1984

By George Orwell

The Dystopian roots of 1984

The word 'dystopia' was first coined at around the same time as the publication of Nineteen Eighty- Four, and indeed it was the Twentieth Century's imagination of such nightmarish visions of imaginary societies that helped to distinguish a definite 'dystopia' from the conventional 'utopia' as envisaged by Thomas More. Of course, though he invented the word, More's was not the first 'Utopia'. Indeed, his book belongs to an ancient form of political writing that can be traced back to Plato's Republic. In a modern political context, some of the utopian ideas outlined in the likes of Republic and Utopia can seem distinctly Dystopian, particular those concerned with the restriction of individual freedom. Indeed, it is the idea of the lack of freedom that is central to Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Orwell subverts More's and Plato's idea of social control as a social good. In More's Utopia travel is restricted, movements are watched and controlled and leisure time is managed: 'Because they live in full view of all, they are bound to be either working at their usual trades or enjoying their leisure in a respectable way.' For More this is a positive state of affairs, but in Orwell's world, Outer Party members are constantly monitored through 'telescreens', their work is regulated and always in the service of the Party, and their leisure time is confined to Party-sanctioned activities. Mr Parsons, a neighbour of Winston's is 'a leading figure on the Sports Committee and all the other committees engaged in organising community hikes, spontaneous demonstrations, savings campaigns and voluntary activities generally. He would inform you with quiet pride... that he had put in an appearance at he Community Centre every evening for the past four years.'

Unlike in More's Utopia, but like Plato's Republic, the Oceana's Party sees the institution of the family as a barrier to their vision of society. Plato would have children raised communally to prevent family bonds from forming, which is what the Party envisages, except it goes one step further:

'The only recognised purpose of marriage was to beget children for the service of the Party. Sexual intercourse was to be looked on as a slightly disgusting minor operation, like having an enema... There were even organisations such as the Junior Anti-Sex League which advocated complete celibacy for both sexes. All children were to be begotten by artificial insemination (artsem, it was called in Newspeak) and brought up in public institutions.'

These are Winston's observations, and like so many of them throughout the novel they are confirmed in his final interrogation with O'Brien: '... in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated... We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.' In Orwell's vision, human love is to be discouraged because it diverts from the love of the Party, just as familiar bonds were discouraged by Plato because they diverted from the 'good' of the Republic.

It has been pointed out that there is also something deeply Freudian about the place of sex within the society of Oceana. Ben Pimlott writes that, 'The furnace of Oceanian society, in which everything is done collectively and yet everything remains alone, is the denial of the erotic. It is this that fires the prevailing moods of "fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph". Sexual hysteria is used deliberately to ferment a sadistic loathing of imagined enemies and to stimulate a masochistic depersonalised love of Big Brother.' During the Two Minutes Hate, when Winston has yet to recognise Julia as an ally, he fantasises that he 'would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon... He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax.... [Because] she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so.' When they do begin their affair, sex becomes a necessity, an act of rebellion in itself. Moreover, Winston is plagued by memories of his wife with whom sex - their 'duty to the Party' - disgusted him. And as he remembers an encounter with an old, toothless prostitute (he "went ahead and did it just the same") he also recounts how a man's subconscious could betray him through sleep-talking or an involuntary twitch of the face. His memories of his mother feed into his imagined Golden Country, and elements in his torture by O'Brien become almost sadomasochistic - he loves O'Brien when he takes away the pain, even though it is he who is in charge of administering it.

The idea of control of sex and procreation is also one of the many facets that link Nineteen Eighty-Four to Huxley's Brave New World, and there is no doubt that Orwell was inspired by the man who had taught him at Eton. However, Orwell is as much drawing on the same tradition as Huxley as he is taking his impetus from Brave New World itself.

For the Ancients, the Golden Age was a time before history. In their turn The Renaissance harked back to the world of the Ancients, and as the rise of capitalism, science, and industry cast a shadow over the world, some Utopian thinkers once again looked to a time before 'civilisation': Jean-Jacques Rousseau, later Henry David Thoreau, and in our time elements in the environmentalist movement. It is no coincidence that Winston dreams of the 'Golden Country' - a pure and idyllic place amongst nature away from the drudgery and fear of life in the city. And meeting with Julia in the woods outside London, Winston feels he has found his Golden Country.

However, unlike its predecessors, and inspired by the Nineteenth Century's love affair with the concept of progress and a better tomorrow, early Twentieth Century Utopianism envisaged a Golden Age that was yet to arrive - that ever hopeful country of tomorrow. A key voice in this movement was H.G. Wells, who, though he drew Dystopian as well as Utopian visions of the future, was still preoccupied with the idea of positive social and scientific progress. But the First World War was to deal a savage blow to such optimistic visions of the world, and the brief period of prosperity that followed was washed away in the anxiety and collapse of the nineteen-thirties, until regimes arose in the real world that seemed as negative and frightening as any in fiction. It was against his backdrop, that new visions of Dystopian futures arose.

As a child Orwell was fascinated by H.G. Wells' Modern Utopia, and long held ambitions to write something along similar lines. He was also introduced to Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (1921), and in 1944 said to a friend 'I am interested in that kind of book, and even keep making notes for one myself that may get written sooner or later'. Interestingly, the widely suggested influence of We on Brave New World was denied by Huxley. However, it is undeniable that there are resonances of Brave New World in Nineteen Eighty-Four: themes of political freedom versus an ordered and hierarchical society, the control of human destiny, the monopoly of a totalitarian system on truth and right. But while Huxley's world is a totalitarianism of science, Oceana is a society apparently bereft of much scientific progress: it is Orwell's deliberate negation of the post-war utopianism of a shining future of technological innovation.

There is also a certain connection between Winston Smith and Huxley's protagonist Bernard Marx. They are both aberrations in the system, men of imperfection unable to reconcile themselves with the world in which they find themselves. However, it is important to see Winston Smith as much as a descendent of Orwell's earlier characters, and indeed Orwell himself. Notable is the figure of Gordon Comstock, hero (again, a not particularly heroic one) of Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), who pursues a despondent and ultimately futile rebellion against the 'money-god' before, like Winston, learning to embrace the system. "We are the dead," is Winston's mantra for his place as a powerless dissident from a society of conformity, a sentiment heard in Comstock's thoughts. And through Comstock, Orwell recognises that advanced capitalism is itself a form of totalitarianism, and the slogans of advertising torment Comstock just as the slogans of the Party torment Winston. And Winston, despite his contempt for the Party, is very good at his job in the Ministry of Truth, just as Comstock is an excellent copywriter, despite loathing the language of advertisements. Furthermore, Winston's encounters with the 'proles' recall not only Orwell's time in Paris and London, but also the experiences Comstock, (as well as those of Dorothy in A Clergyman's Daughter (1935), who finds herself living in poverty following a loss of memory.)