Orwell Style

From reading my last post, you probably have a sense of this society's flaws- governmental corruption, widespread brainwashing and conditioning, and constant privacy invasion. It turns out this only barely scratches the surface. The more intricate details of the society prove it to be even more twisted. Over the course of the last few sections, Winston has revealed everything from what typical mornings are like to the nature of his work to the clothes he wears. These snippets help to immerse us into this world that seems incomprehensibly different from our own and piece together all  of its strange aspects.

Not only is the content of this book interesting, but the style in which the book is written is interesting as well. It is divided into parts with smaller sub-sections within each part. It uses a third person limited perspective with Winston being the only character whose thoughts and perspective we get. This point of view gives us a full look at Winston and window into his mind without having the bias that is associate with a first person. So while we are connected to the main character, we are also slightly detached. The majority of the book covers Winston's thoughts in either a stream of conscious or journalistic manner. For instance, on page 34 Winston begins a daily ritual known as the Physical Jerks. It consists of a violent coughing fit followed by daily stretching movements he must complete, and he's monitored the whole time, so there's no way around it. During this routine his thoughts wander to memories of childhood and his sister, and more specifically, her eyes. The stream of conscious thoughts reveal to us more about Winston's past and where his family went as well as more flaws in the society such as how people are often taken away in the night, their whole record destroyed, and labeled as having been "vaporized." Instead of bluntly stating that, he conveys this fact through his use of stories about his mother. It definitely creates a more interesting way of presenting information about the society instead of constantly listing and describing.

The other style mode, journalistic, can be seen through Winston's days at work. We are given a journal-style report of what goes at the factory where history is practically rewritten and all contradictory evidence is destroyed. Page 43 reads, "The Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at a hundred and forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in re-writing the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions... Very likely no boots had been produced at all... All one knew was that astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half of the population of Oceania went barefoot." This passage reflects the journalistic, informative style of writing that characterizes the majority of the book. While it is lacking in flowery language, the precise and specific adjectives provide sufficient detail.

Another stylistic elements to note is the tense of the writing. Did you pick up on the past tense in the passage above? To me, the past tense creates a sense of detachment similar to how the third person point of view does. It conveys reflection as if looking back on what has happened as opposed to being submerged in the event. Most likely this connects to Orwell's purpose in writing this story. He hopes readers will learn from society's flaws and not allow similar situations and mistakes to occur in the future. By writing in the past tense, he sends us the message to look into our own pasts as well as the one of this society.

The final aspect I want to mention is the stylistic usage of language. In this novel, Orwell creates a language called "Newspeak." Newspeak replaces Oldspeak, which resembles what we use today. It contains new words and strange syntax. Just to give you an idea, here is a report in the language: "times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling." From a visual standpoint, it looks worse than text abbreviations and like bits of words are being smushed together. There is even a Newspeak Dictionary to help everyone keep up, which contains words like "doublethink" and "thoughtcrime." Playing with the language becomes yet another way that the Party is able to expand its control and brainwash its people. A "Guide to Newspeak" will be posted in the near future, so be sure to check back soon!