Dystopian Journal #1: How do the motifs, setting, and language contribute to our understanding of the society. Address each area separately and in depth.
Motifs- The biggest motif that I noticed was "censorship". Oceania lives in a censored society; absolutely everything is filtered through the government. The citizens of Oceania are all under surveillance through the telescreen that are scattered through the whole city. They wake up to the telescreens telling them what to do and when. Children go to school to become Spies and grow up believing that there was no past. Thoughtcrime is censorship of the mind and independent thoughts. It is almost impossible to think of an idea against the Party and not get vanished. Also, the Party erased all records of the past. Therefore they create what was the past. All the citizens of Oceania are only supposed to know what the Party wants them to know. "And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceanis with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels-with every coneivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling book to a Newspeak dictionary." (43)
Setting- The setting of Oceania is very confined and constrined to what the Party wants you to believe. A lot of the imagery in the book is dark and rotten. The houses are deteriorating and breaking apart because of the bombing. This contributes to our understanding of the novel because it shows how the environment that Oceania is living in is very dark and depressed. It also contributes to the characters and how they feel and the society as whole because it is shows how they are living in a depressed environment. "Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere." (2)
Language- The narrator speaks indifferently of Oceania therefore the tone is very lonely and dark. The language contributes to our understanding of the society by showing who and who isn't in favor of the party. For example Mr.Parson brags about his kids and seems intrigued to be a part of the Party as well as Syme. But Winston is indifferent of Big Brother and Oceania's society at times. At other times he wants to revolt and this is shown through the language and what type of words they use. Winston- " But he did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference" (19) Syme- " By 2050- earlier, probably - all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed."(53)
Motifs- The biggest motif that I noticed was "censorship". Oceania lives in a censored society; absolutely everything is filtered through the government. The citizens of Oceania are all under surveillance through the telescreen that are scattered through the whole city. They wake up to the telescreens telling them what to do and when. Children go to school to become Spies and grow up believing that there was no past. Thoughtcrime is censorship of the mind and independent thoughts. It is almost impossible to think of an idea against the Party and not get vanished. Also, the Party erased all records of the past. Therefore they create what was the past. All the citizens of Oceania are only supposed to know what the Party wants them to know. "And the Records Department, after all, was itself only a single branch of the Ministry of Truth, whose primary job was not to reconstruct the past but to supply the citizens of Oceanis with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programs, plays, novels-with every coneivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling book to a Newspeak dictionary." (43)
Setting- The setting of Oceania is very confined and constrined to what the Party wants you to believe. A lot of the imagery in the book is dark and rotten. The houses are deteriorating and breaking apart because of the bombing. This contributes to our understanding of the novel because it shows how the environment that Oceania is living in is very dark and depressed. It also contributes to the characters and how they feel and the society as whole because it is shows how they are living in a depressed environment. "Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere." (2)
Language- The narrator speaks indifferently of Oceania therefore the tone is very lonely and dark. The language contributes to our understanding of the society by showing who and who isn't in favor of the party. For example Mr.Parson brags about his kids and seems intrigued to be a part of the Party as well as Syme. But Winston is indifferent of Big Brother and Oceania's society at times. At other times he wants to revolt and this is shown through the language and what type of words they use. Winston- " But he did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference" (19) Syme- " By 2050- earlier, probably - all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed."(53)
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