Depictions Of Utopia And Dystopia George Orwells 1984

BOOK REVIEW 1

Depictions of Utopia and Dystopia George Orwell’s 1984

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BOOK REVIEW 2

Depictions of Utopia and Dystopia George Orwell’s 1984

The concept of Utopia and dystopia is one of the most profound themes explored in

George Orwell’s 1984. In the book, Orwell portrays a society that has elements of both a

dystopian and a Utopian society. However, to the greatest extent, the society portrayed in the

novel is significantly dystopian primarily because the entire society is premised on a lie. To

illustrate, the entire ruling regime is totalitarian and is supported by a subversive system and

tyrannical rulers. To illustrate the level of lie on which the society and is totalitarian regime is

premised, the regime is administered by Big Brother who is identified as the party leader and

consequently the defacto leader of the society although he may actually not exist. Despite this,

his influence on the regime and the society is immense and unchecked because he manages to

brain wash the populace believe in his regime. In addition, he uses the thought police to

persecute those who commit ‘thought crimes;’ and exhibition of independent thinking and people

like O’Brien to conduct espionage with the view of cracking dissent. Such ideals and their

success thereof, are characteristic of a totalitarian dystopian society.

In addition to the leadership which has an unchecked authority, the governance systems

also exerts its authority on the people without a limitation on their powers. The systems powers

are also premised on lies and oppression. The role of governance systems in protecting the

totalitarianism is best understood from the roles of the novels main protagonist Winston Smith

work in the Ministry of truth where he works tirelessly to control information by distorting facts

from old newspapers to support the regime and banning those that were not altered. The other

ministries also assert the rulers will and whims on the population with the view of advancing the

ideals of the regime. For instance, the ministry of peace supports unending wars against Eurasia

and East Asia, the ministry of Plenty rations food and claims to be raising the populace standard

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of living while the ministry of love arrests and converts real and imaginary dissidents into loving

the Big Brother and the party.

However, it is worth noting that the dystopian society is juxtaposed along a utopian

community. To illustrate, although the dystopian society envisioned is not where near perfect,

the condition of the society before the regime where a different kind of horror existed. The ugly

past can be seen when Winston “He remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the

time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble

everywhere…above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat” (Dean & Orwell, 2008,

p.203).

Religious Utopia and Dystopia

In the book, Big Brother is loved by the populace, both willingly and forcibly, and

followed like a cult. In effect, his personality can be viewed as the only god allowed in the

society with views and ideals espoused by the party as the religion. Although, George Orwell

does not directly explore the idea of religion in depth at any point in the novel, the depictions of

values such as consciousness, spirit, devotion and dedication, all which the party seeks to control

evoke the sense of religion that is espoused in the novel. This viewpoint can be supported by the

declaration that “Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern

standards. Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its

citizens under constant surveillance” (Dean & Orwell, 2008, P. 259). This statement directly

shows how religion was stamped by the strong government which essentially replaced religious

ideologies with its doctrines.

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The society described by Orwell can also be viewed as a religious dystopia. In essence,

the depiction of the all seeing, and invincible Big Brother, the party that espouses the ideals of

Big Brother without question, and the ever present enemy who galvanizes the populace to follow

the regime can be viewed as a depiction of God, the church and Satan. This viewed along the

idea that O’Brien tortured and converted people who believed in God to turn their belief in Big

Brother and the Party can be seen as a representation of a dystopian religion which inculcates

belief through deception and force. The religious dystopia may have been a reaction to the role

of the church in government and society in the past. Explicit and implied depictions of religious

Utopia and Dystopia can also be identified in other Utopian and dystopian novels such as

Thomas More’s Utopia which critiqued the ideals of the European society at the time. In Utopia,

a religious Utopia is depicted by the presence of people with multiple belief systems but who

accepted and respected each other’s religious belief. However, More may have implied some

form of a dystopia by positioning intolerance against those with fundamentally different belief

systems as being outsiders (Klorer et al., 2010). The novel Robin Crusoe also paints a religious

Utopia through the depiction of Crusoe as parabolic character who suffer misfortunes for being

rebellious against his parents and by implication God until he atoned for his misdeeds (Defoe,

n.d). The story of Crusoe also closely resembles the bible stories of the prodigal son, Job and

Jonah.

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Bibliography

Dean, M., & Orwell, G. (2008). 1984. Harlow, Pearson Education.

Defoe, D. (N.d.). Robin Crusoe. 69 Gloucester Crescent, London, Collector's Library.

Klorer, J., Kohner, F., Wheeler, R., Tellini, P., Laurel, S., & Hardy, O. (2010). Utopia. [Zurich,

Switzerland], DIVA. AG.

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Depictions of Utopia and Dystopia George Orwells 1984

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