1984: Themes (OCR A Level English Literature)

Themes

Exam responses that are led by themes and ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the main ideas of the text, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the novel.

Below are some of the key themes that could be explored in 1984. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to explore any other ideas or themes you identify within the novel.

• Power and control

• Identity and individuality

• Technology

• Love and sex

Power and control

Power and control is the most significant theme in 1984 due to the totalitarian nature of the government of Oceania. Orwell’s main aim in writing the novel was to warn against the dangers of a totalitarian government seizing absolute power and control, and the Party in 1984 is the most extreme example of this, seeking power entirely for its own sake.

Knowledge and evidence:

• The Party in 1984 controls every aspect of Party members’ lives:

  • There are no actual laws in Oceania, but the Party exerts its control through fear, manipulation and propaganda, using torture, imprisonment and vaporisation on anyone whose actions, or even thoughts, indicate a divergence from the doctrines of the state

  • Even the act of thinking something disloyal to the party is deemed “thoughtcrime”

• One of the main ways in which the Party exerts its power and control over its citizens is through the use of propaganda:

  • It bombards its people with psychological propaganda designed to overwhelm the mind and drown out any capacity for independent thought

  • All facts and figures are dictated by the Party, regardless of their accuracy

  • It uses every opportunity to instil its ideals into its citizens, and is effective in its goal of achieving absolute loyalty and control, as evidenced by Winston’s eventual betrayal of Julia and submission to Big Brother

• In addition, the Party controls information and history:

  • No records of the past are allowed, and therefore memory becomes unreliable

  • Winston’s job is to rewrite news articles and other literature in order to bring written records into line with the version of history supported by the Party

  • This itself is a never ending job, as the Party constantly changes facts in order to support its policies

• Language is also used as a method of control in 1984:

  • Language is central to human thought, individualism and identity

  • It allows self-expression, but the Party alters the very structure of language to make it impossible to even think a disobedient or rebellious thought

  • English has been replaced with “Newspeak”, which reduces and limits the number of words in the English language, and removes words used to describe rebellion or independence

• The idea of loyalty is also fundamental to the power the Party holds over its people:

  • The Party undermines family structure and loyalties, encouraging children to become spies and to report any instance of disloyalty by their parents

• Loyalty means accepting without question or hesitation:

  • Winston is initially loyal to Julia, but the Party ultimately wins as Winston betrays her to declare his unequivocal love for Big Brother

  • It is also ironic that, when Winston pledges his loyalty to the Brotherhood, he also agrees to accept the goals and requirements of the Brotherhood without question or hesitation, even if that means murdering innocents

• The citizens of Oceania are further controlled by being forced to suppress their sexual desires:

  • Sex is a means of procreation and nothing more

  • Pent up feelings and frustrations are given an outlet in the form of the Two Minutes Hate

• In addition to the manipulation of minds, the Party also controls the physical state of its citizens:

  • Poverty, lack of food and poor-quality, government-sanctioned products result in unhealthy citizens physically less capable of revolt

  • The people are forced to participate in mandatory morning exercises, called the Physical Jerks, and then work long hours at government agencies, keeping people in a perpetual state of exhaustion

  • Even people’s facial expressions are carefully monitored, as any expression not deemed acceptable could lead to arrest and torture

  • When people are arrested, they are “re-educated” via a process of brutal physical and psychological torture

• Through torture, O’Brien teaches Winston that the Party’s perspective is the only accurate perspective:

  • In this way, Winston transitions from split loyalties to a single loyalty to the Party

• Power in the novel does not just derive from the power of the state, but also from the weakness of the citizens:

  • The Proles have more freedom, but do nothing with it as they are uninterested in politics

What is Orwell’s intention?

• Orwell published 1984 in 1949, drawing on the world’s recent experiences of Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the rise of communism in the Soviet Union under Stalin:

  • He deliberately set the book in a fictionalised version of Great Britain to demonstrate that totalitarianism could succeed anywhere unless people resist

• Totalitarianism itself was an extension of socialism, which sought to create more equitable societies by centralising production and abolishing private property in favour of collective ownership:

  • Goldstein’s manifesto outlines the methods by which a totalitarian regime consolidates and extends its power

• Orwell takes the worst features of these regimes, and adds reasonable advancements in technology, to speculate on a near-future that would encourage his readers to oppose evil

• Orwell’s presentation of the power of propaganda supports his warning against totalitarianism:

  • If the Party rules all information, then it is impossible to know what is real

Identity and individuality

Via its systems of control, the Party in 1984 destroys all sense of individuality, identity and independence of person and thought. This is a key method of maintaining power over large numbers of people, so by eradicating any sense of individuality or identity, the Party is able to manipulate and oppress its citizens.

Knowledge and evidence:

• The basic methods of establishing one’s own identity are restricted in the world of 1984:

  • For example, Winston cannot be sure of the year, or how old he is

  • None of his memories are reliable, as he has no photographic evidence or documentation to validate them

• The Party enforces a collective identity onto Party members:

  • They wear the same uniforms, smoke the same state-sanctioned cigarettes, drink the same state-sanctioned alcohol and have to partake in the same mandatory activities

  • This means that forming a sense of individual identity is not only difficult from a psychological perspective, but is also logistically challenging

  • No one can stand out, even via their facial expressions, or else be accused of thoughtcrime

• The individual decisions Winston makes in the novel can be seen as his attempts to build a sense of individual identity:

  • He purchases and begins to write in a diary in order to record his thoughts and his version of history

  • He goes for walks in the Prole neighbourhoods alone, and engages in a sexual relationship, which makes him feel more alive

• After Winston is caught, the prolonged torture inflicted upon him is designed to destroy his ability to think independent thoughts:

  • At one point, Winston argues that he is a man and O’Brien cannot tell him what he thinks

  • O’Brien counters this with the fact that, if Winston is a man, then he is the last man on earth

• Before entering Room 101, Winston recognises that to die hating the Party is a type of freedom, but by the end of the novel he is incapable of even this act of independence:

  • In betraying Julia, he relinquishes the last of his individual identity and independence of thought, and therefore loses his own morality and self-respect

• The theme of identity can also be explored in relation to Julia:

  • She exerts some independence of thought in making her own decisions to take lovers

  • This contrasts with her outward appearance of a conforming Party member, complete with the red sash of the Anti-Sex League

  • In the apartment with Winston, she applies black-market make-up and expresses a desire to be a “woman”, linking into the idea of a collective “female” identity

• Ultimately, Winston and Julia’s downfall occurs because they believe they are special, or in some way different:

  • This belief is eradicated via the torture and brainwashing inflicted upon Winston until he fully submits to Big Brother

• Apart from some individuals identified by Winston, the Proles are also treated as a collective:

  • They make up 85% of the population of Oceania

  • Winston believes that if they were to become fully aware of their plight, they would rebel and bring down the Party

  • The fact that they are not presented as fully-rounded characters, however, suggests that their collective identity is not a realistic threat to the regime as it stands

What is Orwell’s intention?

• Orwell explores the idea that, in a totalitarian society, independent thought can be dangerous, as it might lead to rebellion:

  • O’Brien represents the purity of this ideal, in that independent thought must be destroyed in order to promote the needs and goals of the regime

• Orwell has created straightforward and, arguably, in some cases, stereotypical characters in this novel:

  • By eliminating elements of individuality in his characters, Orwell is able to comment on how a regime such as that in charge of Oceania would have to eliminate originality in order to maintain its existence

Technology

Technology is a tool used by the Party to maintain control over its citizens, and the removal of privacy is a theme relevant not only at the time of Orwell’s writing but also today. It is one of the most important tools available to the Party in order to eliminate potential rebellion and subversion.

Knowledge and evidence:

• The Party develops advancements in technology in order to meet its end goal of ruthless and absolute control over its residents:

  • Telescreens enable the Thought Police to keep watch at all times

  • Hidden cameras and microphones are able to record conversations 

  • Propaganda is also spread via the telescreens

• Technology enables the Party to maintain surveillance, or the constant threat of surveillance, to keep its population in check

• Outer Party members are not allowed to turn off their telescreens:

  • It is via a hidden telescreen that Winston and Julia are discovered

  • Technology forms the basis of the methods of torture used on Winston when he is captured

  • It also features in O’Brien’s vision for the future of Oceania, via methods of psychological manipulation and artificial insemination

• However, there is a contrast in the novel between the modernisation of technology and more primitive machines, such as the printing machine:

  • This suggests that the Party supports scientific progress only when it specifically serves the Party’s goals

  • The Party maintains power primarily through the use of psychology, so if no technology existed, it is conceivable that the Party would find alternative but equally effective means of controlling its people

What is Orwell’s intention?

• Technology, which is generally perceived as working towards a common good, can also facilitate evil

• 1984 was written in the era before computers, so the technological “advancements” can seem overly complicated or too simplistic to a modern reader:

  • But it is still used to exert large-scale control on economic production and sources of information

• Orwell uses speculative technology, such as the telescreens, to symbolise how a totalitarian government can abuse its power via different means

Love and sex

Feelings, like information, are unreliable in the novel, and love is one example of this. Romantic love and sexual relations are repressed as a further means of control under the totalitarian regime, being warped into a declaration of love for only Big Brother.

Knowledge and evidence:

• The Party works to remove any enjoyment from relationships in Oceania:

  • Sex is referred to as a duty to the party and for procreation purposes only

  • The very act of sex for pleasure is seen as an act of resistance

• Winston’s distorted view of sex causes him to despise virginal qualities, which he equates to support for Big Brother:

  • Julia seems to be the kind of woman Winston cannot stand

  • She is seemingly chaste and outwardly loyal to the Party 

  • However, his reactions to her are as a result of his sexual attraction and frustration, and his resulting feelings of male emasculation

• In this way, women are portrayed as objects of male sexual desire:

  • This is even though the Party has removed qualities that are traditionally seen as “feminine”, such as giving affection and caregiving

  • However, Julia finds a way of living life according to her desires

• Winston is ashamed of visiting a prostitute:

  • This is an act that seems to be subtly encouraged as a means of relieving sexual tensions

  • The Hate Week and the Two Minutes Hate are further means of channelling sexual tension and frustration, transforming them into war fever and leader worship

• Winston’s affair with Julia represents physical and emotional freedom:

  • This is in contrast to his failed marriage to Katharine, which was characterised by duty and a complete absence of pleasure or affection

  • However, the emotion of love is a threat to the Party, and it is arguable whether Winston and Julia’s love is actually real

  • It is ultimately not strong enough when it is tested

• The idea of love in the novel is also explored via Winston’s memories of his mother:

  • In a dream, Winston remembers a gesture of embrace made by his mother, embodying the strength and protecting nature of women prior to the Revolution

  • However, Winston’s memories are unreliable, as the erosion of memory is another method of control by the Party

• In Oceania, familial love is eroded, as all love and loyalty should be reserved for Big Brother:

  • The Party therefore works hard to break the bonds between parents and children

  • It indoctrinates children via the Youth League and encourages them to prioritise love for Big Brother over love for their parents

  • Parsons still exhibits love for his children despite being betrayed by them

• However, ultimately, in order to effect absolute control, the Party must abolish all loyalties derived through love, sex and family, and redirect them upon itself:

  • It does this by destroying trust, and therefore the strongest human bonds

What is Orwell’s intention?

• Love in 1984 is the clear antithesis of everything the Party stands for:

  • Even the ironically named Ministry of Love is responsible for torture

  • This results in the dehumanisation of society via the removal of the strongest and most basic of human bonds

• Through its control of marriage and sex, the Party resembles a conservative religious institution:

  • By attempting to control who or what people love, the Party positions itself as the ultimate salvation

• Via the removal of love and sex, Orwell warns against letting any government overly control the personal lives of its population