War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength

1984 For as long as governments have existed, the people they ruled feared them. This fear and the desire to improve these governments have let to countless different attempts to perfect government. From the most liberal democracy to the most crushing dictatorship, governments have all faced some shortcomings. Because of the faults inherent in all governments, various types of governance have been the topic for many authors. The late novelist Ayn Rand wrote many books on the trouble that a socialist government could bring and espoused the virtue of individualism.

She felt that by allowing government to limit our individual freedoms, we were sentencing ourselves to a certain death. She wrote that “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force” (Rand). Rand realized that a government with too much control would not be able to help but overreach.

Although George Orwell died seven years prior to the publication of Ayn Rand’s most well known novel Atlas Shrugged, he held the same fear of an all-powerful government. Orwell felt that with the new technology appearing during his life and the ever-increasing power of government, the politicians could choose to rule every facet of the citizens’ lives. The novel 1984 is a depiction of what Orwell thought would happen if a totalitarian regime were left unchecked by the people. He paints a stark picture of this dystopia in 1984 by the masterful use of both symbolism and irony.

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Orwell lets almost no time pass before he introduces symbolism and irony into his story. He begins his novel by saying that “it was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” (Orwell 1). By saying that it was a bright day in April, Orwell gives the reader a sense that there is hope. April, a month in the spring, is a symbol of a new beginning and is a classic literary tool for showing the beginning of a novel. Orwell’s mention of a bright day is another reference to the hope still present in the lives of the characters.

Had Orwell stated that the day was dark or dim, it could have given the reader an entirely different outlook on how the characters lives might turn out. Despite these two optimistic symbols, Orwell also throws in two very ominous symbols in the same sentence. The reason for doing this is to set a tone of irony that carries through the rest of the book. In addition to describing the day as bright, Orwell also portrays it to be cold. This is his subtle way of informing the reader that not everything is well in the characters’ lives.

Orwell also found it important to tell the readers that the clocks were striking thirteen, an ominous number for many cultural civilizations. An example of this is in Christianity where Judas, the thirteenth person to be seated at the last supper, later betrayed Jesus. (Mark 14. 10-11) The development of the plot of 1984 is riddled with examples of irony. Orwell practically spells out the irony for the reader when he writes, “Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.

The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, The Ministry of Truth with lies, The Ministry of Love with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation” (Orwell 178). This is an important example of irony because it is used to show the complete disconnect from the morals and principles of a free society. The main character, Winston Smith, is somewhat of an ironic character himself. He is not the typical protagonist. Most protagonists are strong, burly and brave, while Winston is slight and has an ulcer on his leg. Winston is employed in the “records” department of the Ministry of Truth.

Despite its noble name, The Ministry of Truth is actually the branch of government that revises the past to make the lies of the present true. In fact, Winston’s job is to rewrite history to meet current priorities. Another dominant example of irony is the Party’s slogan: “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” (Orwell 17). The slogan is an example of superficial verbal irony. However, upon closer examination, it sheds more light on Orwell’s intent. By stating that “war is peace”, Orwell sends distinct messages to two vastly different groups.

To the proles, the commoners, “war is peace” can be read at its most literal meaning, that there can one day be peace by defeating the enemy and securing victory. Despite the simple understanding the proles have of the slogan, those in the Inner Party, the group of people in charge of Oceania, have a much more devious understanding of it. To them, the slogan represents the shell game that they play with the common citizen. Much like the street gambler taking bets on which shell the rock is under, the Inner Party assures that the citizenry is focused on whatever country Oceania is fighting, rather than on the leaders of the country.

This claim is further supported on page 161 where Orwell describes the futility of the wars that are being fought. “None of the three superstates ever attempts any maneuver which involves the risk of serious defeat” (Orwell 161). Rather than try to end the wars, they continue fighting to keep the minds of the working class occupied with hate. The leaders in 1984 saw that it was not advantageous to advocate a strict moral code because it limited their ability to control the populace. Saul Alinsky shows a later example of this type of thinking in the book Rules for Radicals.

Alinsky, a community organizer, outlined a set of rules for people to follow as a deceptive means of gaining and maintaining power. He saw that in order to maintain power, things such as morals and ethics needed to be flexible. One of his most important rules was that “generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics” (Alinsky 15). It is a safe assumption that if Alinsky’s rules were available to the Inner Party, they would know exactly how to use them. Some of the strongest examples of irony in 1984 are the characters in the Junior Anti-Sex League.

The name is typical of an organization in a dystopian society that seeks to demonize anything that makes one group seem above another. Much like the Ministry of Love that handles the prisons and discipline, the Junior Anti-Sex League is a paradox as well. Actually, the members of the league are very promiscuous. One of the main characters involved in the Junior Anti-Sex league is Julia. It is ironic that while on an excursion with the Junior Anti-Sex League, she discovers the place where she and Winston first begin their affair.

When Orwell describes her, he talks about “her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm” (Orwell 17) and describes the scarlet sash around it. It is ironic that Orwell would go to such great lengths to describe Julia as an attractive feminine character, since she is a member of the Junior Anti-Sex League. Typically, those associated with groups that espouse feminism try to downplay their ladylike characteristics. It is also ironic that the sash around her waist is scarlet. Scarlet is a color most associated with passion and love, concepts that the Junior Anti-Sex League did not agree with.

One of the key tenants of the Junior Anti-Sex League is chastity. When using symbolism, most authors choose the color blue in order to convey a sense of “loyalty, fidelity, constancy, and chastity” (Jaffe). This is why The Virgin Mary is typically painted wearing blue. An example of symbolism, prolific throughout the story, is that the lives of the characters are in “telescreens”. A telescreen is a device that “received and transmitted simultaneously” (Orwell 6), and allowed Big Brother to keep an eye on the people. The telescreens directly symbolized the pervasive nature of a totalitarian government’s desire to control the populace.

Throughout his life, Orwell had experiences that helped shape his view of these government types. As a young man, Orwell worked as a peace officer in Burma. There, he saw the way the British government treated the native Burmese people. Orwell became outraged with the inhumanity that pervaded the British Imperial and eventually published two of his most famous essays, “A Hanging” and “Shooting an Elephant” (Brunsdale 7). Orwell was also able to see the horrors committed by the Soviet Union, “where an estimated seven million perished in 1940 alone” (Tolstoy 283).

Because of his life experiences, Orwell used the telescreens as a metaphor for how governments abuse their power, and to shed light on his distaste for totalitarianism. As the story progresses, Winston finds an antique shop. Among other things, Winston purchases a glass paperweight. Inside the glass is a piece of coral. Orwell describes the paperweight as a “heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other” with a “strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone” (Orwell 80).

Winston is impressed by how large the coral appears to him and feels that it has a sense of permanence and importance. “Winston’s [paperweight] has a piece of coral embedded in it, and he examines it intently, surprised that anything so delicate could survive in a brutal age” (Shelden 431). The paperweight is important for two reasons. One is to show how little the people know of how old something is.

The paperweight is the cheap type of nick-nack that would be found in a gift shop at a hospital or a truck stop. However, the man at the antique store estimates that it “wasn’t made less han a hundred years ago” and how he “can remember when a thing like that would have fetched eight pounds” (Orwell 81). The other indicates that the paperweight represents the spirit inside of Winston Smith. When Smith is finally captured (ironically at the antique store where he felt he was safest from The Party and their telescreens), the agents of the Party shatter the glass and reveal how small and insignificant the coral inside the glass actually is. This truly upsets Winston and signals the beginning of the crushing of his spirit and the inevitability of a Party victory.

The game of chess is also used by Orwell to show the plight of the characters in 1984. Chess, in its simplest form, is a strategy game where the object is to capture the king. The pieces are typically black and white. In literature, this is considered a metaphor for good (white) versus evil (black). Chess is also used as a metaphor in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, along with many other pieces of classic literature. In The Tempest, Shakespeare uses the chess game to show how Prospero’s daughter has cunningly built alliances and manipulated people with the skill of a great chess player.

She exclaims, "the strongest piece is the queen; and the combat always ends with the cry, 'Checkmate! '” (Frans van Dijkhuizen). This signifies her triumph over Prospero. In 1984, Orwell complicates things by using his unique style to give the reader a better understanding of Winston’s life. Orwell tells the reader that the citizens of Oceania receive chess problems daily in their newspapers. In these problems, the citizen is assigned the black chess piece. Rather than use white as the color attached to the protagonist, he assigns white to the Party.

This symbolizes the irony that, although the reader knows the Party is evil, the lines have been skewed for the characters in 1984 by the indoctrination into their society. This uncommon twist shows that in the eyes of the Party, they hold the moral high ground. As the game plays out, Winston ends up losing the problem to the party and recalls, “in no chess problem since the beginning of the world has black ever won”(Orwell 238).

This symbolizes the “fragility of life and the imminence of death” that permeates all of the characters’ lives. Bowker 370) George Orwell’s novel 1984 has left an indelible mark on pop culture and will probably be studied for years to come. It is uncanny to see how some of his predictions have come true. It is also telling of the impact that 1984 has had on society; words and phrases like “Newspeak” and “Orwellian” are now part of the English language. “His very particular perspective on the world, his ability to see how whole systems function and the threat they pose, and to portray them in the most limpid of prose in all their comedy and horror – that vision is instantly recognized as ‘Orwellian’” (Bowker 434).

[Orwell] revealed in the starkest way the threat which not only totalitarianism offers to individual freedom and thought, but also science unconstrained by morality” (Bowker 434). While many authors have used symbolism and irony in their works, perhaps none have used them as masterfully as George Orwell did in 1984.

Works Cited:

• Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals. Vintage ed. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1989. Print.
• Bowker, Gordon. Inside George Orwell: A Biography. 1st ed. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
• Brunsdale, Mitzi. Student Companion to George Orwell. 1st ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Print.
• Frans van Dijkhuizen, Jan. "Prospero's Dream." The Tempest and the Court Masque Inverted. Web. 17 Nov 2009.
• Jaffe, Eric. Dictionary of Symbolism. University of Michigan, 2001. Web. 19 Nov 2009.
• Orwell, George. 1984. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1950. Print.
• Rand, Ayn. "The Nature of Government." Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Web. 16 Nov 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20091120181017/http://www.aynrandcenter.org/ayn-rand-ideas/ayn-rand-on-the-nature-of-government.html.

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