons, people who have been "vaporized"; who have not only been killed by the state, but effectively erased from existence

Julia

Winston's lover, is a covert "rebel from the waist downwards" who publicly espouses Party doctrine as a member of the fanatical Junior Anti-Sex League

O'Brien   a member of the Inner

Party who poses as a member of The Brotherhood, the counter-revolutionary resistance, in order to deceive, trap, and capture Winston and Julia

Emmanuel Goldstein a former leader of The Party, the

counter-revolutionary author of The Book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism and leader of the Brotherhood

He is the symbolic Enemy of the State — the national nemesis who ideologically unites the people of Oceania with the Party, especially during the Two Minutes Hate, and other fear mongering by the Inner Party. It is unknown whether he is real or a fabrication of the Party itself for the purpose of propaganda

2+2=5 (doublethink) a system of thought that

allowed people to believe two contradictory things simultaneously (the chocolate ration is cut to 20 grams and the chocolate ration is raised to 20 grams)

Newspeak The Principles of Newspeak"

is an academic essay appended to the novel. It describes the development of Newspeak, the Party's minimalist artificial language meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of Ingsoc by making "all other modes of thought impossible

Characteristics of totalitarianism 1. dominant ideology 2. one-party system (mass) 3. unlimited power 4. control of mass-media 5. terror

(C.J. Friedrich)

Stalin – Soviet Union

Hitler, Germany

Ferenc Szálasi, Hungary

Mátyás Rákosi -Hungary

Mao Ce Tung - China

Pol Pot – Cambodia

19841984Influences, cultural

impact

1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8