1984 AO3

• Political satire


  Fiction which criticises/ridicules inconsistencies & dangers of political issues
• Satire on totalitarianism modelled on Soviet Union


  • Big Brother surpasses the role of dictator to be omnipresent/immortal (closer to a god-like figure)
• Names of items are satirical


  • Victory Gin, Ministry of Truth/Love/Peace/Plenty
• Lacks humour of the genre


  • Exaggeration of political trends to serve as a warning
• Proles


  Caricature of working classes: allowed to read pornography, gamble, etc. (mirrors Marxism - proletariat get simple pleasures to distract from exploitation)
• 1914-1945 social context

  • Conflict between capitalism/communism
  • Stalin's SU/Hitler's Nazi Germany
• Orwell felt mass media contributed to Hitler's rise


  Propaganda, Two Minute Hate/Hate Week are drawn from Nazis
• 2+2=5 references a SU political slogan: promised to complete 'Five Year Plan' in 4
• Orwell

  • Anti-communism: 'democratic socialist'
  • Critical of intellectual elite taking power from workers e.g. Inner Party vs. Outer Party
  • Lived through WWI/II: accustomed to constant war & threat of nuclear war ( constant warfare in Oceania is similar to Cold War)
  • Fought against Fascist Party during Spanish Civil War
  • Took a position in the BBC in 1941 in charge of broadcasting to India/Southeast Asia: disliked this as he was responsible for transmitting propaganda to British colonies
• 1984

  • Published 1949
  • Airstrip One represents a mixture of post-war London (e.g. through the rationing of food items like chocolate) & a communist state
  • Thoughtcrime is similar to the USSR's treatment of political dissidents: they were committed to psychiatric hospitals & 'treated' with psychoactive drugs
  • Stalin had a secret police that spied on citizens & encouraged citizens to spy on each other
  • "Vaporisation" is similar to "The Great Purge" (period of assassinations of anyone who disagreed with Stalin & the Communist Party)
  • Orwell's depiction of technology is actually now more familiar to modern readers: telescreens predated the flatscreen, use of CCTV/constant surveillance
  • Big Brother is presumably modelled on Stalin
  • Use of a Jewish name for Goldstein reflects the Nazi's antisemitic rhetoric
  • Goldstein is modelled off Trotsky: influential during beginning of SU but was expelled from the Communist Party after a power struggle with Stalin (Goldstein rumoured to be a founder of Oceania but left to found the Brotherhood)