Hope or Despair

[nikkie87]

a lot of people have different opinions on whether 1984 was a novel of hope or despair what are your opinions and why??

[Lote-Tree]

a lot of people have different opinions on whether 1984 was a novel of hope or despair what are your opinions and why??

Despair of Totalitarism - Yes.

Hope - Humanity may overcome it.

And it has - Soviet Union is no more...

[Adudaewen]

Hmm, I don't think that you can really fit 1984 into either a novel about hope or despair. I think the two really go hand in hand, and you can't really have one without the other. I remember feeling both depressed and elated at the end of it. So I'll have to say its a book about both. What jumps to my mind as a message of hope is the scene where Winston listens to a prole woman singing as she hangs her laundry. That scene moved me so much, it was definitely a moment of pure hope. And the whole torture scene was a moment of despair, especially when Winson realizes that O'Brien tricked him. So I see both.

[King of Frogs]

I think that 1984 is a novel about hope against dispair. Julia still retains her hope right up until the last moment, because she didn't want to feel dispair - even though she knew there actually was no hope for them; that's doublethink.

Also, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but the appendix on newspeak is written in the past tense. It might just be speculation, but I think Orwell may have been writing that from the point of veiw of someone who lives in the future after the regimes of 1984 have collapsed and can write freely. maybe this was a sort of message of hope for the reader with an otherwise depressing ending.

[johnfsomers]

I think that 1984's ending causes despair in many. It does not allow them to have closure. Or, rather, there is closure perhaps but it is, in any case, negative. As we all know, both Winston and Julia betray one another. The Party succeeds in procuring a denial of their attachment to each other and reaffirming their individual attachment to Big Brother. Indeed, this leaves many with a gloomy feeling.

However, the person on this forum who made mention of hope's necessity of despair makes something of a good point. While I do not agree with this statement with rigor, I have to say that there is some truth to it. I cannot help but acknowledge that Orwell would not have written the novel if he did think that is were possible to avoid this future.

Lastly, the point about the Newspeak appendix and its tense is an interesting one. I will have to look at it again.

John Somers

[The Atheist]

Also, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but the appendix on newspeak is written in the past tense. It might just be speculation, but I think Orwell may have been writing that from the point of veiw of someone who lives in the future....

No question at all.

It clearly written several years at least after 1984, but well before 2050. I've always assumed somewhere around 2017 - about halfway, it doesn't feel as though the 11th Edition was published recently in the appendix and it was future event in 1984.


...after the regimes of 1984 have collapsed and can write freely. maybe this was a sort of message of hope for the reader with an otherwise depressing ending.

Or, in my view, far more likely that it's in an update of Goldstein's book.

One slight contradiction Orwell offers us is the question of truth.

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism feels like the truth, or what Orwell saw as the truth anyway. A couple of threads back, we were discussing the reasons for its creation and usage, but whatever the reason why TPOC is used, it does appear to be fairly accurate in its terms of the History of Oceania to 1984.

That being given, it would be a perfectly logical and necessary move to update the book itself and as it was never revealed how much more of the book there is than Winston reads, it's likely there would be an appendix on Newspeak in it.

[Ado]

Honestly I never thought of the appendix as a part of the story of 1984, just an appendix by the author explaining the principle of newspeak, about one of the most important themes in the book.

The fact that it is written in past tense is surely a glimpse of hope for this world Orwell has created, for any reader who thinks of the appendix as a part of the story. I frankly do not see it as such, I prefer the bleak ending.

[bazarov]

I don't see any hope in this novel. Seeing all bad things, none of good things and realization that you are totally helpless.

[Ado]

I agree with baz, Winston says "hope is in the proles", but the party created such a seemingly perfect system that the proles and anyone in the outer party have no chance of changing things. Like stated in the book, the inner party does not want to, although they know how their society functions.

And by 2017 (as someone speculated), newspeak would be more integrated, and the memory of better times would probably be completely vanished, memory that only older generations in 1984 had. Goldstein and the brotherhood is probably just a device used by the party to identify thought crimes, so I do not expect anything from them either.

On the topic, hope and despair go hand in hand, it is in human nature to hope when in despair. And Winston hopes, but his hopes are demolished by the end of the book.