ilia
02-09-2007, 04:50 PM
Having read 1984, I (as many) found it very thought provoking, however it is the simple things which bother me.
1. Ab initio, Winston informs us and introduces us to the Though Police; he explains that thought crime does not precede death, yet, it is death. He goes on to explain how copious amounts of people have been vaporised and how - those that come for them - come at night. He contemplates, "whether after all he and Julia had mistaken the time - had slept the clock round and thought it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the following morning", "the light seemed too strong" for it to be night. Why would he need to think it through as he KNOWS the Though Police only come at night, he told us at the beginning of the novel ... Or is this foreshadowing O'Brien telling him that they would meet in the place where there is no darkness; the Ministry of Life?
2. Newspeak is much more interesting than oldspeak. However, how do they decide which will be the main adjective and which will be the antonym. For example: good and ungood; why not: bad and unbad? Fat/thin, hot/cold, rich/poor which takes precedence over which? Could this be another indication of their philosophy? Would removing words (not just many shades of them) really deprive people of the equivalent feeling? We often have feelings which we categorise as, " I can't really describe", yet we still believe them and go by them. If it were so, how did language become invented? People did not know any words but managed to produce something that conveyed their thoughts. I don't think that by removing a word the action which comes under it will be gone. Or am I wrong?
Thanks :)
1. Ab initio, Winston informs us and introduces us to the Though Police; he explains that thought crime does not precede death, yet, it is death. He goes on to explain how copious amounts of people have been vaporised and how - those that come for them - come at night. He contemplates, "whether after all he and Julia had mistaken the time - had slept the clock round and thought it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the following morning", "the light seemed too strong" for it to be night. Why would he need to think it through as he KNOWS the Though Police only come at night, he told us at the beginning of the novel ... Or is this foreshadowing O'Brien telling him that they would meet in the place where there is no darkness; the Ministry of Life?
2. Newspeak is much more interesting than oldspeak. However, how do they decide which will be the main adjective and which will be the antonym. For example: good and ungood; why not: bad and unbad? Fat/thin, hot/cold, rich/poor which takes precedence over which? Could this be another indication of their philosophy? Would removing words (not just many shades of them) really deprive people of the equivalent feeling? We often have feelings which we categorise as, " I can't really describe", yet we still believe them and go by them. If it were so, how did language become invented? People did not know any words but managed to produce something that conveyed their thoughts. I don't think that by removing a word the action which comes under it will be gone. Or am I wrong?
Thanks :)