Engelska 6 - En analys av George Orwell's, 1984

Hej alla! Här kommer en analys av boken 1984 av George Orwell. Hoppas att ni gillar arbetet. Kommentera gärna era synpunkter!

Who is watching you?

The classic novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is written by the British author George Orwell. George Orwell was one of many authors who were expressing criticism against the society during and after the Second World War. Already on the second page we come in contact with the notion “Big Brother” which the online dictionary Merriam-Webster describes as “an all-powerful government or organization monitoring and directing people’s actions” . This is the most important word to understand because of its central role in the book.

The story take place in the future London and its surroundings. The country Great Britain is gone and Oceania have taken its place. The world is divided into three superstates which is at continuous war. The environment on the individual level is characterized of an environment where surveillance is a major part of the society. The environment is very important due its roll to remind us of the constant presence of the Party and Big Brother. This is why the citizens can see posters of Big Brothers face is in every corner.  The Party is restraining the freedom of speech but also the liberty of thought and because of this a lot of the story inside of the main-characters head. As Winston himself said, “nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.”

In my point of view there is an internal and an external conflict. The external conflict is that Winston is alone in a society that is brainwashed. The telescreens, which one could dim but not turn off completely, is pouring out the Parties propaganda day and night. They (the Party) said that today there were more food, more clothes, more of everything and that everything was better than for previous generations . The problem for Winston is that he can not prove that he is in the right. This is because of the continuous falsification which the Party is responsible of. The party is falsifying every data and information there is. Everything that is not in cooperation with the Party's ideology is destroyed or rewritten so it agrees with the ideology of the Party. Every evidence is then destroyed. The only evidence is inside of Winston’s mind. Everyone else in the society is believing everything that the Party says, even if it is an apparent lie. To discover the internal conflict we must read between the lines. The clues is spread out throughout the whole book. The conflict is inside Winstons own mind, to keep sane in a crazy society. We can relate to the fear of being “vaporized” which is another word for exterminate, but more extreme. When they kill you they erase you from the history. You have never existed and will never be remembered. This becomes a real terror. That has to be avoided at all costs, but never can be avoided. “In moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy but always against one's own body”

The time is quite obvious in this book due to its name “Nineteen Eighty-Four” but time is also comparable, what the world and the society looks like. In our part of the world we have more than we actually need. This is the opposite in the book, George Orwell is playing with the society and makes it the opposite of what we have today. Everything that we in today's society take for granted is restrained in the land of Oceania. What I first took notice of is that privacy is totally gone, “Big Brother Is Watching You” is a phrase that is recurring repetitive thru the whole book. This phrase is describing the book very well due to all surveillance and control which the party have over its members. The “telescreen” both receive and transmit at the same time. They (the Government) can see and hear everything through the telescreen. The telescreens is placed in every room and in every public space so that the estate can hear and see everything that the population are up to. This makes you feel a lot uncomfortable when reading, because of the technology we have today. We actually do not know if someone is watching us thru the cameras in our phones or listening secretly via the microphone.

While reading this book I studied social science. This helped me to understand the book at a completely different level. It gave me a depth of understanding the political language. I also noticed that George Orwell plays with the dark side of the human nature. I see a similarity in Edgar Allan Poe's´ works, when he plays with the individual mind. George Orwell on the other hand takes it one step further and involves the whole society. We all have a Big Brother whether we are aware of it or not. But for those who are aware of it, for your own sake you better love him.