1984

Orwell’s society displays a threatening projection of a totalitarian system into the future. Indeed it is a regime very similar to the tyrannies of the 20th century and strongly echoes Stalin Russia or Nazi Germany. The dominant mood inside this repressive system is one of threat and suppression due to the systematic persecution and oppression of non-conformists. As Goldstein explains in his ‘Oligarchical Collectivism’ there have always been three classes: the high, the middle …

…of world-conquest which ‘is believed in most firmly by those’ Inner Party members ‘who know it to be impossible’ (1984 p.225). As a general rule the greater the understanding the greater the del! usion: the more intelligent, the less sane. Hence the somehow paradoxical conclusion that ‘the prevailing mental condition’ in Oceania ‘must be one of controlled insanity’ (1984 p.225). Eventually it is ‘the denial of reality which is the special feature of Ingsoc’ (1984 p.205). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**