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George Orwell was one of the most celebrated novelist and thinker in Britain in 20th century. 1984 is one of his most renowned political satire novel which describes a totalitarian world. Though the novel was criticised to indirectly attack socialism in Britain. George Orwell himself claimed to be a supporter of socialism and Labor Party in Britain. This paper finds out that George Orwell was not a true socialist by analyzing his personal life experience and the main plots of the novel.
George Orwell was born in Indian in the early 20th century when India was a colony of Britain. His father was an official of the local government, but the family was not wealthy. He grew up in a place full of the conflicts between the colonists and the common Indian people, and because of his hard childhood life, British as he was, he showed great sympathy towards the common Indian people suppressed by British colonists. In the 1920s, he graduated from Eton College. Later in his life, he went to Myanmar as a policeman, during that time he witnessed the outrageous treatment the people got from the colonists. After he went back to Britain, he used to do the most inferior work like dishwasher or docker due to the hard life. All of these experiences made George Orwell hate the authority and the social injustice. Based on that, he chose to be a supporter of the socialism and later participated in the civil war in Spain and joined Republican Army. After World War II, a socialist state was founded in USSR by the leading of Stalin, but the hope in the heart of George Orwell soon disappeared when a totalitarian governing system was set up. In this background, he wrote the 1984, aiming to attack it. He died of lung disease at the age of 46.
The book 1984 is about a story of a totalitarian country-Oceania. The hero Winston Smith is a staff in the Ministry of Truth, whose job is to modify the history which is unfavorable to the governing. But as time goes on, he gradually starts to distrust the society and the leader of the country- “Big Brother”. And he can’t help falling in love with a girl named Julia which is illegal in the country. Knowing the rebellious nature of Winston Smith, O’brien, a member of the “Inner Party”, sets a trap and arrests Winston Smith. After being tortured in the Ministry of Love, Winston Smith finally surrenders to the Big Brother. After the publish of the novel which was deemed to criticize the socialism and Labor Party in Britain, George Orwell denied and said that he was a supporter of them, his novel was intended to show that the over centralized economic system will lead a country to the wrong way. He even used to claim himself a socialist.[ 曹丹丹：《乔治·奥威尔——充满矛盾的社会主义者》，载《徐州工程学院学报》，2007年第7期。]
But actually if we analyze his personal experience and his works, we can find out that he was not a real socialist. According to Marx’s socialism theory, the core of socialism is that the capitalist system harbors the nature of exploiting workers so with the development of the society, the capitalism is doomed to disappear and only the emancipation of the productive forces can improve the whole society. But from the life experience of George Orwell, his support to the workers and other walks of life with low social status was just because of his sympathy towards them and his hate to the authority. So it was his instinctive sense of justice that backed up his inclination to socialism rather than his faith and belief in the socialism theory and the social system. At the same time, we cannot neglect the fact that he was born in a family of an official, though not wealthy, he still belonged to the bourgeoisie, and he received the education in Eton College where students were mostly from wealthy family, therefore he had an inborn inclination to the capitalism. In terms of his works, we can find out his uncertainty between capitalism and socialism in 1984.
On one hand, he showed his compromise to the capitalism without intention but naturally. Firstly, he chose the governing of Stalin in USSR as the target of his criticism to totalitarianism rather than Fascism in Germany, Italy or Japan. The former one was based on socialist country while the latter ones were based on Capitalist countries. At that time, due to the immature of the socialism theory and practice, USSR was the most representative socialist state because no other socialist states could surpass it no matter in economy or in politics, therefore, very naturally, the world would regard the social system of URRS as the real socialism. In this case, George Orwell used the sharpest way to satirize the URRS which made people become more skeptical of the socialism. However, it was universally acknowledged that Fascism brought the whole world disaster and made the negative effect far more serious than Stalin’s totalitarianism. But because Fascism was rooted from capitalism which George Orwell did not have the courage to negate. In fact, due to the second technology revolution, the capital accumulation had gone into the most explosive phase and in this background emerged totalitarianism, so the case of totalitarianism could not be rare. But George Orwell still chose to target the very limited socialist states rather than the more common Capitalist countries which was an evidence to prove his compromise to Capitalism.
Secondly ,in 1984, he naturally expressed the preference for life in a Capitalism society before the transformation of the social system. In 1984, he used many examples to prove the disastrous of a totalitarian like the telescreens which deprive people of all the privacy and the various brutal treatment people will receive if they are put into the Ministry of Love. So without the obvious comparison with the normal world, the readers have already been frightened by the horrible political control of the Big Brother. However, George Orwell still used a lot of space describing how Winston Smith miss the old days by picturing his dreams of his family over and over again and the beautiful “Golden Country” that “recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world”.[ Chapter One in 1984.
] In the novel, Winston Smiths always dreams about the old days and in his dream he can avoid all the dark things in life. In the reality, George Orwell feared the revolution and even he was unsatisfied with the society, he did not have the courage to fight for it and accept the new things. So his conservative nature in politics can be concluded and rather than the socialist state and the dark side this new social system may bring to people, he might prefer the society before the socialist revolution.
On the other hand, readers cannot find out his faith in the future of the socialism. Firstly, in 1984, no proletarian has the power to lead people to a new world. Though he showed the sympathy towards proletarian, he never respected their productivity and even looked down upon them because they were not clean [ 张梦蕸：《论乔治·奥威尔作品中的无产者形象》，南京大学，研究生毕业论文，2013年。]and did not receive education. Just like what O’brien says in the novel: they ”will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million”, because” they are helpless, like the animals.”[ Chapter Three in 1984.]In his mind, neither did the proletarians have the strength to bring about change, nor did they have the ambition. In the novel, when Winston Smiths hears some burst cry, he is very excited because he thinks the rebellion is going to happen. However, the truth turns out to be that a crowd of woman are complaining about the tin saucepan.[Chapter One in 1984.] Near the place where Winston Smiths secretly meets Julia, he sees a “monstrous woman” who “was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line, pegging out a series of square white things which Winston recognized as babies’ diapers”[ Chapter Two in 1984.]. In Winston Smiths’s eyes, those lovely proletarians only fix their life on the trivial things Therefore, in George Orwell’s mind, they were too silly and plain to change the society for the better.
Secondly, the whole novel is full of pessimistic mood which fundamentally proves that George Orwell did not show any confidence in the socialism. In the end of the novel, after the brutal torture in the Ministry of Love, Winston Smiths finally “had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”[ Chapter Three in 1984.]In this way, he showed to readers that, wicked as it was, the totalitarian would eventually make people surrender. Since 1984 was his last novel, it was also the time of the end of his life when he was suffering from lung disease. So in the novel, he not only showed the pessimistic attitude of the socialism, he even expressed the despair in human being that the world would inevitably go into a stage of totalitarian.
As one the greatest novelists in the history of Britain, George Orwell let the world rethink about the totalitarianism in 20th century and modern time. Though he claimed himself a socialist and was greatly sympathetic for the people due to his personal life experience, he still had the class limitation which prevented himself from being a real supporter of the socialism. In 1984, he not only showed his compromise and preference for capitalism, he also expressed his despise and prejudice to the proletarians. In the novel, he did not show hope of socialism even the human being. It is obvious that he did not fully understand what is socialism. Life of George Orwell can be described as a tragedy, for on one hand, he told the world that he supported the socialism, on the other hand, the leaders of URRS exert a persecution to him because his novel directly attack their governing. Throughout his life, he was hovering between the two sides, until the end of his life , he still did not firm his stand.
Bibliography
“George Orwell.” Wikipedia. 12 Oct. 2013
汪霖：《试析乔治·奥威尔的“社会主义者”身份》，载《江苏教育学院学报（社会科学）》，2012年第5期。
高见：《资产阶级的迷惘——评乔治·奥威尔和他的<动物农场>》，载《外国文学研究》，2008年第3期。
瞿世镜：《当代英国小说》。北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1998。
侯维瑞，李维萍：《英国小说史》（下）。南京：译林出版社，2005。
赵宗康：《马克思政治经济学和西方经济学的个性和共性探讨》，载《现代商贸工业》，2009年第1期。
苏绘泉：《<动物庄园>和<1984>中极权统治方式分析》，载《绥化学院学报》，2008年第2期。
朱坤领：《奥威尔的反面乌托邦及其对现实政治的关注——浅评奥威尔的代表作<1984>》，载《中山大学学报论丛》，2000年第6期。
刘嘉逸：《浅析乔治·奥威尔<1984>中象征手法的运用》，载《长春教育学院学报》，2013年第3期。
张中载：《十年后再读<1984>——评乔治·奥威尔的<1984>》，载《外国文学》，1996。
George Orwell was born in Indian in the early 20th century when India was a colony of Britain. His father was an official of the local government, but the family was not wealthy. He grew up in a place full of the conflicts between the colonists and the common Indian people, and because of his hard childhood life, British as he was, he showed great sympathy towards the common Indian people suppressed by British colonists. In the 1920s, he graduated from Eton College. Later in his life, he went to Myanmar as a policeman, during that time he witnessed the outrageous treatment the people got from the colonists. After he went back to Britain, he used to do the most inferior work like dishwasher or docker due to the hard life. All of these experiences made George Orwell hate the authority and the social injustice. Based on that, he chose to be a supporter of the socialism and later participated in the civil war in Spain and joined Republican Army. After World War II, a socialist state was founded in USSR by the leading of Stalin, but the hope in the heart of George Orwell soon disappeared when a totalitarian governing system was set up. In this background, he wrote the 1984, aiming to attack it. He died of lung disease at the age of 46.
The book 1984 is about a story of a totalitarian country-Oceania. The hero Winston Smith is a staff in the Ministry of Truth, whose job is to modify the history which is unfavorable to the governing. But as time goes on, he gradually starts to distrust the society and the leader of the country- “Big Brother”. And he can’t help falling in love with a girl named Julia which is illegal in the country. Knowing the rebellious nature of Winston Smith, O’brien, a member of the “Inner Party”, sets a trap and arrests Winston Smith. After being tortured in the Ministry of Love, Winston Smith finally surrenders to the Big Brother. After the publish of the novel which was deemed to criticize the socialism and Labor Party in Britain, George Orwell denied and said that he was a supporter of them, his novel was intended to show that the over centralized economic system will lead a country to the wrong way. He even used to claim himself a socialist.[ 曹丹丹：《乔治·奥威尔——充满矛盾的社会主义者》，载《徐州工程学院学报》，2007年第7期。]
But actually if we analyze his personal experience and his works, we can find out that he was not a real socialist. According to Marx’s socialism theory, the core of socialism is that the capitalist system harbors the nature of exploiting workers so with the development of the society, the capitalism is doomed to disappear and only the emancipation of the productive forces can improve the whole society. But from the life experience of George Orwell, his support to the workers and other walks of life with low social status was just because of his sympathy towards them and his hate to the authority. So it was his instinctive sense of justice that backed up his inclination to socialism rather than his faith and belief in the socialism theory and the social system. At the same time, we cannot neglect the fact that he was born in a family of an official, though not wealthy, he still belonged to the bourgeoisie, and he received the education in Eton College where students were mostly from wealthy family, therefore he had an inborn inclination to the capitalism. In terms of his works, we can find out his uncertainty between capitalism and socialism in 1984.
On one hand, he showed his compromise to the capitalism without intention but naturally. Firstly, he chose the governing of Stalin in USSR as the target of his criticism to totalitarianism rather than Fascism in Germany, Italy or Japan. The former one was based on socialist country while the latter ones were based on Capitalist countries. At that time, due to the immature of the socialism theory and practice, USSR was the most representative socialist state because no other socialist states could surpass it no matter in economy or in politics, therefore, very naturally, the world would regard the social system of URRS as the real socialism. In this case, George Orwell used the sharpest way to satirize the URRS which made people become more skeptical of the socialism. However, it was universally acknowledged that Fascism brought the whole world disaster and made the negative effect far more serious than Stalin’s totalitarianism. But because Fascism was rooted from capitalism which George Orwell did not have the courage to negate. In fact, due to the second technology revolution, the capital accumulation had gone into the most explosive phase and in this background emerged totalitarianism, so the case of totalitarianism could not be rare. But George Orwell still chose to target the very limited socialist states rather than the more common Capitalist countries which was an evidence to prove his compromise to Capitalism.
Secondly ,in 1984, he naturally expressed the preference for life in a Capitalism society before the transformation of the social system. In 1984, he used many examples to prove the disastrous of a totalitarian like the telescreens which deprive people of all the privacy and the various brutal treatment people will receive if they are put into the Ministry of Love. So without the obvious comparison with the normal world, the readers have already been frightened by the horrible political control of the Big Brother. However, George Orwell still used a lot of space describing how Winston Smith miss the old days by picturing his dreams of his family over and over again and the beautiful “Golden Country” that “recurred so often in his dreams that he was never fully certain whether or not he had seen it in the real world”.[ Chapter One in 1984.
] In the novel, Winston Smiths always dreams about the old days and in his dream he can avoid all the dark things in life. In the reality, George Orwell feared the revolution and even he was unsatisfied with the society, he did not have the courage to fight for it and accept the new things. So his conservative nature in politics can be concluded and rather than the socialist state and the dark side this new social system may bring to people, he might prefer the society before the socialist revolution.
On the other hand, readers cannot find out his faith in the future of the socialism. Firstly, in 1984, no proletarian has the power to lead people to a new world. Though he showed the sympathy towards proletarian, he never respected their productivity and even looked down upon them because they were not clean [ 张梦蕸：《论乔治·奥威尔作品中的无产者形象》，南京大学，研究生毕业论文，2013年。]and did not receive education. Just like what O’brien says in the novel: they ”will never revolt, not in a thousand years or a million”, because” they are helpless, like the animals.”[ Chapter Three in 1984.]In his mind, neither did the proletarians have the strength to bring about change, nor did they have the ambition. In the novel, when Winston Smiths hears some burst cry, he is very excited because he thinks the rebellion is going to happen. However, the truth turns out to be that a crowd of woman are complaining about the tin saucepan.[Chapter One in 1984.] Near the place where Winston Smiths secretly meets Julia, he sees a “monstrous woman” who “was stumping to and fro between a washtub and a clothes line, pegging out a series of square white things which Winston recognized as babies’ diapers”[ Chapter Two in 1984.]. In Winston Smiths’s eyes, those lovely proletarians only fix their life on the trivial things Therefore, in George Orwell’s mind, they were too silly and plain to change the society for the better.
Secondly, the whole novel is full of pessimistic mood which fundamentally proves that George Orwell did not show any confidence in the socialism. In the end of the novel, after the brutal torture in the Ministry of Love, Winston Smiths finally “had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”[ Chapter Three in 1984.]In this way, he showed to readers that, wicked as it was, the totalitarian would eventually make people surrender. Since 1984 was his last novel, it was also the time of the end of his life when he was suffering from lung disease. So in the novel, he not only showed the pessimistic attitude of the socialism, he even expressed the despair in human being that the world would inevitably go into a stage of totalitarian.
As one the greatest novelists in the history of Britain, George Orwell let the world rethink about the totalitarianism in 20th century and modern time. Though he claimed himself a socialist and was greatly sympathetic for the people due to his personal life experience, he still had the class limitation which prevented himself from being a real supporter of the socialism. In 1984, he not only showed his compromise and preference for capitalism, he also expressed his despise and prejudice to the proletarians. In the novel, he did not show hope of socialism even the human being. It is obvious that he did not fully understand what is socialism. Life of George Orwell can be described as a tragedy, for on one hand, he told the world that he supported the socialism, on the other hand, the leaders of URRS exert a persecution to him because his novel directly attack their governing. Throughout his life, he was hovering between the two sides, until the end of his life , he still did not firm his stand.
Bibliography
“George Orwell.” Wikipedia. 12 Oct. 2013
汪霖：《试析乔治·奥威尔的“社会主义者”身份》，载《江苏教育学院学报（社会科学）》，2012年第5期。
高见：《资产阶级的迷惘——评乔治·奥威尔和他的<动物农场>》，载《外国文学研究》，2008年第3期。
瞿世镜：《当代英国小说》。北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1998。
侯维瑞，李维萍：《英国小说史》（下）。南京：译林出版社，2005。
赵宗康：《马克思政治经济学和西方经济学的个性和共性探讨》，载《现代商贸工业》，2009年第1期。
苏绘泉：《<动物庄园>和<1984>中极权统治方式分析》，载《绥化学院学报》，2008年第2期。
朱坤领：《奥威尔的反面乌托邦及其对现实政治的关注——浅评奥威尔的代表作<1984>》，载《中山大学学报论丛》，2000年第6期。
刘嘉逸：《浅析乔治·奥威尔<1984>中象征手法的运用》，载《长春教育学院学报》，2013年第3期。
张中载：《十年后再读<1984>——评乔治·奥威尔的<1984>》，载《外国文学》，1996。