Perfection comes at a cost, and remains perpetually out of reach. This contradiction is just one of the reasons dystopias have captivated readers of all ages. The idea of a utopia, juxtaposed with the stark reality that it can never exist, makes a compelling setting for social commentary and critique.
Published in 1949, shortly after the end of World War II and during the rise of Communist powers such as Russia and Korea, Orwell’s novel warns readers of important issues that become the novel’s key themes, including government overreach, propaganda, and the importance of free thought and speech.
dystopia in 1984 summary- dystopian characteristics - dystopian societies
Storyboard Text
PEOPLE RESTRICED FROM INDEPENDENT THOUGHT / ACTION
GOVERNMENT IS OPPRESSIVE
How can you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished?
SETTING IS FUTURISTIC, OR IN A FICTIONAL UNIVERSE
April 1984
“‘The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought it all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.’”
“One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face.”
The novel was published in 1949, after the end of World War II. It purports that an atomic world war occurred during the 1950s, and envisions a world in 1984 that has been split into three sections: Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia. One section of territory in Northern Africa to India is disputed and fought over constantly.
PROTAGONIST WISHES TO RESTORE PEOPLE TO A CONVENTIONAL LIFE
"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor."
DYSTOPIA IN 1984
GOVERNMENT PORTRAYS SOCIETY AS A UTOPIA
ELEMENTS OF CONFORMITY, OR EXTREME EQUALITY
Boooooo!!!!!!
TWO MINUTES' HATE Emmanuel Goldstein: Enemy of the State
“‘We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party, and that you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals.”
“The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before the Revolution, they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines… children had been sold into the factories at the age of six.”
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“At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of ‘B-B!...’ It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly, it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.”