George Orwell

• Bengal (India) 1903

• Served as a soldier in India, a terrible experience

• He left the military service because he was against Imperialism

• He went to Europe and started to write but the publishers did not want to print his books

His political ideas (views)

• He was against any form of totalitarian state: for this reason he fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

• He sympathised with Socialism but when Stalin raised to power, he remained disillusioned. These ideas are reflected in his book Animal Farm, a satirical attack against all totalitarisms.

His main work

• 1984. • The title is the reverse number of the year in

which the novel was written / published.• The novel is set in Oceania, an invented state in

the future. The society described in this novel is a nightmarish totalitarian state, which reflects Nazism in Germany or Stalinism in Russia.

• Therhere isn‘t any privacy and freedom. People are controlled by gigantic two-ways (interactive) telescreens, from which the Big Brother controls everyone and everywhere.

Main characters

• The main characters are Winston Smith and Julia. Winston is a modern anti-hero and he wants to rebel against the totalitarian control. So he falls in love with Julia, a woman dissenter.

• In this society love is forbidden. For this reason Smith and Julia were imprisoned and brought to Room 101.

• After many tortures he confesses his „crime“ and he is brainwashed until he becomes like anybody else.

Main themes

• Future world and society

• Control of people through media and absurd slogans (war is peace)

• Freedom and individuality, there is no private life.

language

• For Orwell language is very important because through language people can be manipulated and reality can be distorted.

• Through paradoxical slogans people are convinced that the false is the truth. For example these slogans constantly appear on the telescreens: WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH; LOVE IS HATE:

• Orwell invents a fictional language called Newspeak in opposition to Oldspeak.

Newspeak - features

• The most important features of Newspeak are

• The extreme simplification of vocabulary and grammar.

• The abolition of synonyms and antonyms, for example the opposite of „good“ is not „bad“ but „ungood“.

• The invention of new words like „doublethink“ or „doublespeak“.

What is …?

• Doublethink is the perception of a distorted reality. Winston knows that the messages he receives are false, but he must accept /akzept/ them as true. (This can be related to our modern times, where adverts make us believe that eternal youth and beauty are the real truth.)

• Doublespeak is the language used by politicians to distort reality. „WAR is PEACE“ is the slogan used to make people belive that a „humanitarian war“ is something positive.