“Nineteen Eighty Four” – Fictional World In English this semester we have
studied three different texts. All three texts were based on original, fictional
worlds. The fictional world which stood out above the rest and really amazed me
would have to be ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was the
most realistic out of the three. While reading the novel you really get into the
fictional world and think like the main character Winston Smith. Three aspects
of the text which made this world so interesting to study were The Inner Party,
Big Brother, and the Thought Police. Each of these interesting aspects in
Nineteen Eighty Four play a great part in the novel itself and the way the
fictional world works. The Inner Party played a huge role in creating the
fascinating world in ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’. The Inner Party was in charge
of Airstrip1 and wanted to be superior over everyone. They wanted the party to
be the people’s first loyalty over anything else. They didn’t allow marriage
or even sex for this was an act of loyalty between two people and not to the
party. An example of this is when Winston and Julia were caught having a sexual
relationship and were taken away by the Thought Police. They were then made to
betray eachother, love the Party, and to believe what ever the party said was
true. The Party had control over everything even peoples minds. This was proved
when O ‘ Brien held up four fingers and said to Winston “how many fingers am
I holding up?” Winston replied “Five”. Big Brother also played a big role
in creating the world which ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ was based in. Big Brother
is a figure, which the Party has created to frighten people and give them more
power. The Party can do anything they like and when someone questions them they
can just say there under orders from Big Brother. Big Brother is everywhere in
every house (except proles), every street, wall, and he is always shouting out
“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” the text which backs this up is when Winston
describes that ‘On each landing, opposite the lift shaft the poster with
enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures, which are so
conceived that the eyes follow you about when you move’. Big Brother is so
important to the world in the novel because the figure stops thought crime,
gives the people someone to look up to and someone to love, lets the Party tell
the people anything they want and the people will believe it, such as
propaganda. An example is when the party say ‘Oceania is at war with Eurasia,
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia’. The people automatically believe
this. Newspeak is the official language of Oceania. It is supposed to take over
common English in the year 2050. Newspeak is another important aspect in the
creation of Oceania because it prevents Thought Crime. The purpose of Newspeak
is to cancel out words such as ‘rebel’ so that people won’t know the word
and therefore if they feel like rebelling against the party they won’t know
how to express their feelings. The compiler of the Newspeak dictionary Syme says
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of newspeak is to narrow the range of
thoughts which in the end we shall make thought crime literally impossible”.
Newspeak will also cut out words that have no use such as excellent or superb
which are all different meanings of the word good, or double plus good instead
of having all different words meaning the same thing. Syme said to Winston
“were cutting the language down to the bone”. He then said, “the purpose
of the Newspeak Dictionary is to reduce the vocabulary so that even the concept
of rebellion fades away” The Inner Party, Big Brother, and Newspeak are
all-important aspects of the fictional world in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ each
one of these aspects play an important part in the development of the
fascinating world which the author George Orwell has created.