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Totalitarianism: The Dystopian Ideology
The 1930s and 40s was a time of turmoil in the world. Countries were at war, people even thought that it was time for the apocalypse. World War I and World War II dominated the first half of the twentieth century, power was the goal and countries were willing to move mountains to obtain it. It was the power hungry dictators that threatened world peace, as the central figures in the World Wars, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Joseph Stalin bought fear into the world’s eyes. George Orwell saw the rise of totalitarian regimes and wrote his books as a warning of these governments. Animal Farm, a famous novel by Orwell, portrays how a society’s ideologies can be manipulated with the wrong people in power. Nineteen Eighty-Four, another famous novel by Orwell, introduces the idea of physiological manipulation, where the mind is the source of control. In this novel, Big Brother is portrayed as a demagogue of a nation, Oceania, and The Party is the ruling body of the state. Nineteen Eighty-Four is about the life of Winston Smith in a dictatorship. Winston lives in a state where fear is the key and opposition is dangerous. Orwell Wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1948, as he witnessed the horrors of World War II and the rise of threatening dictatorships. Orwell cautions the philosophy of the 1940s authoritarian rule through the depiction of the utopian ideology of The Party that has gone wrong.Every political ideology has one goal, to create a utopia. Democracy tries to achieve it by giving the power to the people, Aristocracy tries by giving the power to a few individuals, and Dictatorship by giving total control to one individual. Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a mixture between a dictatorship and an aristocracy. Big Brother is portrayed as a despot that instills fear through his depiction of an omnipresent tyrannical ruler, and The Party is the ruling body of Oceania that enforces the laws. Total control is their policy, and The Party believes that totalitarianism is the only way to achieve a utopia. Many people have their own sense of utopias, the Party chooses to “void privacy, emotion, individuality, and freedom” by controlling the people’s mind, the Party can create their own version of a perfect world (Serafin 2964). Totalitarianism was adopted by many governments; dictatorship is often adopted when a country is in need. Adolf Hitler assumed power when Germany was going through disastrous depression as they lost World War I. The people look up to this charismatic leader that assured a utopian society. Dictators try to make their own perfect world, first “seize power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay paradise where human beings would be free and equal” (Orwell 263). Despots assure this paradise, then when put into power they create a dystopia. The Party in Nineteen- Eighty-Four uses a different kind of approach. The Party uses the mind to manipulate ideas and thoughts “and states impositions of will upon thoughts and truths” (“Nineteen Eighty-Four” 1). Using thought control and physiological deviation to make people think they live in an ideal society, The Party creates a perfect ideology. Since nothing in this world can be perfect, Oceania becomes anything but ideal. Newspeak is another example of how The Party enforces their control. “Newspeak is the only language where the vocabulary gets smaller,” this causes the brain to “narrow the range of thought” so that people do not have to think (Orwell 52). Therefore The Party does the thinking and controls the mind for them. Orwell shows a nightmarish version of a dystopia, “the ideological project of Nineteen Eighty-Four is to represent the destruction of human individuality and the human community by totalitarianism,” which was actually a huge fear in the 1940s and the central ideology of Big Brother and The Party (Wanner 7).
The Party is the ruling class of the totalitarian government that is established in Oceania. The Party created a hierarchical system similar to that of the feudal system of the Medieval Period; Big Brother at the top, then the Inner Party, then Outer Party, and followed by the Poles. The Poles make up 85 percent of the population, however they have no power, freedom, or equality, “poles are portrayed as subhumans…” just as the serfs were in the Middle Ages (Resch 163). The Outer Party members are the educated yet unimportant people. They work as regular people and have to conform to society. The main character, Winston Smith, is apart of the Outer Party and works in the Ministry of Truth. The Inner Party is the Clergy class of the Middle Ages. They are the ones in charge, even though less the two percent of the population, have are the ones with power. Then finally the despot of the nation, Big Brother, even though one has really seen him, he instills fear in the people by having an omniscient characteristic and make sure no one rebels against the party (Serafin 2964). The Party’s slogan, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” is a paradoxical statements that helps assure the citizens of Oceania stay in the hands of The Party (Orwell 1). To help assure this the Party establishes three core ministries that control the nation’s government: Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Peace conducts the perpetual war on the three other nations of the world. This insures that the people’s hatred is focused on the other nations instead of The Party itself. The Ministry of Love is responsible for the recognition, observation, capture and torture of rebels and enemies of Party. Brainwashing is the key to the Party’s success, O’Brian said to Winston in the Ministry of Love, “We convert, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him…we shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves” (Orwell 285). It is stated that privacy is the most important aspect of life. “The world of Nineteen Eighty- Four does not allow privacy for the individual and does not allow the individual to have a personal identity” (“Nineteen Eighty-Four” 1). The Ministry of Love makes sure the adversaries are put down no matter what. Finally the Ministry of Truth is the Party’s propaganda machine. Another way to control the mind is to control history, “thought control is executed through the falsification of history” (“Nineteen Eighty-Four” 1). Winston job is just that, rewriting history to fit The Party’s needs. The Ministry of Truth also invents new language, the concept of Newspeak uses “language as a tool of the government to exercise and ensure control its populace” making the people think less, letting The Party think for them. Orwell brought forth these ideas by observing the totalitarian regimes established in the 1940s. The actions of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini, directly influenced the structure of the Party.
Absolute power was the goal of the dictators in 1930s and 1940s. The totalitarian faces were ready to go to extreme means to obtain supremacy in the world. Many can say “the role of Big Brother can be found in Adolf Hitler…” (Wanner 1). The well known Nazi dictator rose from nothing to one of the most powerful leader in the world. As a soldier of the Great War, he began his hatred toward the world. When Germany was in a time of need, they would look to one person that would assure protection. Just as Big Brother, Adolf Hitler used many appealing and charismatic language to attract the people, Hitler offered safety and a utopia to Germany; therefore people fell to his feet (Wanner 1). Right when he was named Chancellor of Germany he abolished the democratic ideals and declared himself the dictator. In Orwell’s review the Hitler’s Mein Kampf he states “Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life” (Wanner 1). From his book he declares his ideology superior and therefore a reason to spread it by many means necessary. Joseph Stalin was another cruel and unusual dictator. The Soviet Union actually sided with the Allied Forces in World War II. “The enemy of your enemy is your friend,” by this statement, the United States and the Soviet Union had a common enemy: Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. The reason was that was so was because Communist ideals and Fascist ideal are totally opposite. The battle of power and influence was the central goal. Stalin was also known for his inhuman actions against his people, brainwashing, torture, and void of privacy were the central philosophy of the Soviet Union just as The Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Stalin’s cruel tactics influenced Orwell to incorporate it into his novel. Nineteen Eighty-Four was written to warn the threats of the power hungry dictators of the World War II era, it was the “… 20th century totalitarianism, which provided the primary inspiration for the dystopia of Orwell’s novel” (Wanner 1). This novel was meant as a caution against the evils of totalitarianism.
Orwell based this book on the events that were happening in 1948, when he wrote this book, “living through the atrocities of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin…of mental and physical tortures…Orwell painted a picture of 1984” warning the outcome of these ruthless demagogues (“Nineteen Eighty-Four” 1). Something needed to be done; Orwell had the idea of writing this book as a propaganda tool against absolutism. Having seen two devastating World Wars, “Orwell was greatly influenced by the social and political events of the period,” Orwell also witnesses the “world situation becoming increasingly more threatening” as communist Soviet Union was becoming more powerful (Wanner 2964). Orwell sought end the spread of this totalitarian ideology by creating a novel solely to ridicule the ideas of it. The idea of an absolute political system may look good on paper, but the sole purpose of a dictatorship was power “not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power” (Orwell 263). To satisfy this greed government would do anything, even if it meant the destruction of lives. To stress the importance of the people of a nation, George Orwell introduced the poles in Nineteen Eighty-Four as the hope of the country, “If there is hope, it lies in the poles,” 85% percent of the population was the poles (Orwell 69). Orwell tries to educate to mass populations that it is in the hands of the majority, not the few to govern a nation.
Orwell observes the future as a totalitarian state, “Oceania is a dystopian negation of Orwell’s vision of England” with a “government with wrong members in control” (Wanner 1547). Nineteen Eighty-Four is about a regular man, Winston Smith, defying the laws of conformity and the laws of the land, knowing what is right he faces the oppressing government knowing the outcome would surely be death. This novel portrays totalitarianism as a dystopian ideology, “…the horrors of world war, the subsequent division of Europe into Eastern and Western blocs, and the formidable reality of atomic warfare,” Orwell created a nightmarish version of the mythical future (Serafin 2964).
Works Cited
- "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Masterplots, Revised Second Edition (1996). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. CHS Media Center, Carrollton, GA. 21 February 2008. <http://search.ebscohost.com/
- Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1950.
- Resch, Robert Paul. "Utopia, Dystopia, and the Middle Class in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four." boundary 2 24.1 (Spring 1997): 137. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. CHS Media Center, Carrollton, GA. 21 February 2008. <http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&
- Serafin, Stevens. “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Beacham’s Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction. Ed. Kirk H. Beetz, Ph.D. 1996 ed.
- Wanner, Adrian. "The Underground Man as Big Brother: Dostoevsky's and Orwell's Anti-Utopia." Utopian Studies 8.1 (1997): 77. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. CHS Media Center, Carrollton, GA. 21 February 2008. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&
