GEORGE ORWELL’S NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR: HOW A UTOPIA TURNED OUT TO BE A DYSTOPIA

Abstract

As a literary period, modernism indicated the birth of the new ideas and approaches to art. This period from a political aspect also marked the beginning of the expansion of socialism; for this reason, the literature portrayed the division between the ideas of right- and left-winged intellectuals and how they visualised their ultimate utopias which were based on the political ideas they supported. In time, because of the idealistic approaches of the writers to the issues around them, their realities became a subjective reflection of their political beliefs since their works were highly influenced by them and eventually they started to produce the propaganda of their political views in their literary works. With Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell aims to portray his fears about the future by creating a society in which the external reality is controlled by the authority. In the novel, Orwell reflects the fragmented mind of the modern people through the conflict between his protagonist Winston, who wants to protect the last traces of his humanity, and the Party members that aim to reduce humanity into hollow beings by producing their version of the actuality. As a modernist writer, within the novel, Orwell both experiments with new forms and subject matters with the way he illustrates the psychological effects of constant warfare and criticises the people who have the power in his society for focusing on the control they have over the majority instead of encouraging enlightenment for he believed that their utopia originated a dystopia.