1984 Flashcards
(28 cards)
the decaying and dilapidated urban setting of Airstrip One
serves as an emotional metaphor for the destruction of individuality and autonomy in Orwell’s dystopian world
As the Thought police and panoptic telescreens
scrutinising “every sound you made…and every movement” create a pervasive atmosphere of fear, the repetition of the high modality “every” emphasises the all-encompassing power of totalitarian regimes.
“huge force pressing down upon you…frightening you out of your beliefs”
The personification of BB as “…” highlights the forceful erosion of the individual at the hands of the government, as the evocative use of the second person “you” reveals the Party’s violent intrusion into the individual psyche.
“we capture the heretic’s inner mind, we reshape him….we bring him over to our side, heart and soul”
Accumulation of bodily imagery “heart” “mind” and “soul” symbolises the psychological and emotional control exerted by the Party, revealing the ability of totalitarian regimes to destroy individual and personal experiences and replace them with collective experiences of fear
“squeeze you empty, and fill you with ourselves”
confronting metaphor represents the way the collective deprives the individual of their individuality and autonomy and supplants its own doctrines within the hollow individual
“transfer to paper the interminable endless monologue that had been running inside his head for years”
hyperbolic “endless monologue” represents the repressed thoughts within the marginalised individual, while the diary paper symbolises freedom of expression
“i dont care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother”
stream of conciousness through winston’s self-expression in the diary, with the lack of punctuation representing the transgressive state of winston, emphasises the empowerment of the individual through self-expression as he adopts an assertive tone that defies the entrenched fear and violence of the collective and undermines the authority of BB
“it’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words…the whole aim is to narrow the range of thought”
evocative antithesis between “beautiful” and “destruction” thrusts readers into a confronting dystopian world where the destruction of language and ensuing restriction of rational thought is valued
“his mind shrivelled at the thought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with which o’brien would demolish him with”
visceral imagery of Winston’s withering mind is symbolic of the collective’s destruction of the individual’s capacity to think rationally and critically, as the restriction of language and subsequent conversion of expression into obedient acceptance of Party doctrine renders resistance futile and impossible.
“at the sight of the words I LOVE YOU the desire to stay alive had welled up in him”
visual imagery of the rapidly accumulating vigour of Winston reveals the empowering qualities of relationships as they provide hope and strength in times of fear and oppression
“the paperweight was the room he was in, the coral was Julia’s life and his own”
Orwell uses the paperweight as a symbol for the evolving romantic relationship between Winston and Julia that can offer them a reprieve from the brutalities of the collective experience
“someone had picked up the glass paperweight and smashed it to pieces. the piece of coral rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was!”
At the end of the second part, when Winston and Julia are caught
Destruction of the paperweight is symbolic of the destruction of Winston and Julia’s relationship
Visual imagery and exclamation highlighting the minuscule size of the coral emphasises the minute hope for change
“there will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the party. there will be no love, except the love of big brother.”
chiasmus - complete destruction of relationships in 1984
“I betrayed you, she said baldly. I betrayed you, he said.”
repetition of the admission of betrayal emphasises the emotional effect of the destruction of the clandestine relationship between Winston and Julia, creating a pitiful tone that serves to warn readers of this unrelentingly bleak dystopia
Family paragraph quote 4
Winston is thus left to feel “as if he were wandering in the forests of the sea-bottom, lost in a monstrous world in which he himself was the monster”, where the simile featuring bestial imagery and expansive natural imagery highlights the confronting isolation of the individual and total submission to Party control.
Family paragraph quote 1
Family loyalty is celebrated by the anti-hero winston, who admires how his mother “had possessed a kind of purity, a kind of nobility, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones”. The nostalgic and longing town, highlighted by the positive connotations of ‘nobility’ and ‘purity’, reveal Winston’s yearning for private loyalties and connection in contrast to the Party’s enforced isolation.
Futility of relationships quote 1
During Winston’s torture and re-education,
Futility of relationships quote 1
During Winston’s torture and re-education,
“He hardly thought of Julia…he felt no love for her. He thought often of O’Brien, with flickering hope”
Contrast between Winston’s previous passionate love for julia with the loveless sentiment illustrates how he has been deprive of the emotions that defined him as an autonomous and sentient individual
The deeply ironic misplaced hope in O’Brien highlights the vulnerability of the individual expericen
Futility of relationships quote 2
As Winston sits at the end of the novel, he describes “two gin scented tears” trickling down his face
Through the allusion to the motif of Victory Gin, a substance controlled and produced by the Party, Orwell suggests that Winston has ultimately become another powerless extension of the emotions and behaviour predisposed by the Party, and that the emotions and qualities he portrays are now mere products of the Party.
Futility of relationships quote 3
Ending the nove
Futility of relationships quote 1
During Winston’s torture and re-education,
“He hardly thought of Julia…he felt no love for her. He thought often of O’Brien, with flickering hope”
Contrast between Winston’s previous passionate love for julia with the loveless sentiment illustrates how he has been deprive of the emotions that defined him as an autonomous and sentient individual
The deeply ironic misplaced hope in O’Brien highlights the vulnerability of the individual experience
Form and structure paragraph 1
dystopian form
setting of airstrip one
surveillance
Form and structure paragraph 2 - topic sentence
Manipulating perspective and the novel form, Orwell’s metatextuality links the experience of writing and storytelling to the quality of resistance, demonstrating how language can provide freedom from repressive regimes but can also be manipulated to restrict rational thought.
Form and structure paragraph 2 - techniques
Use of impersonal and limited third person indirect discourse throughout most of the novel emphasises the detachment of Winston from the rest of the world and the deprivation of his voice
“I don’t care thelly shoot me in the back of the neck I don’t care down with big brother” - transition to first person perspective illustrates the new voice he gains through writing
By including Winston’s diary writing, Orwell amplifies his message of literature as a means to evoke resistance as now both Winston’s writing and 1984 itself stand as didactic works that warn against dictatorships.
