Plot: The plot has three main movements, corresponding with the division of the book in three parts. The first part, the first eight chapters, creates the world of 1984, a totalitarian world where the Party tries to control everything, even thought and emotion. In this part Winston develops his first unorthodox thoughts. The second part of the novel deals with the development of his love to Julia, someone with whom he can share his private emotions. For a short time they create a small world of feeling for themselves. They are betrayed however. O’Brien, whom Winston thought was a rebel like himself, is really a chief inquisitor of the Inner Party. The third part of the novel deals with Winstons punishment. Finally he comes to love Big Brother. Generally the plot is very simple: a rebel, a love affair with a like-minded, capture, torture, and finally the capitulation. Apart from Julia and O’Brien, and of course Winston, there are no important characters; there is no attempt to crate a range of social behaviour, and the complex personal interactions therein, all traditional concerns of the novel. Indeed one of Orwell’s points is that life in 1984 has become totally uniform. So the traditional novel would be unthinkable. In fact Winston is the only character worth writing about; all the other characters are half-robots already. So one could say that the plot was build around Winstons mind and life. This gave Orwell the opportunity to focus on the reaction of the individual to totalitarianism, love, and cruelty.
Political System Party: The Party of Oceania poses about 19% of the whole population of Oceanias mainland. Generally one could divide the Party into the Inner Party, which is comparable to the communistic Nomenclature, and the Outer Party. Winston Smith himself was a member of the Outer Party. The members of the Inner Party held high posts in the administration of the country. They earned comparable much money, and there wasn’t a lack of anything in their homes, which looked like palaces. The people of the Outer Party lived in dull grey and old flats. Because of the war there was often a lack of the most essential things. The life of the Outer Party was dictated by the Party, even their spare time was used by the Party. There were so-called community hikes, community games and all sort of other activities. And refusing the participation at this activities was even dangerous. The life of a Party member is dictated from his birth to his death. The Party even takes children away from their parents to educate them in the sense of Ingsoc. (you can find this also in the Communist future plans)The children are taught in school, to report it to the police (Toughtpolice) when their parents have had unorthodox thoughts, so-called “Thoughtcrimes”. After the education the Party members start to work mainly for one of the four Ministries (Minipax, Minitrue, Miniluv, Miniplenty). The further live of the “comrades” continues under the watchful eyes of the Party. Each thing that the people do is targeted by the telescreens. Even in their homes the people have telescreens. Each unorthodox action is then punished by “joycomps” (Newspeak word for forced labour camps”). Proles: The proles make about 81% of the population of Oceania. The Party itself is only interested in their labour power, because the proles are mainly employed in the industry and in the farms. Without their Labour force Oceania would brake down. Despite this fact the Party completely ignores this social caste. The curious thing about this behaviour is, that the Party calls itself a Socialistic Party, and generally socialism (at least at the beginning and middle of this century) is a movement of the proletariat. So one could say that the Party abuses the word “Ingsoc”. Orwell again had pointed at an other regime, the Nazis, who had put “socialism” into their name. One of the main phrases of the Party is “Proles and animals are free”. In Oceania the proles live in very desolate and poor quarters. Compared to the districts where the members of the Party live, there are much fewer telescreens, and policemen. And as long as the proles don’t commit a crime (crime in our sense / not in the sense of the party – Toughtcrime) they don’t have any contact with the state. Therefore in the districts of the proletarians one could find things that where abolished and forbidden for the Party members. E.g. old books, old furniture, prostitution and alcohol (mainly beer) Except “Victory Gin” all of these things were not available for the Partymen. The proletarians didn’t participate in the technical development. They lived like they used to do many years ago. To my mind the Party ignores the Proles, because they pose no danger to their rule. The working class is to uneducated and to unorganised to pose a real threat. So there is not really a need to change the political attitudes of this class. Newspeak: Newspeak is the official language of Oceania, and had been devised to meet ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984, there was nobody, who has really used Newspeak in speech nor in writing. Only the leading articles were written in this “language”. But it was generally assumed that in the year 2050 Newspeak would superset Oldspeak, or common English. The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other methods of thought impossible. Another reason for developing Newspeak was, to make old books, or books which were written before the era of the Party, unreadable. With Newspeak ,Doublethink would be even easier. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings whatever. Generally Newspeak words were divided into three groups: the A,B(also called compound words) and the C Vocabulary.
A-Vocabulary: The A-Vocabulary consisted of the words needed in business and everyday life, for such things as drinking, working, and the like. The words of this group were nearly entirely composed of Oldspeak words, but in comparison, their number was very small. Nevertheless the meaning of this words was much more defined, and it allowed no other interpretation.
B-Vocabulary: The B-Vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purpose. Without the full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc it was very difficult to use and understand this words correctly.The B-Vocabulary were in all cases compound words, and they consisted of two or more words, merged together in an easy pronounceable form. Example: goodthink – Goodthing means very roughly orthodoxy, or if it is regarded as a verb “to think in a good manner”. The infected as follows: noun-verb goodthink; past tense and past participle, goodthinked; present participle, goodthinking; adjective, goodthinkful; adverb, goodthinkwise; verbal noun, goodthinker. The B-Words were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words of which they were made up could be placed in any order mutilated in any way which made them easy to pronounce (e.g. toughtcrime, crimethink thinkpol, tought police). Many of the B-Words were euphemisms. Such words for instance as joycamp (forced labour camp) or Minipax (Ministry of Peace in charge of the army ), meant almost exact opposite of what they appeared to mean. Again some words were ambivalent, having the connotation good when applied the party, and bad when applied to its enemies. Generally the name of any organisation, building, and so on was cut down to a minimum number of syllables and to a minimum of length, in an easy pronounceable way. This isn’t only in Newspeak, already other, especially totalitarian systems, tended to used abbreviations for political purpose (Nazi, Comintern, Gestapo, ….). But the difference is that only in Newspeak this instrument was used with consciousness. The Party intended to cut down the possibility of associations with other words.
C-Vocabulary: The C-Words are consisting of technical and scientific terms.
From the foregoing account it is very easy to see that in Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was impossible. It would only have been possible to say “Big Brother is ungood”. But this statement could not have been sustained by reasoned arguments, because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inimical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a very vague and wordless form, and could only be named in very broad terms. One could in fact use only Newspeak for political unorthodoxy, by illegitimately translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For example “All mans are equal” was a possible Newspeak sentence, but only in the same sense in which “All man have the same weight” is a possible Oldspeak sentence. It did not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpable untruth i.e. that all man have the same size, weight ….. The concept of political equality no longer existed. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for a person well grounded in Doublethink to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generation even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of “politically equal” (also free,….). There would be many crimes and errors which would be beyond of the power to commit, simply because there were nameless and therefore unimaginable. It was to be foreseen that with the passage of time Newspeak words would become fewer and fewer, their meanings more and more and more rigid, and the chance to put them to improper uses always diminished. So when Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded the last link with the past would have been severed. Doublethink: Doublethink is a kind of manipulation of the mind. Generally one could say that Doublethink makes people accept contradictions, and it makes them also believe, that, the party is the only institution that distinguishes between right and wrong. This manipulation is mainly done by the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), where also Winston Smith works. When a person that is well grounded in Doublethink recognises a contradiction or a lie of the Party, then the person thinks that he is remembering a false fact. The use of the word Doublethink involves doublethink. With the help of the Minitrue it is not only possible to change the written facts, but also the facts that are remembered by the people. So complete control of the country and it’s citizens is provided. The fact of faking the history had already been used by the Nazis, who told the people that already German Knights believed in the principles of National Socialism.
Symbolism: In “Nineteen Eighty-Four” Orwell draws a picture of a totalitarian future. Although the action deals in the future, there are a couple of elements and symbols, taken from the present and past. So for example Emanuel Goldstein, the main enemy of Oceania, is, as one can
see in the name, a Jew. Orwell draws a link to other totalitarian systems of our century, like the Nazis and the Communists, who had anti-Semitic ideas, and who used Jews as so-called scapegoats, who were responsible for all bad and evil things in the country. This fact also shows that totalitarian systems want to arbitrate their perfection. Emanuel Goldstein also somehow stands for Trotsky, a leader of the Revolution, that was later declared as an enemy. Another symbol that can be found in Nineteen Eighty-Four is the fact that Orwell divided the fictional superstates in the book according to the division that can be found in the Cold War. So Oceania stands for the United states of America , Eurasia for Russia and Eastasia for China. Also the fact that the two socialistic countries Eastasia and Eurasia ( in our case Russia and China ) are at war with each other, corresponds with our history (Usuri river). Also other, non-historical symbols can be found. One of these symbols is the paperweight that Winston buys in the old junk-shop. It stands for the fragile little world that Winston and Julia have made for each other. They are the coral inside it. As Orwell wrote: “It is a little chunk of history, that they have forgotten to alter”. The “Golden Country” is another symbol. It stands for the old European pastoral landscape. The place where Winston and Julia meet for the first time to make love to each other, is exactly like the “Golden Country” of Winstons dreams.