Nineteen Eighty-Four/Setting: Difference between revisions

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The year is 1984... maybe. All that's definitively understood is that we are on what used to be the British Isles, now known as [[Airstrip One]], a few decades after a Revolution that took place during the global nuclear wars following [[World War II]] and left the world in the hands of three superpowers called Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, or so everyone seems to remember; in reality, only four years ago Oceania was at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia... but in this world, reality is a very malleable concept.

 

The Party's ideology, called IngSoc, or English Socialism, has moved beyond the social experiments of past totalitarian regimes, and aims to completely reshape people's ability to perceive the world around them. [[Written by the Winners|History is continually rewritten - often outright made up]] - by the Party so that Big Brother is always right, has always made the right predictions, and always implemented the right policies, for which the citizenry are always appropriately grateful. No evidence to the contrary, in any media, is allowed to remain. As part of this effort, a new language, [[Newspeak]], is being constructed, with the express intent of removing all "superfluous" shades of meaning, especially concepts related to political freedom. The ultimate goal is the elimination of the [[Language Equals Thought|ability even to think about]] an anti-authority concept, let alone express it in words.

 

* [[Airstrip One]]: The British Isles have been renamed to this in order to cut any ties to their former political identity.

* [[Apathetic Citizens]]: The Proles.

** Men aren't really encouraged to enjoy it either. The Party wants sex to be seen as a dirty but necessary act, like vomiting or getting an enema.

** At one point, O'Brien claims the Party plans to abolish the orgasm, making sex a purely reproductive act devoid of pleasure for anyone.

** The prole's diatribe against the half-litre is meant to highlight the proles' small-mindedness and lack of vision. The prole in the pub is overworked, underfed, and completely without hope of a better life, yet his main complaint about Ingsoc is the difference between the half-litre and the pint. This is reinforced by the fact that there's almost no difference between the two. A half-litre is 0.9 Imperial pints, or 1.05 American pints.

* [[Neologism]]: Invented terms like "Big Brother," "Thought Police," and "doublethink" and popularized "[[Unperson]]." Just look at all the tropes this book has named...

** When Julia and Winston meet in the woods, they know that they're safe from listening devices because the trees are too small to hide a microphone. By the actual year 1984, microphones were sufficiently miniaturized that they could be hidden even in small trees.