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[letsgobucs]

What is the theme of 1984?
How is this novel a warning to our future?
How is it "possible to dehumanize man completely?"
How is our society becoming "a world of madmen?"


What exactly is "Doublethink"

[Sitaram]

I just have a moment (Im at work), but doublethink has something to do with the rhetoric of Big Brother that "war is peace", "freedom is slavery". I may be mistaken. I read the book 40 years ago.

The first thing to pop up in google for me seems rather political, and rather controversial... but a prime example of how contemporary society has been, and continues to be, influenced by Orwell's notion of doublespeak doublethink... (I am getting dizzy)

http://www.studentsfororwell.org/

Those who choose to visit and read the link should bear in mind that this forum discourages politically oriented posts. So, I guess any discussions must remain centered around the novel 1984, and not encroach upon current events.

This forum http://online-literature.com/forums has all sorts of insightful posts and comments on 1984. Search engines such as google.com will probably show you thousands of links on George Orwell. http://www.sparknotes.com probably has an excellent section on 1984...

Give me a few minutes and I will cut and paste ALL of it right here (just kidding Jay)....

I can see at this very moment that LETSGOBUCS is private messaging. I will not be shocked if it is a message to ME (Big Brother sees all)....

So,... tell me, is your deadline TOMORROW?... I hope not. I hope it is sometime next week.

[scruffy_danny]

I just read the book and thought it was really raw and very well planned with plenty of background information to keep it realistic.

I thought the theme of 1984 was that of being completely controlled and not being able to express what you believe in and what you think.

One important thing to note on how the book is a warning of the future is it is what George Orwell believed COULD happen by 1984 when he was writing the book. And when we look at the history of wars and in particuraly the 2ndWW I think it really brings home, especially with all the in-depth detail Orwell incorperated, how easily it can happen that we can be dehumanized.

I think the way the book tells us how we, mankind, can be dehuminized completely is by showing how the characters in the story end up believing in the Parties Policies and everything that the party tells them. I can't remember the character (the dude who works in the department for chanding language into NewSpeak) shows this remarkably as we can see he is thoroughly enthusiastic in doing good for the Party (even when it comes down to describing what he thinks of his own daughter reporting him to the Thought Police). So, it is possible to dehuminize man completely by controllong what he/she believes in, and I think the element of fear definately comes into play here.

I don't really know about the 'madman' question but I think you may want to mention something about how everyone is the madman to Winston but later we see that Winston is being told that he himself is the madman. I think this may be very important. I'm not quite sure how, but I'm sure it will.

I remember being confused my doublethink. But I think Sitaram got the drift of it.

[Sitaram]

I don't really know about the 'madman' question but I think you may want to mention something about how everyone is the madman to Winston but later we see that Winston is being told that he himself is the madman. I think this may be very important. I'm not quite sure how, but I'm sure it will.

.

Good work! The above has started me thinking about madness. Criasor just provided me with the link to Thomas Pynchon's new introduction to 1984.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/dowbrigade/discuss/msgReader$123


Apparently, Pynchon was inspired in certain ways by Orwell. Gravity's Rainbow seems to be about a mad, dehumanized world. Paranoia is a strong element in Pynchon's writings, especially "The Crying of Lot 49".

As a teenager, in the 1960's, I was impressed with Orwell's notion that a people cannot THINK about freedom if they have no word for freedom.

Wittgenstein observed that the truly subjective must be impossible, since, if we could be truly subjective and individualistic, then each of us would possess our own, unique language, which no one else could understand. But such is not the case.

The NEWSPEAK committee was always striving to make the dictionary smaller and smaller still, if I remember correctly.

I am also reminded of the ambiance of madness in "Catch-22".

Watson! We may be on to something here!

There is a Sufi teaching story about "Crazy Water." One day (something like the Day of the Triffids), something call "crazy water" falls to earth, and everyone but a handful of people drink it and go crazy (doing zany things but thinking themselves perfectly normal). The small minority of sane people are then persecuted by the crazy majority, for the sane appear crazy to them. The sane people try many things to remedy or undo the situation, but, finally, the sane people realize that the only solution is for them to also drink the crazy water, so that they may at least fit in and find peace.

[mono]

What is the theme of 1984?
How is this novel a warning to our future?
How is it "possible to dehumanize man completely?"
How is our society becoming "a world of madmen?"


What exactly is "Doublethink"
You may find this area of the forum very helpful:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1002
Welcome to the forum! :wave:

[Mark F.]

Have you even read the book?

[scruffy_danny]

Good question. It would help.

At the end of the book there is a really good explanation to Newspeak and it would be safe to assume this would answer a lot of queries (is that spelt right?) about doublethink.