1984 Article

GEORGE ORWELL AND THE SATIRE IN HORRORAuthor(s): Emanuel EdrichSource: Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 1962), pp. 96-108Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40753583 .

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GEORGE ORWELL AND THE SATIRE IN HORROR

By Emanuel Edrich

In Animal Farm George Orwell introduces an element not ordinarily associated with the beast fable - horror. In the tales of Aesop and La Fontaine animals are occasionally killed, but we do not find in these works such vivid descriptions of violent death as "there was a pile of corpses lying before Napoleon's feet and the air was heavy with the smell of blood."1

The horror that punctuates Animal Farm is significant as a precursor of what Orwell creates two years later with Nineteen Eighty-Four - the satire in horror. Horror in a satirical work is not uncommon before either Animal Farm or Nineteen Eighty-Four, but what establishes the uniqueness of Orwell's last book is horror as an intrinsic part of the novel's satiric devices.

One of the oldest and most familiar of satiric devices is exposing the difference between appearance and reality. In utilizing this device in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell tears the mask from benevolent despot- ism and reveals more than a hypocritical contempt for the masses; he shows up the true and horrible countenance of power.

To best emphasize the severe qualities of Orwell's exposé, it is helpful to examine briefly two other famous twentieth-century anti-Utopian works with which he was very familiar, Eugene Zamiatin's We and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.2 The ruling cliques of Zamiatin's and Huxley's hypothetical worlds have managed to provide the popu- lace with an abundance of material goods and services and ask nothing in return save an unquestioned acceptance of all that is offered. Only a small minority find themselves unhappy in such an environment; they see human stagnation as the only real product of unbounded security and comfort. Because of their insight and resulting protest, only they are made to feel the punitive measures of the state. The frustrations and sufferings of this dissident element, however, serve to point up to the reader a colossal fraud : that the kind of rulers who maintain for their subjects an ultramodern bread-and-circuses way of life have assumed power not out of any love for man but out of a contempt for his abilities - out of a belief that most men are like pet dogs who, if fed well, kept warm, freed from the burden of making decisions, praised frequently,

1 Animal Farm (New York, 1946), pp. 71-72. 2 Orwell commented extensively on We and Brave New World July 4th, 1946, in an article in The Tribune, a London periodical of which he was the literary editor.



Emanuel Edrich 97 and chastised occasionally, will behave, live in awe of their master and profess to be happy.

A major factor concomitant with this pseudobeneficent façade concerns the true reason why the authorities of an anti-Utopian society undertake the responsibilities of administering a state. This reason, as Orwell sees it, is stated in an article in the July 4, 1946 issue of The Tribune and reiterated more dramatically in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is power, which for some becomes an unquenchable thirst and an end in itself, an almost mystic status which certain individuals feel they must attain and hold. It is undoubtedly a fear of losing this status that forces these rulers to treat with severity those who, though perhaps seeking no power themselves, could, by their very desire for something more than what is already offered, threaten the authority and sanctity of power. In the Tribune article Orwell criticizes Huxley for not recognizing this power lust and commends Zamiatin for his understanding of it. In writing Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell transcends his acknowledgment of Zamiatin's perspicacity by developing his own analysis of power and presenting it largely through the person of the inner-Party inquisitor, O'Brien. The most striking conclusion to come from this analysis, a conclusion which forms the foundation for the extreme horror that per- meates Nineteen Eighty-Four ', is that power can fully realize itself only when it is inflicting pain and thereby assuring itself that its subjects are obedient not because they want to be but because they are forced to be.3

Although we can discern a fatherly sort of contempt for mankind on the part of the rulers of the imaginary societies of We apd Brave New World, these leaders do not. as a matter of policy, make men suffer. They are primarily concerned with maintaining the established order and only persecute the comparatively few individuals who express dis- satisfaction. But even with persecution, benevolence is not completely lacking; the more serious revolutionaries of the United State (We) are subjected to the gas Bell and do suffer execution, but the Bell is used to extract information, not to destroy the mind ; and the manner of execution is literally lightning-fast and hence painless : tortures and executions are therefore an expediency, not a principle. Brave New World appears relatively kind to its unhappy inhabitants; it exiles them to an island where they may live with others who have shown discontent, and even

3 Nineteen Eighty-Four (New York, 1949), pp. 269-270; hereafter 1984. Aldous Huxley either purposely or accidentally ignores this basic precept of Orwell when, in an article, "A Note on 1984" World Review, New Series, No. 16 (June, 1950), p. 60, the author of Brave New World claims to have offered a much simpler and much less oppressive method than the Thought Police, telescreen and Ministry of Truth's inducements to conformity, namely hypnopaedia.



98 George Orwell and the Satire in Horror

gives them the choice of a tropical isle, where climatic conditions are pleasant, or a less temperate one, where the weather, and consequently life itself, is more challenging. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith and other deviants are subjected to the most dreadful of physical and mental tortures, but they have in some way opposed the existing authority (sometimes, it is true, inadvertently so, as in the cases of Syme and Parsons) and have all along been aware that such opposition en- tailed severe consequences; but the overwhelming majority of the people obey all the rules and, in fact, constantly and furiously proclaim their love for Big Brother and their hatred for his enemies. Yet, in accordance with Orwell's thesis regarding power, these people too are made to suffer, perpetually and eternally - to feel a boot stamping on their face forever.4 The height of fraud becomes apparent when we realize that in the midst of this never-ending reign of terror, the telescreen continually blares forth pronouncements as to the benevolent nature of Big Brother and the Party and how they are sacrificing all to protect, guide, and enrich the masses.

Another device of paramount importance in Nineteen Eighty-Four is satiric extension, that is, the following of some idea along ruthlessly logical lines to an absurd extreme or conclusion; but for Orwell, absurdity is transformed into horror. His last novel offers a frightening speculation on the possible end products of certain disturbing political and social phenomena with which he was especially concerned throughout his writing career. A number of these phenomena readily demon- strate how Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, utilizes the logical extension device to achieve an effect of horror.

One of the main political concerns of Orwell was the position of Eng- lish Socialism. Although an avowed socialist and supporter of the Inde- pendent Labor Party, he frequently proved himself an iconoclast even within his own radical group. In The Road to Wigan Pier Orwell presents several disconcerting arguments on the possible future of socialism, especially that brand of socialism which puts its greatest faith in technological progress. He concludes that if the socialist promise of an abundance of material goods and leisure time for all ever becomes a reality, man will not be happy, but instead will find himself in the very unnerving predicament of not knowing what to do with himself; as technological advancement continues and the working day is shortened accordingly, the situation will grow progressively worse. In short, socialism can actually force itself into an impossible position, and hence those of its advocates who seek after some mechanistic utopia are unrealistic

4 1984, p. 271.



Emanuel Edrich 99 or insincere or both. Orwell maintains that the principal English socialists are to a large extent insincere because they are aloof from the lower classes and thus lack knowledge of the working man whom they are so intent upon emancipating. Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, does not limit his criticism to English socialists; he calls the leaders of Soviet Rus- sia "half gangster, half gramaphone,"5 intimating that they who head a state purported to be socialistic have achieved no paradise for the masses and instead are substituting propaganda and ruthless authoritarianism.

Another significant point, regarding Orwell's view of socialism, can be extracted from his experiences as they are described in Homage to Catalonia and from several of his essays. It is that when any cause, whether it appear righteous or not, must, in order to gain power, use brute force and treachery, no guarantee exists that the leaders of that cause will be able to, or, more disturbing, will want to, abandon those reprehensible methods after achieving initial success.

A major question with which Orwell became familiar as a result of his reading Zamiatin pertains to whether man can ever establish a perfect and immutable state. One of the arguments which the heroine of We and her companions put forth is that the inauguration of the cur- rent regime might have once marked a great step forward for mankind, but that the Weil-Doers (the rulers of the United State) were funda- mentally wrong in insisting it was the final step, for there is no final step for mankind.6

In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell presents what the logical extension might be of each of the four problems mentioned above : the aloofness and insincerity of radical leadership, the failure to abandon ruthless measures, the attempt to establish a perfect system, and socialism's untenable position.7

We find insincerity and aloofness evident in the way Oceania's rulers treat the rest of the population. Insincerity reaches an extreme in that the Party repeatedly declares it is striving to better the lot of the masses, when in actuality, and in accordance with O'Brien's statement on the demands of power, it is doing everything conceivable to make the life of the "prole" more miserable. It looks upon the proles with contempt,

5 Road to Wigan Pier (New York, 1958) , p. 248: hereafter Road. 6 We. trans. Gresrorv Zilboorer ( New York. 1959Ì. dd. 162-163. 7 It may appear contradictory for Orwell to say that the socialist position is

untenable yet be a socialist himself. This seeming paradox is answered in Road, pp. 249 ff. The general answer appears to be that a person, while realizing no perfect solution for anything is possible, must take sides in the everyday struggle against foes of decency and must therefore work with that movement which has some hopes of bettering immediate conditions but at the same time maintain his own integrity and criticize where criticism is necessary.




deprives them of basic living comforts, cheats them with a perpetual lottery, denies them any cultural advantages, forbids fraternization between them and Party members (except in certain types of prostitution) , kills off any promising individuals, and singles out working-class districts as rocket-bomb targets. The rank-and-file Party member, such as Win- ston Smith, though treated to the same propaganda about how his living standard is continually being bettered, suffers from many of the harass- ments which the proles undergo plus several special torments, like super- constant surveillance, denial of basic emotional and intellectual expres- sion, and perpetual fear of seizure and agonizing death; insincerity is therefore more pronounced here, especially when we consider that outer-Party people are made to feel they are a privileged group, superior to the proles. Aloofness is also manifest in the strict lines drawn between the inner-Party members and ordinary comrades. The separation between the socialist spokesman and the working class is made complete in Nineteen-Eighty-Four with the Party showing absolutely no interest in the welfare of the proles and having no point of contact with them beyond maintaining endless suppressive measures.

Regarding the abandonment of reprehensible social-revolutionary practices, we have only to look at the Thought Police, Spies, purges, executions, tortures, brainwashing, constant warfare, and rocket bombs to see that Oceania has not only been unable to do away with treachery, violence, and brutality once they were instituted, but has refined them to a science by which power, embodied in the Party, perpetuates iteslf.

One of Orwell's most ingenious inventions in Nineteen Eighty-Four is his answer to the two questions so perplexing to the socialist : what is man to do with his abundance of leisure in a Utopian society and when does any society reach perfection?

The answer to the first question is immediately evident, for in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four the struggle to hold onto even the barest necessities of life, to contribute to the perpetual war effort, and to satisfy the state's requirements for proper political enthusiasm is enough to make nonexistent such a concept as leisure. Regarding the second question, the Party, through doublethink, ceaseless telescreen propaganda, ironclad control over people's minds and bodies, and ruthless suppres- sion and re-education of deviants, abolishes memory and its close com- panion, historical sense, and thereby makes it impossible for anyone to be conscious of change or of any movement towards or away from perfection. Orwell therefore offers one "logical" way to overcome any ob- jections to the status quo, namely, eliminate man's sense of time and his concomitant ability to be aware of any such thing as a status quo.

Related to the destruction of a sense of time is the elimination of an



Emanuel Edrich 101 awareness of what is real, and the height of the Party's success in this respect is illustrated by Winston Smith's finding himself in the uncomfortable position of being regarded as insane by all normal standards of his society because he tries to maintain that historical and empirical consciousness exist in the individual mind. The climax of this horrible absurdity lies in O'Brien's saying to Winston, when the latter cannot yet accept three fingers as five, "You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."8

When we perceive how much the sense of time and reality suffers under Ingsoc, we can say that it remains relatively intact today, and hence its destruction in Nineteen Eighty-Four constitutes one of Or- well's more fanciful speculations. Not so remote, in regard to present- day deterioration, is man's sense of decency. What frequently disturbed Orwell was the fact that when causes like defeating the Fascists, build- ing a better society, or winning a war against tyranny were espoused, such basic human values as freedom, humanity, justice, integrity, and intelligence were often set aside or distorted. Orwell's accounts of the Spanish Civil War, his attitude towards Russian commissars in the 1930's, and his criticism of British leadership during the Second World War bear out his fear that not only will these fundamental human qualities be set aside, but that they may never be allowed to return. Yet man will never admit he has given them up, nor will any leader proclaim he has deprived his subjects of them ; in fact he will undoubtedly boast of doing just the opposite. If these basic virtues are destroyed, yet a ruthless dictator can convince his following that they are still present, then what actually must exist is a society operating under tremendous distortions, a state in which "such things as concentration camps and mass deportations can be right and wrong simultaneously."9 If we carry these distortions, as Orwell does carry them, to their logical extreme conclusion, we come to the imaginary year 1984, when war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Life, as it is lived in Oceania, also establishes through doublethink that truth is falsehood, love is hate, and loyalty is suspicion.

There is, in the logical extensions discussed so far, a considerable amount of irony, stemming chiefly from the discrepancy between what certain ideologies promise and what, according to Orwell, they might be capable of actually producing. It is not by accident, for example, that the name of the system under which Oceanians live, Ingsoc, is the Newspeak term for "English Socialism."

8 1984, p. 254. 9 "Writers and Leviathan," England Your England (London, 1953), p. 21; hereafter "Leviathan."




Irony is especially applicable to the fate of the middle-class intellectual. In his essay, "Writers and the Leviathan," Orwell maintains that a special segment of the middle-class intellectuals, the writing intelligent- sia, exhibits a strong tendency towards siding with totalitarian movements.10 Orwell says that although they cannot help participating in some way with movements in which they believe, they should at least try to keep their true creative ability aloof from propagandists pur- poses. One logical extreme of the increasing tendency of some modern writers to merge their efforts and abilities with some cause that is benevolent in speech but authoritarian in deed is Winston Smith. Smith is a writer who, in rewriting history, uses his talents to serve the state. In his attempts to keep a diary, that is to do some composing independent of official requirements, he finds the task beyond him, not just because of state proscriptions, but because years of living under the thought-repressing regime of Ingsoc have rendered impotent individual creative talent. It is not Winston's fault that the state is what it is, but Winston's position is an extreme prognostication of the degree to which the intellectuals of the thirties and the forties can become victims of the very system they support. Additional irony lies in a realization that it is those very talents which they lend to totalitarian movements that are most forbidden in the year 1984: thinking and writing - a profound look or an ink stain on the hand can mean death.11

All of Orwell's heroes, or rather antiheroes, whether they can be deemed intellectuals or not, and those artists of the middle-class intel- ligentsia whom Orwell criticizes in The Road to Wigan Pier,12 Keep the Aspidistra Flying13, Homage to Catalonia1*, and several of his es- says15 possess a certain feeling of superiority which is manifest in their cynical and bitter attitude towards conditions around them. Winston Smith is bitter over the uncompromising restrictions Ingsoc imposes on him ; his complete inability to do anything about it is a logical extension of the exclusion and helplessness suffered by Orwell's antiheroes and twentieth-century intellectuals in general when it comes to influencing major political, social, and economic policy. The government does not expect any opinion from Smith, only unquestioned and wholehearted

10 "Leviathan," p. 17. 11 Another argument for Winston's being the 1984 version of an intellectual and a pitiful illustration of said intellectual's frustration and latent interests is his awakening with the word "Shakespeare" on his lips. (p. 32) Also note the fate of the poet, Ampleforth. (pp. 233-235) 12 Road. Do. 167 ft

13 Note the behaviour of Ravelston throughout Keep the Aspidistra Flying. 14 Homage to Catalonia (Boston, 1952), pp. 65-66. 15 See, e.g., England Your England, passim.



Emanuel Edrich 1 03 obedience. An even more ironic example of the intellectual being destroyed by what he fervently believes in is Syme. Syme differs somewhat from Smith in that the latter voices some dissent to Party policy, where- as the former completely supports everything official. The irony is even greater as Syme becomes an unperson as a result of exhibiting so much enthusiasm for Ingsoc. His intense but reasoned-out approval indicates to Winston and later to the Party that he possesses a flaw fatal in Oceania, the ability to discern.16

Another manifestation of superiority is evident, according to Orwell, in the condescending attitude of the liberal intellectuals towards the working man. They know next to nothing about him: they try to avoid direct contact with him ; they mistrust him, and in turn are mistrusted by him; yet they claim to see in him the true basis of man's noble destiny. Ravelston of Keep the Aspidistra Flying provides an excellent example of this type of intellectual. An end-product of this mixture of superciliousness, ignorance, and hypocrisy is again Winston Smith; he is a Party member and hence superior to the proles, yet he admires in them what he takes to be good-natured, simple wholesomeness, and for a time he thinks he sees in the proles the only hope for future liberation, but when he actually goes among them, he finds communication with them impossible.

Winston ultimately becomes a totally loyal Party member, doing everything that is considered right and proper by the existing authorities. It is in this conformity that we see a highly ironical dilemma which spans all of Orwell's novels: the futility of either conforming or not conforming.

A Clergyman's Daughter concludes with the heroine, Dorothy, re- signed to her meaningless task of serving the church in which she no longer believes and holding onto the consolation that the only way one can get along in life is by "doing what is customary, useful and acceptable."17 "Useful," here, is determined not by the individual but by the organization or society one serves, and in Dorothy's case it means cut- ting out strips of brown paper and in other ways performing the menial tasks of her father's vicarage. In Burmese Days the main character, John Flory, does not have the "consolation" that Dorothy has, and consequently when he feels he is no longer acceptable to his society, he kills himself. There is a special irony in this final act in so far as the major part of Burmese Days is taken up with Flory's demonstrating his contempt for his society. The principal figure in Keep the Aspidistra Flying,

16 1984, pp. 41-45, 120. 17 A Clergyman's Daughter (New York, 1936), p. 315.



1 04 George Orwell and the Satire in Horror Gordon Comstock, re-enters the world of respectability and thereby pleases his relatives and friends and fulfills the general expectations of middle-class society, though at the cost of sacrificing his creative talents and social principles. Both Dorothy and Gordon appear to represent some argument for conformity in that, although they lose their self- assertion, they seem incapable of securing peace until they submit to what society expects of them. The picture changes rather radically for the protagonist of Coming Up for Air, George Bowling; to him middle- class conformity promises nothing but a mortgage, the gas bill, a nag- ging wife, disobedient children, and general fear and confusion in regard to both the domestic and world scene. However, nonconformity, which for Bowling consists, in part, of a furtive trip to his childhood home, offers no satisfaction either and gets him into difficulty. Winston Smith appears to be the unfavorable extreme of both conformity and nonconformity; as a nonconformist he possesses the same ineffectuality of his fictional predecessors: Dorothy, Flory, Comstock, and Bowling; and like Bowling he gets into trouble - only much more serious trouble. As a conformist, he, like Dorothy, is last observed doing precisely what, according to the ruling code, is customary, useful, and acceptable ; but in arriving at this position, he has been purged of bodily strength and such traits as love, ambition, intelligence, judgment, individuality, and self-respect; and as Dorothy in doing her work piously contemplates a glue pot,18 Winston reverently gazes upon a picture of Big Brother. Thus, as Orwell paints it, if present trends continue, the man (or woman) of the middle class has nothing to look forward to whether he protests or conforms.

The unhappy fate of the middle-class individual is matched by an equally unfortunate prospect for the entire working class. In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell presents a rather romantic picture of the workers - a sincere, industrious, good-natured folk, sometimes suspicious of those who pretend to lead them, but nevertheless incapable of shaping their own destiny. Although he describes in detail the hardships of the unemployed, Orwell still injects an idyllic touch in referring to the workers' honest, homey simplicity.19 In his fiction, however, he is not averse to likening them to livestock of one sort or another, and it is therefore natural that horses, cows, chickens, and sheep represent the masses in Animal Farm - loyal, sincere, hard-working animals, but totally incapable of understanding the exigencies of power and politics. Further, in Orwell's last novel, those qualities of the worker that serve to keep him in a state of ignorance and passivity are exploited to the fullest, result-

18 Idem. 19 Road, p. 149.



Emanuel Edrich 1 05

ing in an Oceanic prole : a docile, inarticulate, cowlike creature with no hopes (except to win in a lottery), no ambitions, no discernment, but with an ample supply of material miseries softened somewhat by a good nature; and, like cattle, the proles are slaughtered (via rocket bombs) at the convenience of their masters.

Just as the degradation of whole sections of the population is carried to its logical extreme in Nineteen Eighty-Four, so certain modes of behaviour and institutions of today become in this anti-Utopian novel the horrible products of a progressively bad development process. This fact has some special significance in relation to Coming Up for Air, for it is in this 1941 story, more so than in any other single Orwellian work, that present day parallels of some of Oceania's repugnant sights are evident.

George Bowling imagines that an impassioned anti-Fascist speaker to whom he is listening has became so carried away by his own vehemence as to be transformed into a "barrel organ of hatred."20 If we carry this situation several steps further, to where the spouting of hatred and not the thing hated is the important factor, we have the "Rumpelstiltskin man" of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the street-corner orator, who execrates Eastasia and in a sentence switches the target of hysterical animosity to Eurasia, thereby nullifying years of intense war effort and the loss of thousands of lives.21

Bowling, throughout Coming Up for Air, finds his children unbear- ably impudent ; they show no respect for their father and seem to do their best to harass and ridicule him. This uncomfortable parent-child rela- tionship is enlarged upon in Nineteen Eighty-Four with the activities of the Spies and the betrayal of Parsons by his daughters. The open hos- tility and lack of tender feelings that exist among the members of Bowl- ing's family are also extended in Nineteen Eighty-Four to the complete breakdown, among Party members, of familial ties, and an especially frightening innovation is the Spies, an official youth organization that encourages children to be the deadly enemies of their parents.

Parsons, the most most victimized by his own family, is not completely an extension of Bowling, although he may be an extension of Bowling's predicament; he is also an extension of one of Orwell's favorite minor targets for merciless ridicule, the boy-scout type (also to be found in Coming Up for Air,)22 the man who never has quite grown up, who in his puerile behaviour is unquestionably and exuberantly loyal to some cause or authority.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is also a demonstration of how the fears that

20 Coming Up for Air (London, 1948), p. 175; hereafter Coming Up. 21 1984, pp. 181-182. 22 Coming Up, pp. 216-219.




constantly plague George Bowling's mind can become horrible realities. The ' 'slogan world" he dreads becomes in Orwell's last novel a city dominated by the inscriptions, "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength"; the posters with enormous faces become Big Brother's ubiquitous countenance; the rubber truncheons, broken teeth and smashed faces that Bowling envisions become the Thought Police bludgeons, Minitrue interrogation rooms, and other torments in- flicted upon deviants. His imagining a throng hysterically cheering their leader becomes Oceanians screaming adulation for Big Brother. Another part of Bowling's mental picture, however, takes on a more complex form in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bowling imagines that though the crowd is wildly cheering, its members, deep down inside, so intensely hate what they are cheering for that they "want to puke."23 Winston Smith offers us a good example of this phenomenon ; he deeply hates Big Brother and all he stands for, yet shouts approval along with the rest of the mob; also, his enthusiastic participation is not just a façade to avoid detection by the Thought Police; at times he becomes genuinely caught up with the hysteria that surrounds him and wants what the yelling mass want as much and as fervently as they do.24 Another example of enthusiasm hiding hatred is Parsons, who differs from Winston in that the former maintains throughout the book an apparently sincere devotion to the Party. But when, in his sleep, he utters, "Down with Big Brother,"25 it appears that he too harbors a deep-seated hatred for the existing authority.

A final major insight into Orwell's technique of exploiting satiric devices to achieve horror can be gained through an examination of his use of parody and religion.

Although Orwell was not a religious person himself, he did acknowl- edge man's need for some kind of religio-mystical orientation and indi- cated this in The Road to Wigan Pier26 and his essay, "Arthur Koest- ler."27 Being aware of this desire of the mortal to communicate with something immanent and deathless, he offers in Nineteen Eighty-Four a possible way in which totalitarian socialism, through an enormous dis- tortion, might satisfy this religious want.

Ingsoc has rejected God but substituted power. Winston, as he is

23 For Bowling's thoughts on these frightening devices, see, e.g., Coming Up, pp. 173-180, 267. For the quotation, see p. 176.

24 1984, p. 18. 25 1QR4 n 937 26 See Road. do. 201 ff. 27 Dickens, Dali and Others (New York, 1946), pp. 185-201. In this essay

Orwell carefully differentiates between religion and morality, deeming it necessary for the latter to exist independently.



Emanuel Edrich 107

being cured of his deviationism, writes "God is Power." Power, as O'Brien explains it, is regarded by the Party as an all-pervasive eternal thing to which man completely gives himself. By this giving, he sur- renders his individual personality, will, and consciousness to something much greater than himself and thereby merges with it. He thus becomes part of something immortal and possesses no real existence independent of that omniscient, eternal entity. In a way, he really never dies, as ces- sation of his personal awareness, physical well-being, and organic existence is, if his surrender is complete, inconsequential to either himself or this omnipresent thing, power.

For those Oceanians (actually the majority of the population) who finds this loss of individuality and merging with the immanent-eternal beyond their comprehension, the Party provides some mundane con- cepts which are relatively easy to grasp. There is Big Brother, whose picture is everywhere. He is constantly watching over one and, as O'Brien explains, is immortal though never actually seen. The telescreen is always telling of Big Brother's love and sacrifice and is continually pointing out how one is expected to revere and obey him. There are warnings, often delivered with fire-and-brimstone vehemence, of the evil of Goldstein, who appears to be as deathless as Big Brother, and who is always lying in wait ready to tempt Oceanians into the sin of deviation from Big Brother's law. There is an all-powerful Party that speaks for Big Brother, constantly praises him, and brooks no disagree- ment. There are daily ritual-like devotions such as the two-minute hate and morning bending-over and sitting-up exercises. There are annual observances like Hate Week. There are also fanatics like Syme, Parsons, and the Rumpelstiltskin-like man; all participants in the two-minute hate become fanatical temporarily. One of the greatest life-long demon- strations of complete dedication is the vow of celibacy, and dying in Big Brother's cause in this state of self-denial entitles one to special adoration (as in the case of the fictitious hero, Ogilvy) .28 For those who are guilty of straying, there is confession, repentance, and penance; but the ulti- mate fate of the apostate is total annihilation - vaporization. Although complete submission is expected of everybody, it is only through suffer- ing that the people of the year 1984 are able to fully serve the all-high entity, power. Further, the greatest sin is not any overt act one may com- mit, but the thought of disobedience (thought-crime) , that is, possessing the will to do evil.

The parallels of the above examples to well-known religions are ob- vious.29 There is also a touch of "abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

28 1984, pp. 47-48. 29 If any doubt remains as to the "religious" nature of Oceania's governmental



108 George Orwell and the Satire in Horror in O'Brien's emphasis upon the fact that Winston can never escape and that the Party's control is forever. Just as the worst punishment of the Damned is the loss of hope, so the most frightening thought the Party's victims have to contend with is that inescapable forever.

Perhaps the most effective and disturbing factor in Orwell's pattern of horror is his insinuation that each of the institutions of Nineteen Eighty-Four (all designed in some way to mortify man's body and crush his intellect) could be the product of the evolution of institutions of our own society - that the present-day world is in danger of giving birth to its own Oceania. This speculation, coupled with a portrait of a world totally unrelieved of terror, not only renders Nineteen Eighty-Four a unique satiric genre, but also establishes Orwell as the twentieth-century harbinger of man's political enslavement.

The University of Texas Austin, Texas

machine, "Goldstein's" book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collec- tivism, states that the Party prefers a church-type authority, as that hierarchical arrangement lasted thousands of years while political administrations lasted only a few centuries at best. 1984, pp. 209-21 1.



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