Why does Orwell...

[The Battle Axe]

Why does Orwell include Goldstein's book in 1984? Is it simply a way to further explain what the world is like or something more extensive? Thanks for any replies.

[KurtDunn]

By the time Orwell published 1984, many interesting things were happening in Europe. One of the worst blights on humanity being Sociologists. Although they did not pop up all at once during this time period, they were in full swing.

Sociologists are a group of people who, like Socialists, at the time were very concerned with the industrialized society. The Industrial Revolution changed the world, and introduced many additional problems and a few benefits. People thought this was interesting and decided to apply the Scientific Method to the changes on the economic/social/political scale. Although most of it either condemned or justified the many new problems and the few benefits.

Thus, the Sociologist was born. People would listen to sweeping generalizations of these men, and give them money for saying them. Really they were only being paid to come up with big words for things that the lay-man already recognized in his day-to-day life. These men were (and are) respected as intellectuals whose opinions are sought.

Basically, Goldstein's book was just a pure Sociologist's explanation of the world of 1984.

[The Atheist]

This is a fascinating subject that we've done a few times - have a search for "goldstein's book" or "brotherhood" and you'll find some more.

Kurt has part of the equation, but you need to remember that the book was demonstrably false and a weapon of the Thought Police.

Accordingly, we don't know that it actually fits with the real history of Oceania.

The purpose of the book is to entrap Winston and make him feel that there is a real brotherhood to attempt to become part of. Was Orwell doing it as commentary for how he saw history developing, or is it an example of giving people what they expect to see?