Nineteen Eighty-Four's vocabulary has become part and parcel of the English language. Though their meaning
may not be exactly the same as the sense in which George Orwell used them, some of the terms that are commonly referred to as '
Orwellian' include:
Newspeak: a language designed to make independent thinking impossible by removing all references to freedom, democracy and rebellion.
Big Brother: 'Big Brother is watching you' has become a pet phrase for those persons who resent the intrusion of the state into their (private) lives.
Thought Police: the secret police whose job is to discover - and punish - thought crimes (by means of psychology and surveillance). Their unstated aim is to find and eliminate those members of society capable of challenging ruling authority by the independence of their thoughts.
Thought crime: describes the
government’s attempts to control the very thoughts of its subjects. (Unapproved thoughts are called thought crimes… and have to be “corrected”!)
Doublethink: means holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, and believing both at the same time.
1984 – like
Animal Farm – is an anti utopian novel. The novel has become famous for its description of pervasive government control, and the state's increasing encroachment upon the rights of the individual. The classic novel has even been turned into a long – and somewhat depressing – movie; but the movie loses much of its magic along the way.
The party machinery is so sinister - and secretive - that the citizens do not even know if
Big Brother (the dictator of Oceania) is real or not, and dead or alive.
Goldstein (the public enemy number one) is believed by many to be a fictional personage created by the state solely for propaganda purposes. Party leaders (such as
Rutherford) who fall out of favor with the government are “erased” from history, removed both from public records and from public memory. Under such totalitarian conditions, it is preferable not to think too deeply – or know too much – if one is to survive. Other persons simply prefer to publicly praise the party’s doctrines, while leading their individual lives.
The main characters in the book are
Winston Smith (the common man),
Julia (his lover) and
O'Brien (a government agent) who interrogates them on charges of nonconformity and rebellion. Though he is an intellectual (thinking person) himself, O'Brien wishes to extract a written confession from them – and tortures them for it. Thus, he should rightly be regarded as the villain of the piece.