1984 analysis

[Meager1414]

I am doing a literary analysis of the 1984 novel by George Orwell. I went to my teach, for assistance. This was a peice he dished out: "State views as totalitarianism etc throughout due to the fact you are proving that the symbolic, paradoxical, and psychological themes are being explored to satirize Stalin’s version of Marxism" Can anyone clear up what he means for me? If you could offer any assistance at all, it would be greatly appreciated.

:alien: Meager1414:alien:

[ruby farnell]

Hi Meager 1414, that sounds like a very difficult way of explaining the themes in 1984. You will need to unpack the title. If you don't know already 1984 is about totalitarianism which is a concept built around 'sharing the nations wealth in order to build the community', a very noble goal but as we see in 1984, greed will always get in the way of noble concepts. Marxism by comparison desired a classless society where the wealth of the nation is to be spread equally among all people eventually making a society that has not classes. While being closely linked to Marxism, Stalin rejected Marxism thinking it was weak and adopted the former theory. 1894 is the ultimate satire (tongue in cheek) on Stalin's theory. Once you have understood the details behind the story, then brainstorm on the symbolic elements of the text that may be seen as satirical (using satire). Some examples might be the dictionary, the 'Chestnut Tree Cafe', or Winston's fear of 'the rats'. Paradox, meaning to have 'two seemingly opposing threads in the one concept', is also evident throughout the text, think of '2 minutes of hate' and 'thoughtcrimes'. Both of these concepts are paradoxical because components in them don't seem to work together, ie '2 minutes of hate' - hate can not be confined to 2 minutes and 'thoughtcrimes'- how can people know you thoughts for there to be crimes committed. Psychological themes are simply asking you to talk about how the leaders in the text play with the civilians minds. Remember to relate everything back to how the text is a satire of Stalins theory.
I hope this was slightly useful for you and my apologies if i got any of the details wrong.
Good luck

[The Atheist]

Well, I could be way off the mark here, not knowing how teachers' minds work, these days, but I think you're being asked to argue the impossible.

1984 relates no more to Stalin than to many other totalitarian regimes. This is a common trap and I therefore suspect your teacher's being disingenuous deliberately, trying to draw you into it.

Because any totalitarian state by necessity, will have torture, secret police and universal fear as its mainstays, the traits of Ingsoc could have equally been shown by Mao's China or Hitler's Germany.

The theme is power, pure and simple. Or corrupt and simple, anyway. You can certainly relate 1984 to the USSR and Marxism, but not the other way around.

Orwell was quite clear that Stalin played a role in modelling the book, but only as a plaster cast bust for BB rather than an expose of Stalinism. He'd been there and done that in Animal Farm. As we see even now, 23 years after the prophetic year, losses of freedoms, genocide and xenophobia are alive and well. There had to be similarities with Animal Farm, just as there were many features in common between Stalin's Marxism and Hitler's Nazism, of which Orwell was convinced.

It's all pretty straightforward. All doublethink is paradoxical, indeed, as noted, lots of Newspeak covered paradoxical positions and the nature of Newspeak itself is paradoxical - the only shrinking language. Even the proles are a paradox; they have all the weight of numbers, but the impetus of a wet-bus ticket. All history becomes a paradox with the constant re-writing of it. Who is Oceania really at war with, if indeed anyone?

Psychology is best exemplified by Room 101. Fear has reached almost genetic proportions - when "Room 101" is barked, the fear is immediate and pervasive, yet nobody has any idea what it even is. The Two Minute Hate is another nice one - the hate/love juxtaposition.

Symbolism is probably the easiest of all - Orwell loved symbolism and there are a plethora of symbolic features in the book. Goldstein (with an interesting side-note on the clearly Jewish name) and Eur/Eastasia. Even in the book itself, they are little more than symbolic demons, which could equally named "heaven and hell". The buildings rising to the heavens, the smell of the countryside to Winston and Julia, the telescreens, it's just everywhere. You have to be very careful with Mr Blair - aside from Animal Farm, there isn't one of his books in which he doesn't give way to a little preaching on side-subjects.

Lots of 1984 can be used to amplify "Stalin's Marxism", but you could have a lot more fun, especially with the Jewish connection, of using Hitler as BB. Depends on your teacher's sense of humour, I guess!

Good luck!

[ennison]

The task you have been given seems unnecessarily complex. I'd agree with the greater part of what was said above and would add that there are a great many references to and comments on Orwell and on 1984 scattered throughout this site; if you looked them up they'd give you lots of ideas.