Socialist Utopia in Nineteen Eighty-Four
Eric Blair, known to his readers under the English pen name of George Orwell (1903-1950), was a man familiar with the roles of government. He served with the British government in Burma under the Indian Imperial Police. Returning to his European roots, Orwell also sided with the Spanish government as he fought with the Loyalists in their civil war. It wasn't until he wrote professionally as a political writer that Orwell's ideas of government were fully expressed. Orwell, in his political writings, was extremely contradictory. He was a critic of communism, yet he also considered himself a Socialist. He had hatred toward intellectuals, but he too was a political writer. It is only natural that a man of paradoxes would write of them. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell develops his Socialist Utopia as a paradoxical society that ultimately succeeds rather than flounders. The society that Orwell creates is full of paradoxes that existed all the way up to its origins. The founders of the new lifestyle, known as the revolutionaries of the mid-twentieth century, leads the public to believe false intentions of revolt, as these purposes soon become exact opposite outcomes. The original designers seek to create an
The Party of Oceania completely rejects the class structure that Socialism is founded on. Oceania is more a monarchy than that of a Socialist society, with Big Brother as its immortal and superhuman king; the Party is the nobility class and the proles, mere peasants. Additionally, Socialism is the politics of the proletarians, the working class of a society, differing immensely from the Oceanic structure as the proles are exactly those who are neglected and oppressed. All of the goals the founders sought to bestow upon their supposed, Socialist Utopia do not even imitate those actually outcomes. These intentions, therefore, play a major paradoxical role in this mixed up society. ideal social order out of England that is beneficial to all. Marin Kessler, a literary essayist, agrees that these "utopians...had hoped to construct a perfect society in which men and women could enjoy that ultimate degree of happiness which, it was implied denied through the folly and wickedness of their present rulers" (304). Besides being founded on the concept of a Utopia, the revolutionaries believe they could achieve their goals through Ingsoc, a variation on English socialism (named justly). The main concept of socialism is its stress on social equality, so much that the government distributes any possessions equally. In reality, this policy sought to destroy individual property, instead emphasizing collective property, owned by the government for the ultimate purpose of equality. Socialism is also often considered the politics of the working class and lower regime, since they actually benefited from it. Although the founders claim to create a socialist Utopia with its respective freedoms, the society of Oceania they create is exactly the opposite of their original principles. O'Brien, a major contributor to the government organization known as the Party, describes the contradictory characteristics of the world power of Oceania, "Do you begin to see then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined...The old civilizations claimed they were founded upon love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred" (Nineteen Eighty-Four 220). Oceania is anything but socialist; it is rather a totalitarian empire. The Party is all-power
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Approximate Word count = 1559
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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