Task 2: Mark Scheme and Model Answer (OCR A Level English Literature)

AO3

• Consider and incorporate a detailed discussion of the significance and influence of the contexts in which the texts were written and received, and how these might impact on the texts, with specific focus on the question:

  • These contexts include primarily literary context, but incorporating a discussion of other contexts as relevant to the focus of the question is also recommended

AO4

• Compare, contrast and analyse the relationships between texts, as relevant to the focus of the question

AO1

• Demonstrate excellent understanding of the genre

• Write a well-structured, sustained and consistent argument which is developed in detail

• Write fluently and with confidence

• Use any critical concepts and/or terminology accurately

• Write accurately, with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation

AO5

• Make thoughtful judgements by considering literary and critical interpretations and perspectives of the texts, including changing interpretations over time

In both Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the process of indoctrination is fundamental to the belief system both totalitarian governments seek to instil in their citizens. 1984’s Ingsoc, its authoritarian socialist party, and Atwood’s theocratic Republic of Gilead strip their people of their individual rights and identities, requiring conformity to the respective new regimes without criticism or question. However, while Orwell’s party pursues total control of its people via a system of repeated and often brutal indoctrination, there are examples of small acts of resistance to Gilead’s ideologies by more than one character in The Handmaid’s Tale, suggesting that this regime is less concerned in total immersion into its belief system as long as its people comply.

In Orwell’s 1984, the population is kept in a state of relentless indoctrination, as the Party controls every means of communication and uses these means to spread propaganda. Winston himself works at The Ministry of Truth, the agency tasked with re-writing the past to suit the propaganda of the moment. Dissenters or traitors are written out of history, and anybody who thinks they ever existed is branded as delusional. The practice of “doublethink” is essentially the process of coming to disregard a truth you once knew and gradually accepting the new truth the Party proclaims. Andrew Bernstein remarked that “in time, truth becomes regarded as delusion and delusions become accepted as truth”. For example, when the Party switches from fighting Eastasia to Eurasia, it claims that Oceania was always at war with Eurasia, and all contrary writings are re-written and any opposing claim is considered to be treason. The fear of the perpetually warring superstates are reminiscent of the constant threat of nuclear conflict following the Second World War, when relations between the US and the USSR quickly soured and turned into what is now known as the Cold War. This was a period of genuine public fear, feeding into existing paranoia about Communism, which is reflected in Oceania and is vital to maintaining the Party’s totalitarian rule. Even the first part of its slogan, “Freedom is Slavery”, promotes the message that if you try to live independently and outside of the Party’s doctrines, then you are doomed, but if you submit to Party control, then you survive. Likewise, when Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in the 1980s, religious right-wing fundamentalist propaganda, which fed into public fears and paranoia about issues such as AIDS, was on the rise, and many of the practices of Gilead are reminiscent of 17th-century American Puritanism, who lived in a rigid theocracy based on a few choice selections from the Bible.

The suspension of a free press is one way to achieve cultural control with propaganda, as in Stalinist Russia “socialist realism” was designated the only Party-approved genre of art and literature. Stalin also famously altered official Communist Party history to remove any mentions of Trotsky. The rewriting of history or the altering of facts to suit a political agenda and doctrine, as seen in Orwell’s dystopian fiction, can still be evidenced today via the manipulation of language, such as Vladimir Putin’s more recent description of armed conflicts as “special operations”. In comparison, written history of a time before Gilead is almost completely erased for Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale, as one of the ways the regime tries to control its citizens is by restricting language and removing the written word altogether. It is not necessary for the state to rewrite history when access to that history is completely restricted. Information exchange becomes the most important currency for the Mayday resistance, which leads Ofglen to implore Offred to “find out and tell us… anything you can”, as information about the world around them is highly censored. This is also similar to Huxley’s Brave New World, in which World Controllers use techniques of mass education, thought control and the deprivation of critical judgement to brainwash their citizens and create a perpetual state of dependency and confusion.

The outward appearance of total acquiescence to the state ideology is also evident in both 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale. In Orwell’s novel, the Party imposes a daily “Two Minutes Hate” during which every person in Oceania is required daily to drop everything, stand in front of a telescreen and scream abuse at Oceania’s foreign enemies and domestic traitors. Those suspected of insufficiently spewing hatred, called “facecrime”, can lead to imprisonment and death. The Particicution in The Handmaid’s Tale, modelled after a Canadian exercise program founded in the 1970s called “ParticipACTION”, involves a frenzied form of execution performed by the handmaids on an alleged traitor. Whether the object of hatred in both cases is actually justified seems to not matter; it is the projection of hatred towards anybody or anything that defies the regime’s ideology that matters.

However, the extent to which the time and effort fictional regimes put into the process of indoctrination proves to be successful is not necessarily consistent across 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale. In both novels, there is an element of resistance to the doctrines of the regimes: Winston commits “thoughtcrime” by writing in his diary, and engages in an illegal affair with Julia. Outwardly, Julia seems to be a dedicated Party member - she screams the loudest during the Two Minutes Hate, she is active in the Anti-Sex League and volunteers for Party tasks. However, she expresses her individuality in private rebellion by taking lovers. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred does not outwardly rebel against the regime, but she commits her own little acts of rebellion, such as making eye contact with the town gate’s young guard, or memorising the inscription she discovers in her closet. Coral Ann Howells notes that Offred still asserts the right to tell her story in a world in which individual identities are stripped. The character of Moira is openly resistant, and Ofglen is secretly a member of the Mayday resistance. Even Nick and Serena Joy show their own small acts of rebellion: Nick rolls up his sleeves and Serena Joy uses the black market to obtain cigarettes. However, these small acts of resistance are seemingly overlooked by those in charge, suggesting that the state of Gilead is less interested in the full indoctrination of its citizens as long as they comply with the rules. In contrast, when Winston and Julia are captured, Winston is tortured for months and brainwashed (it is called “re-education”) until he breaks. At the novel’s denouement, Winston realises that “he loved Big Brother”.

The different degrees of success in the process of indoctrination of the citizens may be explained by the presence or absence of a “scapegoat” in the novels, which a totalitarian society arguably needs in order to have someone or something on which to blame its failures. In 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein is the arch-villain, and Orwell’s use of a Jewish name symbolises Stalin’s and Hitler’s deep anti-Semitism. Winston’s eventual total immersion into the Party’s doctrine at the end of the novel suggests the process of indoctrination worked in this case. In contrast, the absence of any one single “scapegoat” figure in Atwood’s novel allows the ending to be more open to interpretation, and allows the possibility of escape for Offred. The Historical Notes confirms the demise of Gilead, and while this is also suggested in Orwell’s Appendix, the systematic use of violence, fear and brutality in 1984 seems to be more effective in getting its Party members to fully embrace the truths being presented to them, whereas in The Handmaid’s Tale there is a constant undercurrent of dissent and simmering rebellion.

Overall, a key feature of dystopian regimes is the process of indoctrination through propaganda, violence, threats, fear, surveillance and the suppression of language and individual identity. Whether or not these regimes can completely brainwash their citizens, while clearly an objective, does not seem to ultimately be as important as the maintenance of power at all costs.