NCEA 3.4 – Writing Portfolio – Feature Article

George Orwell’s use of dystopia to criticize communism in his novel, Nineteen Eighty Four

Hidden not far below the surface of the page, George Orwell crafted a complex yet blatantly clear political statement regarding communism. Orwell used fears of his time, such as lack of religion to make a criticism of the communist system of governance and its power hungry nature.

A great fear of the years surrounding 1949 was the impending threat of take-over by communism. Having just come out of World War 2, Britain was weak, it’s people battered by war, the country’s bank account completely empty. George Orwell, like many influential people of his time, took to his preferred medium in an attempt to make an observation about the ideology through his final novel, “Nineteen-Eighty-Four”. In the story, it is apparent that Orwell drew from the fears of his society to construct the world of Oceania, and used his writing to make a criticism about the controversial system of governance.

During the period of which Orwell wrote the book, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill had just announced to the world the splitting of alliances between the Western powers and the communist Soviet Union. As a result, slews of anti communist propaganda and ideology was spread everywhere it could have been, just as the anti-capitalist equivalent was being drilled into the minds of those living under the governance of the communist regimes.

To ensure someone is listening to you, you must grasp their attention. Orwell clearly knew this relatively simple fact when he wrote Nineteen Eighty Four, and he knew that there is no better way to grasp one’s attention than by fear; and the people of his time were scared-that was the basis for the cold war after all- and so the dystopia was born. In Nineteen Eighty Four, the government has stripped all humanity from its people, removing their freedom, their religion, their individuality, replacing these aspects with feverish patriotism and complete devotion to the Party. Essentially, Orwell has imagined a society in which life and actually living have become completely detached, the latter being almost completely obliterated, any freedoms possible have been taken from the party members, something anyone would find frightening even today.

The absence of any religion in the society presented in “Nineteen Eighty Four”, is an aspect that he makes very clear to the reader throughout, Orwell telling the reader that even the Proles, the more free general population of Oceania, no longer worshiped any gods, saying, “For that matter, even religious worship would have been permitted“, adding “…if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it.” To an audience in 1949 England, the thought of the absence Christianity was unthinkable, making the exclusion of such an aspect vital to creating an effective dystopian world, for especially Orwell’s society, and definitely an effective warning against communism.

If one takes a closer look at the idea of a society without religion, it becomes apparent that the Party would have most likely “permitted” a religion of some sort, but the proles showed no “sign of needing or wanting it. ” This idea that not only was their no religion in Oceania, but that no one expressed a desire for it would possibly be more frightening to many a reader in Orwell’s time, which is why this text was such an excellent opening entry to the now vast catalog of texts in the genre.

We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” When Orwell wrote this, it is undoubtedly a criticism on the soviet ideals. Communism as an philosophy that says that to achieve “the perfect world”, there must be total elimination of their opponents, something that can never eventuate, an impossible task; Orwell suggests that the ideals behind communism are designed to disillusion its followers, to unite the people under their control a with a never ending war, an idea depicted in “Nineteen Eighty Four”, with Oceania in a seemingly endless cycle of war with changing enemies every few years. There will always be opposition of an ideal, especially one such as communism, and therefore, always need for the government to hold complete control, “They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power  and for a limited time“. Orwell has given The Party a sense of righteousness in the fact that they “had the courage to recognize their own motives.“, in doing so, Orwell has simultaneously created The Party to criticize communism in its similarities, and also as a way of essentially illustrating cowardice of their ways.

Through understanding Orwell’s criticism, the idea that communism and “Doublethink” are one in the same would not be as much as stretch as one might initially assume. Through presenting the idea that “Power is not a means; it is an end“, Orwell is showing that just as one can hold “two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them“, Orwell shows the reader that to believe in communism is to accept two directly opposite beliefs- communism promises for a world of harmony and prosperity, but the core ideas behind the philosophy make it so that those living under such a governance are oppressed, and almost endless conflict and bloodshed are inevitable, and required for any of it to be possible in the first place.

Since the birth of the human race, and almost certainly until it’s end, conflict always has, and always will plague humans as a species. It seems that no matter how much one wants it, no one can seem to agree on how achieve it- The communist philosophy addresses this issue by removing all those who oppose, but in doing so create an endless supply of enemies, creating “an endless war”, always with new enemies, an idea observed and presented by George Orwell in his novel “Nineteen Eighty Four” through The Party, an entity seemingly created to criticize communism in almost all aspects of it. Orwell shows his reader that humans, because of their power hungry nature are simply incompatible with total peace and harmony. Instead, it is used as a veil, an excuse for one to gain power-“one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship“, not the inverse, which is the method of which many revolutionaries through history have used to justify their actions.

Orwell created a genre, used the fears of his people in order to effectively articulate his warning against communism, to warn that it is not the harmony seeking form of governance it promises to be, but instead interested only in gaining complete power, “entirely for its own sake“. In reality, Orwell’s observations stretch to the present day, where dictators and oligarchies still control several countries around the world, the power they possess so great they are able to keep those under their control completely unconscious of the oppression of which they are under the control, rendering them unable to ever to become conscious of, their leaders using a veil of peace and prosperity to mask their own selfish goals of wealth and power.

One Reply to “NCEA 3.4 – Writing Portfolio – Feature Article”

  1. Your ideas hold together extremely well and you have clearly taken a genuine interest in the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four as well as the dystopian genre.

    You also have some strong facility with language, with the capacity to carefully select words that elevate your ideas, such as the word ‘slew’ in the context you used it.

    The work now is in relation to consistency and structure. Presently it’s not clear in the introduction what the article is about. It in fact reads a little more like a chronology of ideas as they arise in your head, as opposed to something that is structured in order to delineate the reasoning pattern that sits behind it.

    Structurally, your paragraphs are also over-long, which also contributes to the sprawling sense of the piece. This is not desirable.

    Try the simple exercise of highlighting each of the points you make, examine the density of ideas, assess whether you’re using enough examples to support these ideas – and whether you’re giving these examples ‘room to breathe’ by examining them – then try re-arranging your entire piece so that your reader can be sure they can follow the logical ‘through line’ of your argument.

    Someone should be able to read each paragraph and be able to summarise its key point. That summary should usually match the first and/or the last sentence.

    Once this is done, put your language skill to work to ensure that your opening sentences (And your entire introduction) carry more impact and work more to engage your reader. There are many instances of this ‘within’ your work, but, again, the issue is structural. Put your best language/points first.

    Let me know if you need further explanation of this advice.

    CW

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