newspeak 1984 essay

Newspeak is the fictional language Orwell invented for his novel 1984. It is used to control what people are capable of thinking.

• Newspeak, developed by the Party in " 1984 ", is designed to limit thought and prevent rebellion by reducing the complexity of language.
• Through Newspeak, Orwell explores the power of language to shape thought and control society, illustrating a method of totalitarian control.
• The novel showcases Newspeak's role in erasing historical truths and manipulating public perception, emphasizing the language's importance in maintaining the Party's dominance.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

The purpose of the language is to reduce “unnecessary” words and those that might lead the citizens of Oceania into thought patterns the Party wants to avoid. They believe if they can rid the English language of troubling words, then there will be no way that anyone can conceive of the concepts without them. 

It is a language that is still under construction as the novel’s plot is playing out. There are various iterations of the Newspeak dictionary, and one of Winston Smith ’s associates, Syme , is working on the text. The language reduces words to syllables and combines them together to create new, unusual words. 

When constructing this language, Orwell was influenced by real-life examples in Germany and Russia. The term “Nazi” is a reduction of “nationalsozialist” and “Gestapo” is a reduction of “Geheime Staatspolizei.” These syllabic abbreviations come from a human willingness to make complicated things easier. Today, the term “Newspeak” is applied in contemporary life when someone tries to introduce a new word into the vocabulary, particularly when politicians do so. 

George Orwell wrote a great deal about language, including his essay “Politics and the English Language,” published in 1946. He also included an appendix at the back of 1984 that deals with the concepts of Newspeak. 

When writing about Newspeak, Orwell defined it in the appendix as: 

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc , or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. 

The development of the language, he continues on to say, was to make “all other modes of thought impossible.” 

Explore Newspeak

• 1 Newspeak Definition
• 2 List of Newspeak Words 
• 3 Examples of Newspeak in 1984 
• 4 Related Terms in 1984 

Newspeak Definition

Newspeak is a controlled, simplified version of English. It removes “subversive” concepts from the language that the Party wants its citizens to avoid.

These include expressions of personal identity, free will, or anything resembling a rebellion. It focuses on the ideology of INGSOC and the belief that the Party is all-knowing. 

Through the use of Newspeak, the Party is attempting to control what one is capable of thinking. It is one of the three tenants of INGSOC. The other two are doublethink and the mutability (or changeability) of the past. 

Orwell writes about Newspeak several times, stating that the language had a very specific purpose that complimented the use of doublethink. 

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. 

The Party sought to eliminate undesirable words and strip those words of “all secondary meanings whatever.” Orwell cites “free” as a good example. The word exists in Oceania but only in the context of something being “free” of trouble. For example, “The dog is free from lice.” There is no secondary meaning, such as “intellectually free.” 

List of Newspeak Words 

Below are a few of the many Newspeak words Orwell invented.

• Doubleplusgood

Doublethink

He wrote that Newspeak was designed to: 

not to extend but to DIMINISH the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

The alphabet was divided into different vocabularies, such as the “A” vocabulary that included words needed for “the business of everyday life.” This included words for eating, working, drinking, and riding in vehicles. These were words like “run” and “tree.” 

Words, Orwell noted, were also interchangeable. For example, adjectives were created by adding “ful” to the end of terms. For example, “speedful” means fast or rapid. 

Examples of Newspeak in 1984 

The ministry names .

The four ministries: The Ministry of Peace , The Ministry of Plenty , The Ministry of Truth , and The Ministry of Love, are introduced at the beginning of the novel. Their Newspeak abbreviations are some of the first Newspeak words that the reader is exposed to. They are Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty, as described by the narrator. 

Doublethink is one of the most essential Newspeak words in 1984. It refers to a type of cognitive dissonance where one is capable of bailing two things at once. These two things should, if one’s reasoning is clear, cancel one another out. 

The party slogans are one of the clearest examples of doublethink. It purports that one thing is another, even though those reading/hearing the slogan know it means something else entirely. For example: 

WAR IS PEACE  FREEDOM IS SLAVERY  IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Winston’s Work Messages 

When Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, he’s responsible for revising old documents to make them fit the Party narrative. He receives simplified messages that instruct him on his task. Orwell writes: 

Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon—not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words—which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran: 

times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify  times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue  times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify  times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

Related Terms in 1984  

• INGSOC : newspeak for English Socialism, the governing system used throughout Oceania. 
• Doublethink : cognitive dissonance. Or the act of thinking two contradictory things at once. Or believing that the two things are true. 
• Ministry of Love : responsible for brainwashing the citizens of Oceania. 
• Ministry of Truth : the ministry responsible for changing history to suit the Party. 
• Thought Police : the group responsible for arresting those charged with thoughtcrime . 
• Room 101 : a room to which Winston Smith, and others, are taken when they are within the Ministry of Love. It contains everyone’s worst fears. For Smith, this is rats. 

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

Discover literature, enjoy exclusive perks, and connect with others just like yourself!

Start the Conversation. Join the Chat.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

by George Orwell

1984 newspeak.

The book's Appendix provides a detailed discussion of Newspeak, the official language of Oceania. Interestingly, the Appendix is written in the past tense, as though a historian is examining a past culture. Some argue that this tool suggests that the Party eventually falls.

The Appendix details the underlying principles of Newspeak. Essentially, the language was designed to limit the range of thought. The word classes are detailed as follows:

The A vocabulary consisted of everyday words used in the expression of simple thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.

The B vocabulary consisted of words created to hold political connotations and impose a politically desirable state of mind upon the user. Such words include compound words, like "Ingsoc" or "doublethink." Many meant the opposite of what they really were, in keeping with the concept of doublethink.

The C vocabulary consisted of scientific and technical terms, which behooved no one but scientists and technicians to use.

The grammar of Newspeak had two notable characteristics. First, there was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. A noun and a verb were basically the same, and formed the root for all other forms of the word. Adjectives were formed by tacking "-ful" onto the end of the word, i.e. "goodthinkful"; adverbs, by adding the suffix "-wise." Any word could be negated by the prefix "un-," and other prefixes like "plus-" and "doubleplus-" could strengthen the word, i.e "pluscold" and "doublepluscold." Second, the grammar was exceedingly regular, with very few exceptions. All past tenses were formed using "-ed," all plurals with "-s" or "-es," and comparatives with "-er" and "-est."

Euphony was privileged above everything except precision of meaning, because the end goal was to produce words that could be spoken so quickly that they would not have the time to prompt thought. In other words, people would be able to speak without thinking at all. The meanings of Newspeak words were carefully controlled so that in many cases most connotations were destroyed. For instance, the word "free" still existed, but only in the sense of something being "free from" something else, e.g. "This field is free from weeds." It could not be used with reference to political freedom, as this meaning had been drilled out of the word.

Newspeak therefore also precluded the ability to argue heretical opinions. Although it would have been possible to say " Big Brother is ungood," the words necessary to defend or argue this assertion did not exist. Through this process, Oldspeak (standard English) would become obsolete and impossible to understand or translate, since the meanings of its words would be impossible to express in Newspeak. As Winston's friend Syme states, in explaining how Newspeak will support the Party's goals, "Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

Some Newspeak words highlighted in the text include:

Ingsoc - English Socialism

Doublethink - The ability to simultaneously think two opposing thoughts.

Thoughtcrime - Anti-Party thoughts

Facecrime - Occurs when the face reveals the existence of thoughtcrime (either lacking in anti-Party vigor, or expressing distaste for Party actions).

Goodthinkful - Describes a person who thinks just as the Party wishes. Winston describes Katharine this way.

Speakwrite - A machine that transposes spoken word into written word.

Unperson - Someone the Party has vaporized; someone that no longer exists.

Doubleplusungood - Extremely bad.

1984 Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for 1984 is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe O’Briens apartment and lifestyle. How do they differ from Winston’s?

From the text:

It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and...

What was the result of Washington exam

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are asking here.

how is one put into the inner or outer party in the book 1984

The Outer Party is a huge government bureaucracy. They hold positions of trust but are largely responsible for keeping the totalitarian structure of Big Brother functional. The Outer Party numbers around 18 to 19 percent of the population and the...

Study Guide for 1984

1984 study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• 1984 Summary
• Character List

Essays for 1984

1984 essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of 1984 by George Orwell.

• The Reflection of George Orwell
• Totalitarian Collectivism in 1984, or, Big Brother Loves You
• Sex as Rebellion
• Class Ties: The Dealings of Human Nature Depicted through Social Classes in 1984
• 1984: The Ultimate Parody of the Utopian World

Lesson Plan for 1984

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to 1984
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• 1984 Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for 1984

• Introduction
• Writing and publication

The best free cultural &

educational media on the web

• Online Courses
• Certificates
• Degrees & Mini-Degrees
• Audio Books

1984 ">George Orwell Explains How “Newspeak” Works, the Official Language of His Totalitarian Dystopia in 1984

in Literature | January 25th, 2017 18 Comments

As we not­ed yes­ter­day , and you like­ly noticed else­where, George Orwell’s clas­sic dystopi­an nov­el 1984 shot to the top of the charts—or the Ama­zon best­seller list—in the wake of “alter­na­tive facts,” the lat­est Orwellian coinage for bald-faced lying . The ridicu­lous phrase imme­di­ate­ly pro­duced a bar­rage of par­o­dies, hash­tags, and memes; healthy ways of vent­ing rage and dis­be­lief. But maybe there is a dan­ger there too, let­ting such words sink into the dis­course, lest they become what Orwell called “Newspeak.”

It’s easy to hear “Newspeak,” the “offi­cial lan­guage of Ocea­nia,” as “ news speak.” This is per­fect­ly rea­son­able, but it gives us the impres­sion that it relates strict­ly to its appear­ance in mass media. Orwell obvi­ous­ly intend­ed the ambiguity—it is the lan­guage of offi­cial pro­pa­gan­da after all—but the port­man­teau actu­al­ly comes from the words “new speak”—and it has been cre­at­ed to super­sede “Old­speak,” Orwell writes, “or Stan­dard Eng­lish, as we should call it.”

In oth­er words, Newspeak isn’t just a set of buzz­words, but the delib­er­ate replace­ment of one set of words in the lan­guage for anoth­er. The tran­si­tion is still in progress in the fic­tion­al 1984, but is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed “by about the year 2050.” Stu­dents of his­to­ry and lin­guis­tics will rec­og­nize that this is a ludi­crous­ly accel­er­at­ed pace for the com­plete replace­ment of one vocab­u­lary and syn­tax by anoth­er. (We might call Orwell’s Eng­lish Social­ists “ accel­er­a­tionsts .”) Newspeak appears not through his­to­ry or social change but through the will of the Par­ty.

The pur­pose of Newspeak was not only to pro­vide a medi­um of expres­sion for the world-view and men­tal habits prop­er to the devo­tees of Ing­soc, but to make all oth­er modes of thought impos­si­ble.

It’s entire­ly plau­si­ble that “alter­na­tive facts,” or “ alt­facts ,” would fit right into the “Ninth and Tenth Edi­tions of the Newspeak Dic­tio­nary,” though it might eas­i­ly fall out of favor and “be sup­pressed lat­er.” No telling if it would make the cut for “the final, per­fect­ed ver­sion” of Newspeak, “as embod­ied in the Eleventh Edi­tion of the Dic­tio­nary.”

These quo­ta­tions come not from the main text of 1984 but from an appen­dix called “ The Prin­ci­ples of Newspeak ,” which you can hear read at the top of the post. Here, Orwell dis­pas­sion­ate­ly dis­cuss­es the “per­fect­ed” form of Newspeak, includ­ing its gram­mat­i­cal “pecu­liar­i­ties,” such as “an almost com­plete inter­change­abil­i­ty between dif­fer­ent parts of speech” (an issue cur­rent trans­la­tors have encoun­tered ). He then intro­duces its vocab­u­lary, divid­ed into “three dis­tinct class­es,” A, B, and C.

The A class con­tains “every­day life” words that have been mutat­ed with cum­ber­some pre­fix­es and inten­si­fiers: “ uncold ” for warm, “ plus­cold and dou­ble­plus­cold ” for “very cold” and “superla­tive­ly cold.” The B class con­tains the com­pound words: sin­is­ter dou­ble­think coinages like “ joy­camp (forced-labor camp)” and “ Mini­pax (Min­istry of Peace, i.e. Min­istry of War).” These, Orwell explains, are sim­i­lar to “the char­ac­ter­is­tic fea­tures of polit­i­cal lan­guage… in total­i­tar­i­an coun­tries” of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry.

The cit­i­zen of Ocea­nia, Orwell tells us, must have “an out­look sim­i­lar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, with­out know­ing much else, that all nations oth­er than his own wor­shipped ‘false gods’.… His sex­u­al life, for exam­ple, was entire­ly reg­u­lat­ed by the two Newspeak words sex­crime (sex­u­al immoral­i­ty) and good­sex (chasti­ty).” The lat­ter includ­ed only “inter­course between man and wife, for the sole pur­pose of beget­ting chil­dren, and with­out phys­i­cal plea­sure on the part of he woman: all else was  sex­crime. ”

The C class of words may be the most insid­i­ous of all. While it “con­sist­ed entire­ly of sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal terms” that “resem­bled the sci­en­tif­ic terms in use today,” the Par­ty took care “to define them rigid­ly and strip them of unde­sir­able mean­ings.” For exam­ple,

There was no vocab­u­lary express­ing the func­tion of Sci­ence as a habit of mind, or a method of thought irre­spec­tive of its par­tic­u­lar branch­es. There was, indeed, no word for ‘Sci­ence,’ any mean­ing that it could pos­si­bly bear being already suf­fi­cient­ly cov­ered by the word Ing­soc.

Orwell then goes on to dis­cuss the dif­fi­cul­ty of trans­lat­ing the work of the past into Newspeak. He uses as an exam­ple the Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence:  “ All mans are equal was a pos­si­ble Newspeak sen­tence,” but only in that “it expressed a pal­pa­ble untruth—i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or strength.” As for the rest of Thomas Jefferson’s rous­ing pre­am­ble, “it would have been quite impos­si­ble to ren­der this into Newspeak,” writes Orwell. “The near­est one could come to doing so would be to swal­low the whole pas­sage up in the sin­gle word crime­think .”

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

George Orwell’s 1984 Is Now the #1 Best­selling Book on Ama­zon

Han­nah Arendt Explains How Pro­pa­gan­da Uses Lies to Erode All Truth & Moral­i­ty: Insights from The Ori­gins of Total­i­tar­i­an­ism

Hux­ley to Orwell: My Hell­ish Vision of the Future is Bet­ter Than Yours (1949)

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (18) |

Related posts:

Comments (18), 18 comments so far.

i have been feel­ing this cloud for a few months about 1984 it was a school where we read it to this day i fear it

He’d be amused by the ‘fake news’ com­ing from BOTH sides of today’s cul­ture-wars…

“Polit­i­cal lan­guage… is designed to make lies sound truth­ful and mur­der respectable, and to give an appear­ance of solid­i­ty to pure wind.” George Orwell

SocJus has been doing this for years.

Hux­ley remark inter­est­ing- but I see both not either/or.

Help I am stuck in a Chi­nese for­tune cook­ie fac­to­ry

Inter­est­ing as 1984 Newspeak is, of course, a lan­guage, for exam­ple Eng­lish, is not a per­ma­nent unchang­ing thing. We can only just com­pre­hend Anglo-Sax­on or Medieval Eng­lish and Shake­speare is hard to inter­pret at times. Lan­guage is a tool of cul­ture and cul­ture is nev­er sta­t­ic. Words are being added and changed in mean­ing all the time. So I doubt any rul­ing class can con­trol its words and mean­ings though it may con­trol what it allows in media, eg gay is no longer the gay, mean­ing hap­py and care­free that I grew up with.

Yeah this is the one fact that I kept bump­ing back into as I tried to swal­low the con­cept. But in Ocea­nia it seems more fea­si­ble if you account for gen­er­a­tions of con­sis­tent con­trol of ALL media as well as a very effi­cient thinkpol.

How­ev­er… It would­n’t be long before the pro­les came up with their own street dialects of Newspeak that express their unortho­dox feel­ings most effi­cient­ly, and would even­tu­al­ly threat­en to ‘infect’ the lin­guis­tics of the Out­er par­ty much as the street slang of Amer­i­ca’s urban under­class­es has today deeply seeped through to the lan­guage of us, the blog­ging-yup­pie class (Amer­i­ca’s ‘Out­er Par­ty’).

You feel me John Raven?

The term “alter­na­tive facts” is a legal term that attor­neys use in ref­er­ence to argu­ing a posi­tion and Con­way is an attor­ney. The author of this piece knows, or should have known, this. This is an exam­ple of pur­pose­ful mis­un­der­stand­ing of a term in order to vil­i­fy some­one with whom you have an ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ence of opin­ion. Iron­i­cal­ly, your asser­tion that “alter­na­tive facts” being Orwellian is actu­al­ly more Orwellian than the term itself.

“It’s entire­ly plau­si­ble that ‘alter­na­tive facts,’ or ‘alt­facts,’ would fit right into the ‘Ninth and Tenth Edi­tions of the Newspeak Dic­tio­nary,’ though it might eas­i­ly fall out of favor and ‘be sup­pressed lat­er.’ ”

Not only might it be sup­pressed lat­er, this would be essen­tial. The word’s very exis­tence in the lan­guage would acknowl­edge that there were by con­trast “real facts” out there.

Lat­inx, cis­gen­der, white fragili­ty, homo­pho­bia, safe space, vio­lent speech, undoc­u­ment­ed Amer­i­cans…

This arti­cle basi­cal­ly says that the “Newspeak” (word from Orwell’s nov­el) of the BLM riot­ers is impos­si­ble to use ratio­nal­ly. Newspeak = new speak, not news speak. It is a total­ly new lan­guage. This lan­guage is based on irra­tional whims (emo­tions), and you are auto­mat­i­cal­ly sup­posed to know what these words mean (you are sup­posed to be a “mind-read­er”). As an exam­ple, a “racist” is any­one who dis­agrees with the BLM riot­ers, what­ev­er that means. It is not sup­posed to be spe­cif­ic. Being spe­cif­ic implies that it is ratio­nal. It is not.

MTV con­vert peo­ple to newspeak. “Mans is bad innit”. is a per­fect exam­ple mean­ing “Do you think that man there is good” Orwell specif­i­cal­ly used ungood mean­ing the oppo­site of good but we are talk­ing of dou­ble­think and newspeak as it is today.

In times of Coro­na rad­i­cal con­struc­tivists or post­mod­ernists still do not acknowl­edge that there are real facts out there… they just wait for a vac­cine and do not talk about it^^.

As a senior and avid devo­tee to all things his­tor­i­cal, I don’t find this top­ic of News Speak any­thing new real­ly. In Roman times the rul­ing elite cajoled their poor by let­ting them watch gladiators,another word for kid­napped for­eign­ers, kill and mame with a free roast­ed kill of beau­ti­ful ani­mals after­wards. Cit­i­zen manip­u­la­tion is not new. Hence, us mass­es need to keep our­selves informed.

Orwell was an extreme­ly self-con­tra­dict­ing and self-iden­ti­ty loathing man. It was his sig­na­ture men­tal dish- he explained the dark­ness in oth­ers by reach­ing into him­self and find­ing a sim­i­lar dark­ness. The prob­lem is we aren’t used to that sort of hon­esty- so many folks take his crit­i­cism of a thing to mean he did­n’t sup­port it. Ing­soc is a good exam­ple; most peo­ple on the right con­sid­er Orwell an ene­my of social­ism as a result- they only read his fic­tion, it seems. Yet (full text at OrwellFoundation.com/Orwell/why-i-write ):

“Every line of seri­ous work that I have writ­ten since 1936 has been writ­ten, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, against total­i­tar­i­an­ism and for demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism… And the more one is con­scious of one’s polit­i­cal bias, the more chance one has of act­ing polit­i­cal­ly with­out sac­ri­fic­ing one’s aes­thet­ic and intel­lec­tu­al integri­ty…

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to pro­duce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw atten­tion, and my ini­tial con­cern is to get a hear­ing.”

Yes, Orwell hat­ed Com­mu­nism. Why? This is from the pref­ace to the Ukrain­ian edi­tion of Ani­mal Farm:

“In my opin­ion, noth­ing has con­tributed so much to the cor­rup­tion of the orig­i­nal idea of social­ism as the belief that Rus­sia is a social­ist coun­try and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imi­tat­ed. And so for the last ten years, I have been con­vinced that the destruc­tion of the Sovi­et myth was essen­tial if we want­ed a revival of the social­ist move­ment.”

Usu­al­ly, when I men­tion this, or that Orwell vol­un­teered to fight for a Marx­ist (anar­chist) antifa group, where his expe­ri­ence with social­ism made him a life­long devo­tee- they balk. It isn’t just that they dis­agree- it is that they dis­agree yet are some­how to busy to ver­i­fy quotes I bring that would show this to be true. Its cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance.

They would­n’t like his view of Amer­i­ca, for instance:

“Most of the employ­ees were the hard-boiled, Amer­i­can­ized, go-get­ting type to whom noth­ing in the world is sacred, except mon­ey. They had their cyn­i­cal code worked out. The pub­lic are swine; adver­tis­ing is the rat­tling of a stick inside a swill-buck­et. And yet beneath their cyn­i­cism there was the final naivete, the blind wor­ship of the mon­ey-god.” ‑Orwell, Keep the Aspidis­tra Fly­ing (1936)

Regard­ing the Nazism / social­ism thing: “the idea under­ly­ing Fas­cism is irrec­on­cil­ably dif­fer­ent from that which under­lies Social­ism. Social­ism aims, ulti­mate­ly, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equal­i­ty of human rights for grant­ed. Nazism assumes just the oppo­site. The dri­ving force behind the Nazi move­ment is the belief in human inequal­i­ty, the supe­ri­or­i­ty of Ger­mans to all oth­er races, the right of Ger­many to rule the world. Out­side the Ger­man Reich it does not rec­og­nize any oblig­a­tions.” ‑Orwell, The Lion and the Uni­corn (1941), Part II

UNHAVETHINK

We think it good­think that all mens are the same, that they have always had life, choice, and good­seek. To keep good­think, the Par­ty has always lived, tak­ing their pow­er with the good­think of mens. When the Par­ty is ungood to its pur­pose, the pro­les and the mens can unhave the Par­ty and have a new Par­ty…

(Note: I saw this as a chal­lenge a few years ago, and I took it on.)

The author is actu­al­ly quite gift­ed in newspeak, for he instinc­tive­ly choos­es an issue of rea­son­able debate on a cer­tain top­ic as being a off lim­its and unac­cept­able. The regime is always in newspeak mode, even when dis­cussing Orwell 1984. They cant help them­selves, its what they do.

Add a comment

Leave a reply.

Name (required)

Email (required)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

Click here to cancel reply.

• 1,700 Free Online Courses
• 200 Online Certificate Programs
• 100+ Online Degree & Mini-Degree Programs
• 1,150 Free Movies
• 1,000 Free Audio Books
• 150+ Best Podcasts
• 800 Free eBooks
• 200 Free Textbooks
• 300 Free Language Lessons
• 150 Free Business Courses
• Free K-12 Education
• Get Our Daily Email

Free Courses

• Art & Art History
• Classics/Ancient World
• Computer Science
• Data Science
• Engineering
• Environment
• Political Science
• Writing & Journalism
• All 1500 Free Courses
• 1000+ MOOCs & Certificate Courses

Receive our Daily Email

Free updates, get our daily email.

Get the best cultural and educational resources on the web curated for you in a daily email. We never spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Free Movies

• 1150 Free Movies Online
• Free Film Noir
• Silent Films
• Documentaries
• Martial Arts/Kung Fu
• Free Hitchcock Films
• Free Charlie Chaplin
• Free John Wayne Movies
• Free Tarkovsky Films
• Free Dziga Vertov
• Free Oscar Winners
• Free Language Lessons
• All Languages

Free eBooks

• 700 Free eBooks
• Free Philosophy eBooks
• The Harvard Classics
• Philip K. Dick Stories
• Neil Gaiman Stories
• David Foster Wallace Stories & Essays
• Hemingway Stories
• Great Gatsby & Other Fitzgerald Novels
• HP Lovecraft
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Free Alice Munro Stories
• Jennifer Egan Stories
• George Saunders Stories
• Hunter S. Thompson Essays
• Joan Didion Essays
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez Stories
• David Sedaris Stories
• Stephen King
• Golden Age Comics
• Free Books by UC Press
• Life Changing Books

Free Audio Books

• 700 Free Audio Books
• Free Audio Books: Fiction
• Free Audio Books: Poetry
• Free Audio Books: Non-Fiction

Free Textbooks

• Free Physics Textbooks
• Free Computer Science Textbooks
• Free Math Textbooks

K-12 Resources

• Free Video Lessons
• Web Resources by Subject
• Quality YouTube Channels
• Teacher Resources
• All Free Kids Resources

Free Art & Images

• All Art Images & Books
• The Rijksmuseum
• Smithsonian
• The Guggenheim
• The National Gallery
• The Whitney
• LA County Museum
• Stanford University
• British Library
• Google Art Project
• French Revolution
• Getty Images
• Guggenheim Art Books
• Met Art Books
• Getty Art Books
• New York Public Library Maps
• Museum of New Zealand
• Smarthistory
• Coloring Books
• All Bach Organ Works
• All of Bach
• 80,000 Classical Music Scores
• Free Classical Music
• Live Classical Music
• 9,000 Grateful Dead Concerts
• Alan Lomax Blues & Folk Archive

Writing Tips

• William Zinsser
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Toni Morrison
• Margaret Atwood
• David Ogilvy
• Billy Wilder
• All posts by date

Personal Finance

• Open Personal Finance
• Amazon Kindle
• Architecture
• Artificial Intelligence
• Comics/Cartoons
• Current Affairs
• English Language
• Entrepreneurship
• Food & Drink
• Graduation Speech
• How to Learn for Free
• Internet Archive
• Language Lessons
• Most Popular
• Neuroscience
• Photography
• Pretty Much Pop
• Productivity
• UC Berkeley
• Uncategorized
• Video - Arts & Culture
• Video - Politics/Society
• Video - Science
• Video Games

Great Lectures

• Michel Foucault
• Sun Ra at UC Berkeley
• Richard Feynman
• Joseph Campbell
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Leonard Bernstein
• Richard Dawkins
• Buckminster Fuller
• Walter Kaufmann on Existentialism
• Jacques Lacan
• Roland Barthes
• Nobel Lectures by Writers
• Bertrand Russell
• Oxford Philosophy Lectures

Sign up for Newsletter

Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

Great Recordings

• T.S. Eliot Reads Waste Land
• Sylvia Plath - Ariel
• Joyce Reads Ulysses
• Joyce - Finnegans Wake
• Patti Smith Reads Virginia Woolf
• Albert Einstein
• Charles Bukowski
• Bill Murray
• Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare
• William Faulkner
• Flannery O'Connor
• Tolkien - The Hobbit
• Allen Ginsberg - Howl
• Dylan Thomas
• Anne Sexton
• John Cheever
• David Foster Wallace

Book Lists By

• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Ernest Hemingway
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Allen Ginsberg
• Patti Smith
• Henry Miller
• Christopher Hitchens
• Joseph Brodsky
• Donald Barthelme
• David Bowie
• Samuel Beckett
• Art Garfunkel
• Marilyn Monroe
• Picks by Female Creatives
• Zadie Smith & Gary Shteyngart
• Lynda Barry

Favorite Movies

• Kurosawa's 100
• David Lynch
• Werner Herzog
• Woody Allen
• Wes Anderson
• Luis Buñuel
• Roger Ebert
• Susan Sontag
• Scorsese Foreign Films
• Philosophy Films
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• October 2022
• September 2022
• August 2022
• February 2022
• January 2022
• December 2021
• November 2021
• October 2021
• September 2021
• August 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• February 2020
• January 2020
• December 2019
• November 2019
• October 2019
• September 2019
• August 2019
• February 2019
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• September 2018
• August 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• December 2017
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• February 2016
• January 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• December 2014
• November 2014
• October 2014
• September 2014
• August 2014
• February 2014
• January 2014
• December 2013
• November 2013
• October 2013
• September 2013
• August 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006

©2006-2024 Open Culture, LLC. All rights reserved.

• Advertise with Us
• Copyright Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

Doublethink Is Stronger Than Orwell Imagined

What 1984 means today

No novel of the past century has had more influence than George Orwell’s 1984 . The title, the adjectival form of the author’s last name, the vocabulary of the all-powerful Party that rules the superstate Oceania with the ideology of Ingsoc— doublethink , memory hole , unperson , thoughtcrime , Newspeak , Thought Police , Room 101 , Big Brother —they’ve all entered the English language as instantly recognizable signs of a nightmare future. It’s almost impossible to talk about propaganda, surveillance, authoritarian politics, or perversions of truth without dropping a reference to 1984. Throughout the Cold War, the novel found avid underground readers behind the Iron Curtain who wondered, How did he know?

It was also assigned reading for several generations of American high-school students. I first encountered 1984 in 10th-grade English class. Orwell’s novel was paired with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , whose hedonistic and pharmaceutical dystopia seemed more relevant to a California teenager in the 1970s than did the bleak sadism of Oceania. I was too young and historically ignorant to understand where 1984 came from and exactly what it was warning against. Neither the book nor its author stuck with me. In my 20s, I discovered Orwell’s essays and nonfiction books and reread them so many times that my copies started to disintegrate, but I didn’t go back to 1984 . Since high school, I’d lived through another decade of the 20th century, including the calendar year of the title, and I assumed I already “knew” the book. It was too familiar to revisit.

Read: Teaching ‘1984’ in 2016

So when I recently read the novel again, I wasn’t prepared for its power. You have to clear away what you think you know, all the terminology and iconography and cultural spin-offs, to grasp the original genius and lasting greatness of 1984 . It is both a profound political essay and a shocking, heartbreaking work of art. And in the Trump era , it’s a best seller .

The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 , by the British music critic Dorian Lynskey, makes a rich and compelling case for the novel as the summation of Orwell’s entire body of work and a master key to understanding the modern world. The book was published in 1949, when Orwell was dying of tuberculosis , but Lynskey dates its biographical sources back more than a decade to Orwell’s months in Spain as a volunteer on the republican side of the country’s civil war. His introduction to totalitarianism came in Barcelona, when agents of the Soviet Union created an elaborate lie to discredit Trotskyists in the Spanish government as fascist spies.

Left-wing journalists readily accepted the fabrication, useful as it was to the cause of communism. Orwell didn’t, exposing the lie with eyewitness testimony in journalism that preceded his classic book Homage to Catalonia —and that made him a heretic on the left. He was stoical about the boredom and discomforts of trench warfare—he was shot in the neck and barely escaped Spain with his life—but he took the erasure of truth hard. It threatened his sense of what makes us sane, and life worth living. “History stopped in 1936,” he later told his friend Arthur Koestler, who knew exactly what Orwell meant. After Spain, just about everything he wrote and read led to the creation of his final masterpiece. “History stopped,” Lynskey writes, “and Nineteen Eighty-Four began.”

The biographical story of 1984 —the dying man’s race against time to finish his novel in a remote cottage on the Isle of Jura , off Scotland—will be familiar to many Orwell readers. One of Lynskey’s contributions is to destroy the notion that its terrifying vision can be attributed to, and in some way disregarded as, the death wish of a tuberculosis patient. In fact, terminal illness roused in Orwell a rage to live—he got remarried on his deathbed—just as the novel’s pessimism is relieved, until its last pages, by Winston Smith’s attachment to nature, antique objects, the smell of coffee, the sound of a proletarian woman singing, and above all his lover, Julia. 1984 is crushingly grim, but its clarity and rigor are stimulants to consciousness and resistance. According to Lynskey, “Nothing in Orwell’s life and work supports a diagnosis of despair.”

Lynskey traces the literary genesis of 1984 to the utopian fictions of the optimistic 19th century—Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888); the sci-fi novels of H. G. Wells, which Orwell read as a boy—and their dystopian successors in the 20th, including the Russian Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) and Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). The most interesting pages in The Ministry of Truth are Lynskey’s account of the novel’s afterlife. The struggle to claim 1984 began immediately upon publication, with a battle over its political meaning. Conservative American reviewers concluded that Orwell’s main target wasn’t just the Soviet Union but the left generally. Orwell, fading fast, waded in with a statement explaining that the novel was not an attack on any particular government but a satire of the totalitarian tendencies in Western society and intellectuals: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one: Don’t let it happen. It depends on you .” But every work of art escapes the artist’s control—the more popular and complex, the greater the misunderstandings.

Lynskey’s account of the reach of 1984 is revelatory. The novel has inspired movies, television shows, plays, a ballet, an opera, a David Bowie album , imitations, parodies, sequels, rebuttals, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Black Panther Party, and the John Birch Society. It has acquired something of the smothering ubiquity of Big Brother himself: 1984 is watching you. With the arrival of the year 1984, the cultural appropriations rose to a deafening level. That January an ad for the Apple Macintosh was watched by 96 million people during the Super Bowl and became a marketing legend. The Mac, represented by a female athlete, hurls a sledgehammer at a giant telescreen and explodes the shouting face of a man—oppressive technology—to the astonishment of a crowd of gray zombies. The message: “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’ ”

The argument recurs every decade or so: Orwell got it wrong. Things haven’t turned out that bad. The Soviet Union is history. Technology is liberating. But Orwell never intended his novel to be a prediction, only a warning. And it’s as a warning that 1984 keeps finding new relevance. The week of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the president’s adviser Kellyanne Conway justified his false crowd estimate by using the phrase alternative facts , the novel returned to the best-seller lists. A theatrical adaptation was rushed to Broadway. The vocabulary of Newspeak went viral. An authoritarian president who stood the term fake news on its head, who once said, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” has given 1984 a whole new life.

What does the novel mean for us? Not Room 101 in the Ministry of Love, where Winston is interrogated and tortured until he loses everything he holds dear. We don’t live under anything like a totalitarian system. “By definition, a country in which you are free to read Nineteen Eighty-Four is not the country described in Nineteen Eighty-Four ,” Lynskey acknowledges. Instead, we pass our days under the nonstop surveillance of a telescreen that we bought at the Apple Store, carry with us everywhere, and tell everything to, without any coercion by the state. The Ministry of Truth is Facebook, Google, and cable news. We have met Big Brother and he is us.

Trump’s election brought a rush of cautionary books with titles like On Tyranny , Fascism: A Warning , and How Fascism Works . My local bookstore set up a totalitarian-themed table and placed the new books alongside 1984 . They pointed back to the 20th century—if it happened in Germany, it could happen here—and warned readers how easily democracies collapse. They were alarm bells against complacency and fatalism—“ the politics of inevitability ,” in the words of the historian Timothy Snyder, “a sense that the future is just more of the present, that the laws of progress are known, that there are no alternatives, and therefore nothing really to be done.” The warnings were justified, but their emphasis on the mechanisms of earlier dictatorships drew attention away from the heart of the malignancy—not the state, but the individual. The crucial issue was not that Trump might abolish democracy but that Americans had put him in a position to try. Unfreedom today is voluntary. It comes from the bottom up.

We are living with a new kind of regime that didn’t exist in Orwell’s time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment. The state of mind that the Party enforces through terror in 1984 , where truth becomes so unstable that it ceases to exist, we now induce in ourselves. Totalitarian propaganda unifies control over all information, until reality is what the Party says it is—the goal of Newspeak is to impoverish language so that politically incorrect thoughts are no longer possible. Today the problem is too much information from too many sources, with a resulting plague of fragmentation and division—not excessive authority but its disappearance, which leaves ordinary people to work out the facts for themselves, at the mercy of their own prejudices and delusions.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, propagandists at a Russian troll farm used social media to disseminate a meme: “ ‘The People Will Believe What the Media Tells Them They Believe.’  — George Orwell.” But Orwell never said this. The moral authority of his name was stolen and turned into a lie toward that most Orwellian end: the destruction of belief in truth. The Russians needed partners in this effort and found them by the millions, especially among America’s non-elites. In 1984 , working-class people are called “proles,” and Winston believes they’re the only hope for the future. As Lynskey points out, Orwell didn’t foresee “that the common man and woman would embrace doublethink as enthusiastically as the intellectuals and, without the need for terror or torture, would choose to believe that two plus two was whatever they wanted it to be.”

We stagger under the daily load of doublethink pouring from Trump, his enablers in the Inner Party, his mouthpieces in the Ministry of Truth, and his fanatical supporters among the proles. Spotting doublethink in ourselves is much harder. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” Orwell wrote . In front of my nose, in the world of enlightened and progressive people where I live and work, a different sort of doublethink has become pervasive. It’s not the claim that true is fake or that two plus two makes five. Progressive doublethink—which has grown worse in reaction to the right-wing kind—creates a more insidious unreality because it operates in the name of all that is good. Its key word is justice —a word no one should want to live without. But today the demand for justice forces you to accept contradictions that are the essence of doublethink.

For example, many on the left now share an unacknowledged but common assumption that a good work of art is made of good politics and that good politics is a matter of identity. The progressive view of a book or play depends on its political stance, and its stance—even its subject matter—is scrutinized in light of the group affiliation of the artist: Personal identity plus political position equals aesthetic value. This confusion of categories guides judgments all across the worlds of media, the arts, and education, from movie reviews to grant committees. Some people who register the assumption as doublethink might be privately troubled, but they don’t say so publicly. Then self-censorship turns into self-deception, until the recognition itself disappears—a lie you accept becomes a lie you forget. In this way, intelligent people do the work of eliminating their own unorthodoxy without the Thought Police.

Recommended Reading

A lost scottish island, george orwell, and the future of maps.

David Simon and E.L. Doctorow on 'the Potential for the Orwellian Nightmare'

Why No One Answers Their Phone Anymore

Orthodoxy is also enforced by social pressure, nowhere more intensely than on Twitter, where the specter of being shamed or “canceled” produces conformity as much as the prospect of adding to your tribe of followers does. This pressure can be more powerful than a party or state, because it speaks in the name of the people and in the language of moral outrage, against which there is, in a way, no defense. Certain commissars with large followings patrol the precincts of social media and punish thought criminals, but most progressives assent without difficulty to the stifling consensus of the moment and the intolerance it breeds—not out of fear, but because they want to be counted on the side of justice.

This willing constriction of intellectual freedom will do lasting damage. It corrupts the ability to think clearly, and it undermines both culture and progress. Good art doesn’t come from wokeness, and social problems starved of debate can’t find real solutions. “Nothing is gained by teaching a parrot a new word,” Orwell wrote in 1946. “What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.” Not much has changed since the 1940s. The will to power still passes through hatred on the right and virtue on the left.

1984 will always be an essential book, regardless of changes in ideologies, for its portrayal of one person struggling to hold on to what is real and valuable. “Sanity is not statistical,” Winston thinks one night as he slips off to sleep. Truth, it turns out, is the most fragile thing in the world. The central drama of politics is the one inside your skull.

This article appears in the July 2019 print edition with the headline “George Orwell’s Unheeded Warning.”

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

The Definitive Guide to Analysing ‘1984’ for English: Summary, Context, Themes & Characters

Newspeak? Doublethink? What do all of these words mean? If you need help analysing 1984 by George Orwell, you’ve come to the right place — we’ve got all you need to know with a summary, list of key characters, themes and a 3-step essay analysis guide!

We’ve even got an analysis table and a sample paragraph that’s all free for you to download on 1984.

So, let’s throw back into 1984 (the fictional one of course)! 

1984 by George Orwell Summary & Key Messages Key Characters in 1984 Context Themes Explored in 1984 Essay Analysis of 1984

1984 by George Orwell Summary & Key Messages

The politics of oceania.

1984 belongs in the dystopian, science fiction genre as it explores the dangers of corrupted power under a totalitarian regime. Totalitarianism is a government system that dictates how its citizens think, behave and act by constantly keeping an eye on them and carrying out punishments for those who don’t obey. Sounds strict, hey? 

Sadly, this is the life of our protagonist, Winston Smith. Winston lives in a nation that resembles London in Oceania, which has been in a war with Eurasia and Eastasia since forever but no one really knows what the war is about. This is because the Party controls its people through rewriting history in the Ministry of Truth, where Winston edits historical records as part of his job.

The Party also invented a new language called “Newspeak” , which eliminates any words associated with rebellion to ensure full subservience of their nation. 

Wherever Winston goes, he is bombarded with posters of their omnipresent leader, Big Brother. There are also hidden cameras and microphones that are implanted everywhere by the thought police to monitor every move of its citizens.

It’s a scary place because if you do or say anything wrong, the thought police will capture you and force you into lifelong labour . In this world, people cannot have close friends, cannot date whoever they want and cannot have intimate relationships.

Instead, the people pent up these emotions and channel them into aggressive patriotism for their government which are expressed in two minute hate rallies. 

The Start of Winston’s Rebellion

Winston has had enough of the Party and its strict control. He purchases an illegal diary to commit crimethink, where he expresses his own thoughts and feelings about the Party through writing. He also writes about his interest in O’Brien, a member of the Inner Party who he believes could be part of the underground rebellion group called the Brotherhood. 

Access 1984 Downloadable Sample Paragraph and Examples of Analysis

Winston’s and Julia’s Relationship

At work, Winston realises that his historical records were not aligning with his memories . He notices Julia, a young beautiful girl staring at him, and he is afraid that she will turn him into the “thought police”.

However, Julia passes him a note that says “I love you” and they start an affair. 

O’Brien’s Betrayal 

As their relationship grows more seriously, so does Winston’s hatred for the Party. He and Julia decided to reveal their rebellion to O’Brien, who also appeared to be on their side .

O’Brien welcomes them into the Brotherhood and passed Winston a copy of Emmanuel Goldstein’s book. As Winston starts reading the book, the thought police charge in, arrest Winston and Julia and bring them to the Ministry of Love. Turns out, O’Brien is a snake. 

The Party Tortures Winston

At the Ministry of Love, Winston is tortured mercilessly and this makes him confess everything he knows about Julia and the rebellion .

It is then revealed that the government carries out these acts to exercise total power and control over the people of Oceania, to the extent where people not only do things out of fear, but genuinely believe in what they are doing even if it doesn’t make sense.

Winston’s Loss of Individuality

In Room 101, Winston experiences a true Fear Factor episode. The thought police threaten Winston with his ultimate fear, rats that would eat his face off. This caused Winston to scream “Do it to Julia, not me!”, which represents his betrayal to the only person that held value to him.

After this, the thought police let both Winston and Julia go, but the two ex-lovers can no longer look at each other face to face as they are both broken inside. Winston becomes a changed man who does not want to think about rebelling and instead becomes highly supportive of the Party and Big Brother. 

Key Characters in 1984

Winston Smith  The main protagonist who works under the Ministry of Truth in London, Oceania. His appearance is frail, pensive and intelligent. He hates the Party and its totalitarian system with a desire to revolutionise his current political situation. He can be emotional and idealistic with his goals. 

Julia  A beautiful young girl who is Winston’s love interest. Julia is sex-positive with an optimistic attitude about the future of the Party. She represents parts of humanity that Winston lacks, such as passive survival, intimacy, intuition and pragmatism. 

O’Brien  A mysterious leader of the Inner Party who Winston trusts as Winston believes that O’Brien is a member of the legendary rebellion group, the Brotherhood. It is revealed later in the novel that O’Brien is a leader of The Party who has been keeping a close eye on Winston. His betrayal launches us into the inner mechanisms of The Party and its totalitarian rule. O’Brien’s character parallels that of famous dictators in modern history such as Stalin and Hitler, as he is determined to indoctrinate Winston in the name of “purity.” 

Big Brother  Have you watched the show Big Brother? His character in the show is almost the same as in 1984, except a lot more controlling. In 1984, Big Brother is the most dominating figure in Oceania as he is perceived to be the ruler, although Orwell does not specify whether he really exists or not. Big Brother’s face is plastered among posters, coins and telescreens with the slogan “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” so it’s impossible to avoid him anywhere. 

Emmanuel Goldstein As the leader of the legendary group of rebels called the Brotherhood, Emmanuel Goldstein is the opposing figure of Big Brother. Although he never appears in the novel, he has had a profound impact on Winston’s hope for the future. He is the most dangerous man in Oceania, according to the Party.  

Context in 1984

To understand 1984’s context, we must first understand the author’s personal background to craft a well thought-out essay analysis. This is because the author’s personal and historical experiences do shape the novel and its themes. So, let’s start with Orwell’s schooling days.

If you ever felt suppressed at school, Orwell can definitely relate with you on that. As a “lower-upper-middle class”, Orwell didn’t fit in with his peers and was upset with the restricted routine that schools impose on their students.

He then went on to become a British Imperial Policeman in Burma where he hated his job as he had to execute strict laws under a political system he didn’t like. After this, he moved to England and became a full-time writer. 

Orwell experienced poverty for awhile, and even lived as a coal miner in northern England which caused him to shift from capitalist ideals to democratic socialism. Here are the simplified definitions of the political concepts that influenced Orwell’s beliefs and 1984’s themes: 

• Capitalism: An economic system where property is owned and controlled by private actors, rather than by state. As such individuals can control how much they set their prices, instead of leaving it to the government to dictate. 
• Democratic Socialism: Unlike capitalism, democratic socialism is an economic system whereby property and products are owned and controlled by the entire society, alongside governments. So, the main difference here is that governments have a say in trade whereas in capitalism, governments do not interfere with private owner’s business. 

Orwell was also concerned with the rise of Thatcherism. 

In the year 1936, Orwell fought as a socialist in the Spanish Civil War during World War II, where he became familiar with totalitarian systems that are under leaders such as Hitler and Stalin. Although Orwell was passionate about socialism at first, he soon became disillusioned and disappointed with its ideals as Stalin used communism as the foundation of his authoritarian system. 

Stalin of the Soviet Union was also an important influence in shaping 1984’s totalitarian regime of Oceania, as Stalin used secret police to force confessions out of enemies through torture alike how the Ministry of Love did with Winston . Like the Party, the Soviet Union also tampered with physical records of people as they imprison and/or eliminate millions of lives. 

With the rise of the nuclear age and television in 1949, Orwell envisioned a future where everyone would always be monitored through screens in a post-atomic dictatorship . This became a fear that was highly possible when speculated thirty five years into the future. 

But as we all know, this did not become true. In the early 1990s, the Cold War ended with the triumph of democracy, as signified by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Even so, Orwell’s 1984 still serves as a precautionary tale against the corruption and abuse of totalitarian regimes, along with a profound insight into the use of language and history to manipulate one’s individuality.  

Want more information on George Orwell? Take a look at this biography found via the Orwell Foundation page!

Themes Explored in 1984

To help you get started on your thesis or topic sentence , here are three key themes from 1984 that you can write about in your essay analysis !

The Consequences of Totalitarianism

After experiencing the violence and corruption of totalitarian regimes in Spain and Russia, Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning about the dangers of an authoritarian regime where the government holds the most power. As such, the Party in 1984 administered extreme methods of physical and psychological manipulation to enforce total submission of its people. 

Physical control by the Party includes total surveillance of its people to the extent where even a twitch in the face can be enough to warrant an arrest. Morning exercises, called Physical Jerks, are also carried out before long hours at work to tire people out so they don’t have the energy to think beyond the Party’s propaganda. 

The Party also uses physical torture to “re-educate” and punish those who rebel against them. It is this physical pain that causes Winston to lose his own individuality and moral beliefs, allowing the Party to infiltrate his mind and dictate his sense of reality. 

Meanwhile, the Party also uses psychological tactics to saturate the individual’s mind with propaganda and disable its ability for independent thinking. On top of watching everyone everywhere, the telescreens are also used to indoctrinate (ie. brainwash) people into supporting the Party despite its flaws.

The telescreens also perpetuate slogans such as “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” , to remind people that their government is always watching their back so they better behave according to the Party’s standards. 

The Party also deems close friendships and conversations with others illegal. So, if you’re itching to spill the tea, your only method of venting your emotions out is through pep rallies, where the Party encourages you to show extreme expressions of hatred to its political enemies. Ultimately, this allows the Party to dictate how and where you should express your emotions, keeping you from expressing your individual feelings, thoughts and opinions. 

Here are some quotes that illustrate the perils of totalitarianism: 

The Power of Language to Liberate and Control 

In 1984, language has the dual capacity to both restrain and facilitate individual expression. This is another key message that Orwell imparts, as he highlights how language can either promote or limit ideas which influence our beliefs, behaviour and identity. 

The Party uses Newspeak as a way of controlling the language that its people speak, which in turn dictates the people’s thoughts, actions and personalities (or lack thereof).

By eliminating words that are associated with rebellious thoughts, the Party essentially removes the people’s ability to think of resistance because there are no words to conceive it. With continual edits with Newspeak, the Party inches a step closer to their ultimate goal of total coercion from their people.

Yet, in Winston’s case, he uses language as a vehicle of self-expression as he purchases a diary for himself and writes his everyday thoughts, opinions and feelings into it . By writing in his own words, he is able to build himself an identity with his own passions, goals and perspective.

Sadly, in a world where the government overrules individual expression, Winston’s use of language dwindles, though it is encouraging to see how language can still work to preserve independent thought.

Here are three quotes that can help you get started on this theme: 

The Importance of Preserving Our Identity and Individualism

What happens if we lose everything that defines us as us? 

1984 truly delves into this scary concept as the Party removes everyone’s personal details so they are not able to establish their own identity. For example, even Winston does not know his own age, who his real parents are nor can he trust his own childhood memories as there are no photographs or evidences to help him differentiate between reality and imagination. 

Aside from Winston, the rest of Oceania are also denied documents that could give them a sense of individuality and help them differentiate themselves from others . This causes their memories to grow fuzzy, thus making the people of Oceania vulnerable and dependent on the stories that the Party tells them.

In turn, by controlling the present, the Party can re-engineer the past. Simultaneously, by controlling the past, the Party can rationalise its shortcomings and project a perfect government that is far from the truth. 

With no recollection of the past, the people of Oceania can no longer stay in touch with their real identities and instead, become identical as they wear the same uniform, drink the same brand of alcohol and more. Yet, Winston builds his own sense of identity through recording his thoughts, experiences and emotions in his diary. This act along with his relationship with Julia symbolises Winston’s declaration of his own independence and identity as a rebel who disagrees with the Party’s system. 

Despite this, Winston’s own sense of individuality and identity dissolves after his torturous experience at the Ministry of Love, which transforms him into another member of the Outer Party who blends into the crowd. By asserting a dark vision of humanity’s individualism, Orwell urges audiences in the present to truly value their freedom to express and preserve their identity. 

Here are some quotes that are related to this idea which you may find helpful:

Of course, 1984 also includes other themes that you may be thinking about writing analysis for, such as: 

• Rebellion and Patriotism 
• Active versus Passive Survival 
• The Corrupt Use of Technology

Check out our recommended related text for 1984 .

Essay Analysis: How to Analyse 1984 in 3 Steps

Analysing your text is always the first step to writing an amazing essay! Lots of students make the mistake of jumping right into writing without really understanding what the text is about.

This leads to arguments that only skim the surface of the complex ideas, techniques and elements of the text. So, let’s build a comprehensive thesis through an in-depth analysis of the 1984. 

Here are three easy steps that you can use to analyse 1984 and really impress your English teachers!

Step 1: Select your example(s)

1984 is a world of its own with its totalitarian systems, use of foreign words and more. So, we totally understand if you’re feeling lost and don’t know where to begin. 

Our piece of advice is to look for examples that come with a technique. Techniques offer you a chance to delve into the text’s underlying meaning, which would help you deepen your analysis and enrich your essay writing. 

Find our extensive list of quotes from 1984 by George Orwell!

Here are two quotes that relate to consequences of totalitarian power, which we have picked to help you visualise which examples can provide a deeper meaning: 

“Big Brother is Watching You.”  “WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” 

Step 2: Identify your technique(s)

Getting a good grade in English is more than listing out every technique that you can find in the text. Instead, it’s about finding techniques that allow you to dive deeper into the themes you’re focussing on, while also supporting your argument. 

Try to look for techniques that allow you to explain its effects and link to your argument such as symbols, metaphors, connotations, similes and historical allegories . In Orwell’s case, he uses a lot of language techniques such as neologism, where he makes up his own words such as “Doublethink” or “Newspeak”. 

For the two quotes above, its three techniques include historical allusion, rhetoric and oxymoron. 

If possible, you can look out for a quote that encompasses a few techniques to really pack a punch in your analysis. 

Step 3: Write the analysis

Once you’re done collecting your examples and techniques, the next part is writing. You must remember to explain what the effect of the technique is and how it supports your argument. Otherwise, it’s not going to be a cohesive essay if you’re just listing out techniques. 

An example of listing out techniques looks like this: 

“The rhetoric “Big Brother is Watching You” is also a historical allusion while “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength” is oxymoronic.”

Instead, you must elaborate on how each of these techniques link to your argument. 

“Big Brother is Watching You” is a rhetoric imposed by the Party to instil psychological fear and submission of the people of Oceania, whereby Orwell uses to warn the dangers of totalitarianism. “Big Brother” is also a historical allusion to Hitler to remind the audience that 1984 is not entirely fictional but a possible future of our reality, urging us to take action against totalitarian regimes with the autonomy we have now. 

Meanwhile, the slogan ““WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” represents the oxymoronic mentalities that have been indoctrinated into the people of Oceania, highlighting how totalitarian regimes would force its people to think whatever they want their people to think, no matter how illogical it is. 

Together, your analysis should look something like: 

The Party perpetuates the rhetoric, “Big Brother is Watching You” to instil psychological fear and coercion of the the people of Oceania, which forewarns a lack of individual freedom and private reflection within authoritarian regimes. As “Big Brother” is a historical allusion to Hitler, Orwell reminds the audience that 1984 and its extremist politics is a reality, urging us to defend our independence before it’s forbidden. Furthermore, the slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” embodies the oxymoronic mentalities that the Party indoctrinates into its people, revealing the extreme extent of psychological control an authoritarian regime strives to ensure their power is never questioned, no matter how irrational it is.

Need some help with your essay analysis of other texts aside from 1984?

Check out other texts we’ve created guides for below:

• Romeo and Juliet
• Run Lola Run
• The Meursault Investigation
• In Cold Blood
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Book Thief
• The Tempest
• Blade Runner
• Things Fall Apart
• Mrs Dalloway

Are you looking for some extra help with your essay analysis of 1984?

We have an incredible team of tutors and mentors.

We can help you master your essay analysis of 1984 by taking you through the summary, context, key characters and themes. We’ll also help you ace your upcoming English assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or online!

We’ve supported over  8,000 students over the last 11 years , and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!

To find out more and get started with an inspirational tutor and mentor,   get in touch today  or give us a ring on  1300 267 888!

Kate Lynn Law  graduated in 2017 with an all rounders HSC award and an ATAR of 97.65. Passionate about mentoring, she enjoys working with high school students to improve their academic, work and life skills in preparation for the HSC and what comes next. An avid blogger, Kate had administered a creative writing page for over 2000 people since 2013, writing to an international audience since her early teenage years.

• Topics: ✏️ English , ✍️ Learn

Related Articles

Everything you need to know about analysing ‘jasper jones’ for english – summary, context, themes & characters, a comprehensive guide to analysing ‘the book thief’: summary, context, themes & characters, the definitive guide to analysing ‘in cold blood’: summary, context & themes, 45,861 students have a head start....

Get exclusive study content & advice from our team of experts delivered weekly to your inbox!

Looking for English Support?

Discover how we can help you!

We provide services in

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

George Orwell

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

“The Principles of Newspeak” by George Orwell Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

In his 1984 novel, The principles of newspeak, George Orwell introduces newspeak, a language based on modern-day English but altered to have simplified grammar and vocabulary with the intention of completely shadowing the English language (oldspeak in newspeak) by 2050. Newspeak proponents are members of the Party who are determined to remove all words and phrases that have anything to do with freedom, rebellion and oppression among other afflictions of the regime. The party monitors everything in Oceania; it has telescreens everywhere and political rebellion is unheard of. Even thinking rebelliousness is deemed a horrible crime.

Recapping the novel we find Winston, the protagonist, being angered and depressed by the line of thought and life where there is absence of respect for individual expression of interests. He hates the party and decides to share his illegal thoughts with a diary he has illegally purchased. Due to his illegal line of thought and cohabitation with his female workmate Julia, Winston is taken to custody under the Party’s power. He is tortured and brainwashed despite his ardent resistance and eventually gives in to the Party’s demands, key among them being giving up Julia. On his release, he does not feel anything for her because he has accepted the Party, the language and even loves Big Brother, its invisible leader.

Analyzing newspeak itself, George seeks to make Oldspeak grammar simpler so that all words can serve as any part of speech. He provides three groups of vocabulary. First, the A vocabulary encompasses words and phrases that are used daily. These words are usually not many though they have specific or rigid meanings; this explains that newspeak is not interested in meanings rather passing the necessary information. The writer puts such words as walking, eating, drinking, and working. The second category, vocabulary B words, encompasses phrases more in favor of the Party; they are related to politics and the ideals of those in power. For conceptual clarity, conjugated words and phrases are reduced to smaller ones in vocabulary B. For instance, Winston was taken to the ministry of love- ministry of love becomes miniluv. Police in charge of thought, the Thought Police becomes thinkpol. Third, vocabulary C stands for all words defining technical and scientific fields. This has ensured that information regarding these disciplines is available to all and no one accesses too much knowledge.

Newspeak emphasized the magnitude of state dominance by removing meaning from Oldspeak so as to leave simple rooted words. It reduced the total number of words by using its root words to stand for both nouns and verbs. Similarly, those words with opposite meanings were considered obsolete so that words like bad became ungood. Superlatives were simplified such that better became gooder, intensifiers were added by the use of plus and double to have words like plusgood, all with the intention of putting the root words of oldspeak into a single word. The single word being positive portrayed affirmation to all asked of the citizens of Oceania by the Party.

Newspeak relied on the knowledge that people think after carrying out a dialogue in their minds. By suppressing the vocabulary, newspeak proponents reduced the tools needed in the thinking/vocalizing process. In modern-day times, newspeak has been used to mean any prohibition of a language by a government or someone/institution in power.

• "Superiority" by Arthur Clarke
• Angel in House in Woolf’s Professions for Women
• George Orwell’s 1984: Winston and Julia’s Relationship Essay
• Internship: Shadowing a Substance Abuse Counselor
• Shadowing a Substance Abuse Counselor
• Brierly and Stein as Foils for Jim in the Conrad's Novel “Lord Jim”
• “Persuasion” by Jane Austen. Analysis of Anne’s Character
• "The Wasteland" by Thomas Eliot
• Protagonist in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”
• Desdemona as a Symbol of Christian Virtues
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, December 13). "The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-principles-of-newspeak-by-george-orwell/

""The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell." IvyPanda , 13 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-principles-of-newspeak-by-george-orwell/.

IvyPanda . (2021) '"The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell'. 13 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. ""The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell." December 13, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-principles-of-newspeak-by-george-orwell/.

1. IvyPanda . ""The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell." December 13, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-principles-of-newspeak-by-george-orwell/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . ""The Principles of Newspeak" by George Orwell." December 13, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-principles-of-newspeak-by-george-orwell/.

In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Language as the “Ultimate Weapon” in Nineteen Eighty-Four

This processes of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets . . . Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. (42)

Works Cited

Nineteen Eighty-Four -- Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak

Nineteen eighty-four -- appendix: the principles of newspeak lyrics.

How to Format Lyrics:

• Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
• Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
• Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
• Use italics ( <i>lyric</i> ) and bold ( <b>lyric</b> ) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
• If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

The Appendix of 1984 serves as extensions from the explanations of Newspeak provided by Orwell in chapters 4 and 5 , as well as what readers have gathered throughout the novel. This appendix delves into the reason for its conception, and the power of twisting words for desired effects. Because of its technicality and entomological analyses, this was not integrated into the novel.

Newspeak is the official printed language of Oceania, though its citizens still speak the modern standard; known as Oldspeak. However, the government predicted that it would be the norm, while standard English would be abolished by 2050. Unlike Oldspeak, which is divided into categories of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; Newspeak has three broad categories: A words, B words, and C words.

The main purpose for the establishment of Newspeak was to restrict thought. The removal of synonyms, antonyms, and words that provoke creativity (such as the word “creativity” itself); as well as the abolition of the irregular plurals, prefixes, and suffixes of words leaves little room for curiosity as well.

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

• 1. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 1)
• 2. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 2)
• 3. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 3)
• 4. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 4)
• 5. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 5)
• 6. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 6)
• 7. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 7)
• 8. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 1, Chapter 8)
• 9. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 1)
• 10. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 2)
• 11. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 3)
• 12. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 4)
• 13. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 5)
• 14. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 6)
• 15. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 7)
• 16. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 8)
• 17. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 9)
• 18. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 2, Chapter 10)
• 19. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 1)
• 20. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 2)
• 21. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 3)
• 22. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 4)
• 23. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 5)
• 24. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 6)
• 25. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 7)
• 26. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Book 3, Chapter 8)
• 27. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- Appendix: The Principles of Newspeak

Genius is the world’s biggest collection of song lyrics and musical knowledge

Find Study Materials for

• Explanations
• Business Studies
• Combined Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• English literature
• Environmental Science
• Human Geography
• Macroeconomics
• Microeconomics
• Social Studies
• Browse all subjects
• Textbook Solutions
• Read our Magazine

Create Study Materials

• Flashcards Create and find the best flashcards.
• Notes Create notes faster than ever before.
• Study Sets Everything you need for your studies in one place.
• Study Plans Stop procrastinating with our smart planner features.
• 1984 Newspeak

As English language students, you've likely heard of, if not read, the novel 1984  (1949) before, but have you ever paid much attention to the fictional language used in the novel?

Create learning materials about 1984 Newspeak with our free learning app!

• Instand access to millions of learning materials
• Flashcards, notes, mock-exams and more
• Everything you need to ace your exams

Millions of flashcards designed to help you ace your studies

• Cell Biology

Who wrote novel 1984 ?

Which language was Newspeak designed to replace?

What does dystopian mean?

Where did Orwell take inspiration from for the contracted word forms found in Newspeak?

Which phrase is an example of a euphemism?

In Newspeak, what part of speech does the suffix -ful create?

In Newspeak, what part of speech does the suffix -wise create?

True or false, parts of speech are mostly interchangeable in Newspeak? 

In Newspeak, what is the past tense of  think ?

In Newspeak, what is the plural of  child ?  

Choose the best definition for  doublespeak

Convert documents into flashcards for free with AI!

• 5 Paragraph Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Cues and Conventions
• English Grammar
• English Language Study
• Essay Prompts
• Essay Writing Skills
• Global English
• History of English Language
• International English
• Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics
• Language Acquisition
• Language Analysis
• Language and Social Groups
• Lexis and Semantics
• Linguistic Terms
• Analytical Techniques
• Applied Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Corpus Linguistics
• Critical Theory
• Essentialism
• Forensic Linguistics
• Language Comprehension
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Determinism
• Logical Positivism
• Machine Translation
• Natural Language Processing
• Neural Networks
• Neurolinguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Rhetorical Analysis
• Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
• Speech Recognition
• Listening and Speaking
• Multiple Choice Questions
• Research and Composition
• Rhetorical Analysis Essay
• Single Paragraph Essay
• Sociolinguistics
• Summary Text
• Synthesis Essay
• Textual Analysis

George Orwell created his own language, Newspeak, to draw parallels between the deterioration of free thought and language in societies under authoritarian dictatorships and to explain how language can be used to control and influence the vulnerable.

Newspeak is more than just a few words or quotes and is, in fact, a complete language that was designed to replace Oldspeak (Standard English).

George Orwell's 1984

Before we delve into the world of Newspeak, let's look at a basic introduction and some background information on George Orwell's novel 1984.

1984 was published in 1949 and is now considered one of the most famous and influential dystopian novels of all time.

Dystopian: An imagined state or society, usually in the future, where there are significant injustices.

The novel follows the protagonist Winston who lives in Air Strip One (which used to be England) in Oceania, Orwell's fictional "superstate." The premise of the novel is that the whole world is at war and has subsequently been divided into three superstates; Oceania (comprising the Americas, Britain, Australia, and Southern Africa), Eurasia (comprising Europe and Russia), and Eastasia (comprising northern Asia), the "ownership" over the rest of the world was disputed. All three superstates are under a totalitarian dictatorship (i.e., they require complete subservience from the general population) and are in differing states of war against each other.

The grouping of these countries was not coincidental and reflected the global political divisions of the world during the Cold War 1947-1991.

The leading party of Oceania is INGSOC , i.e., English socialism (notice how INGSOC is a portmanteau word of ING- taken from England and - SOC taken from socialism — this is your first taster of Newspeak). Not much is known about the ideology of Ingsoc, except it is an authoritarian party that uses propaganda, the Thought Police (spies), and the all-seeing eye of Big Brother to keep the working classes submissive and the party in power. Within Oceania, the political structure is split into three:

The Inner Party: The top ruling 2%.

The Outer Party: The educated working class.

The Proletariats: The uneducated working class.

Although Orwell never explicitly states these divisions are related to the social classes we see in places like the UK, most scholars agree his intentions were clear.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength - INGSOC's party slogan in chapter 1, 1984.

Within the INGSOC party, there are four ministries: the Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty. The name of the ministries is rather contradictory as the ministry of truth deals with lies, the ministry of peace with war, the ministry of love with torture, and the ministry of plenty with starvation. These contradictory names are purposeful and were based on government names in the UK and the USA during World War 2 (e.g., Britain's Ministry of Food oversaw rationing.) The contradictory nature of these names is an example of doublethink , the acceptance of two opposing things being true (we'll cover this more shortly).

1984 Newspeak Explained

You might be wondering if all the background information is important for an explanation on 1984 's Newspeak; well, we think so. From a linguistic perspective, language has the power to normalize and cement the dystopian realities you've just read about.

Language can be used to create new realities, hide or twist the truth, confuse or scare the general public, create influential and instrumental power, and more.

For example, throughout the novel, the protagonist and the reader are invited to question whether or not the whole world is genuinely at war or whether this is propaganda used to keep workers afraid and, therefore, obedient. In essence, 1984 is a novel about a man struggling to maintain a sense of truth and reality under the control of power and propaganda .

Propaganda: The communication of ideas that tries to promote a certain agenda or ideology.

Orwell and Language

Throughout his career, Orwell spoke a lot about language and released several essays about the decline of the English language, most notably Politics and the English Language (1946) . In the essay, Orwell suggested that as free thought suffered, language must also suffer under oppressive regimes, such as the Communist Party. From this line of thought, he concluded in the essay that "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

Orwell created Newspeak to show the role language can play when it comes to societies being taken over by authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships and to reflect the language used by politicians across the world.

1984 Newspeak Defined

Now we have a good idea about the reasoning behind the creation of Newspeak for the novel 1984, let's have a closer look at a definition.

Newspeak: The fictional official language of Oceania, Orwell's dystopian superstate. The language was created to replace Oldspeak (that's Standard English to you and me) and shares mostly the same vocabulary and grammar as English. However, Newspeak is marked by linguistic techniques, such as circumlocution , euphemisms , and contradictions. Morphologically, Newspeak contains a lot of affixes, contractions, blended and compounded words, and has standardized spelling. Newspeak has a very restricted vocabulary.

Let's take a look at some of those more complex terms:

Circumlocution: The use of unnecessarily large and complex words and indirect speech to confuse the listener and avoid getting to the point.

Euphemisms: Using more pleasing-sounding words to describe things that may be deemed upsetting or offensive. E.g., "The company downsized." instead of "The company fired everyone."

Newspeak was designed to be spoken quickly and allow for whole thoughts to be reduced into short, simple terms, meaning the speaker and the listener aren't allowed much time to think.

Do you know the phrase, " Think before you speak "? Well, Newspeak encouraged the opposite.

One way Newspeak reduces the role of language in thinking is by restricting vocabulary. Any words that could be used to question or criticize the party are removed, and the semantic meaning behind certain words has slowly been removed.

The word free is still present in Newspeak, but only in terms of free from , e.g., The tea is free from sugar. The word can no longer be used in relation to liberty.

Removing certain words not only restricts what people can say but also promotes a narrowing of thought, making people easier to influence and control.

A final priority of Newspeak was euphony , i.e., being pleasant sounding on the ear. The pleasant-sounding nature of words like M intrue (The contracted version of Ministry of Truth) helps to mask the ideology they carry. Orwell took the inspiration to contract words in this way from the Nazis and the Communist Party and their words, such as comintern (Communist International).

Although Newspeak was designed to replace Oldspeak (Standard English), in the novel, the transition was not yet complete, and the party hoped to see a complete removal of Oldspeak by the year 2050 (a very quick turnaround considering linguistic shifts usually happen gradually over thousands of years!)

Examples of Newspeak in 1984

Now we have a good idea behind the reasoning and purpose of 1984 's Newspeak, let's look at some examples. We'll start with grammar, as this largely dictates and explains how new words are created, and we'll finish with some vocabulary and quotes.

Newspeak Grammar

Although the grammar of Newspeak is much the same as Standard English, there are a few differences that set it apart. The key differences revolve around standardization, contractions, and the use of affixes.

Comparatives and superlatives are created with the prefixes plus- and doubleplus- , e.g., cold, pluscold, doublepluscold. They can also be created in a standardized way by adding the suffixes -er and -est.

All words can be negated with the prefix -un , which helps with the removal of negative or critical words. The prefix un- is also used to talk about things that no longer exist., e.g., unperson means a dead person.

Use of contractions and blends - Many phrases, especially those that carry political ideology, are contracted into a singular word to make them easier to say and more pleasing to the ear. E.g., The Ministry of Truth is contracted into Minitrue .

Standardized spelling to show grammatical forms, such as tense, aspect, number, and person. For example, thought becomes thinked, children becomes childs, and drunk becomes drinked.

Interchangeability of parts of speech , i.e., nouns, verbs, and adjectives, can play the same role in a sentence and can all serve as a root word that receives affixes.

Adjectives are created by adding the suffix -ful . For example, uglyful.

Adverbs are created by adding the suffix -wise . For example, fully becomes fullwise, quickly becomes speedwise, and carefully becomes carewise.

Use of the prefixes ante- and post- to mean before and after. E.g., antework and postwork means before work and after work.

Doublespeak and Doublethink

Two terms that are essential in understanding the creation of Newspeak are doublespeak and doublethink .

Doublespeak is a linguistic technique that uses lots of euphemisms and ambiguous, indirect language to disguise what is really being said. INGSOC's party slogan, "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength," is an example of doublespeak.

Doublethink is a term coined by Orwell and describes the ability to believe that two conflicting ideas can be true at once. For example, the word joycamp, the Newspeak word for a forced-labor camp, is an example of doublethink.

Newspeak Vocabulary

We will now look at the vocabulary according to Orwell's own classifications. In the appendix for 1984 , Orwell included a document entitled "The Principles of Newspeak," in it, he outlines the "perfected" form of Newspeak, i.e., the completed language. He states that all vocabulary will be classified into three categories: Class A, B, and C.

Class A Words

The class A words were used to describe everyday life. These are English words that have been widely restricted, and additional meaning is often expressed with affixes. The root words typically describe concrete objects and physical actions, and anything negative or theoretical has been removed.

• Ungood - bad
• Good - good
• Plusgood - very good
• Doubleplusgood - the best
• Plusungood - very bad
• Doubleplusungood - the worst

Class B Words

The class B words are politically charged words that serve the primary function of indoctrinating the general public into following the party's ideology. They have been constructed in such a way that they present complex ideas in a short, pleasant-sounding, and easy-to-pronounce way. Techniques used include doublethink, doublespeak, euphemisms, and the use of contractions and compound words .

• Thoughtcrime - Thinking thoughts outside of the party's ideology
• Facecrim e - A facial expression that gives away the fact someone had "unpure" thoughts
• Thinkpol - The thought police
• Blackwhite - A conceptual word to show acceptance that two opposite things are actually the same thing
• Unperson - Someone who has been "vaporized" (presumably murdered)
• Artsem - artificial insemination
• Joycamp - a forced labor camp
• Goodsex - sex purely for procreation that involves no physical pleasure, especially for women — the only type of sex permitted
• Sexcrime - any sexual interaction that doesn't fit with the above description
• Minluv - the Ministry of Love, which is responsible for torturing and brainwashing enemies
• Minipax - The Ministry of Peace, which is responsible for war
• Miniplenty - The Ministry of Plenty, which is responsible for ensuring Oceania is in constant economic hardship
• Minitrue - The Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for dispersing propaganda, rewriting history books, and keeping the proletariats entertained with synthetic culture

Class C Words

These are words to do with the sciences and are only readily available to those who need them, i.e., those working within a scientific field. Much like class A words, they have been heavily restricted.

Newspeak Quotes

To finish our section on Newspeak examples, let's look at some quotes about Newspeak from the novel 1984 :

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it. - Syme in chapter 5, 1984.

All beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, and mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. - Goldstein in chapter 9, 1984.

1984 Newspeak - Key takeaways

• Newspeak is a fictional language used in the novel 1984 . It is the official language of Oceania, a dystopian superstate.
• The language was created by the ruling party of Oceania to replace Oldspeak (Standard English).
• Newspeak is similar to Standard English, except it is marked by linguistic techniques such as euphemisms and contradictions and morphologically contains a lot of suffixes, contractions, and compound words .
• Newspeak was designed to be spoken quickly and allow for whole thoughts to be reduced into short, simple, and pleasant-sounding terms. This means the speaker and the listener aren't allowed much time to think.
• Doublethink and Doublespeak are important elements of Newspeak.

Flashcards in 1984 Newspeak 16

George Orwell

Oldspeak (Standard English)

An imagined state or society, usually in the future, where there are significant injustices.

The Nazis and the Communist Party

She passed away last night 

Learn with 16 1984 Newspeak flashcards in the free Vaia app

We have 14,000 flashcards about Dynamic Landscapes.

Already have an account? Log in

Frequently Asked Questions about 1984 Newspeak

What is Newspeak in 1984 ?

Newspeak is a fictional language used in George Orwell's novel 1984.  Newspeak is the official language of the dystopian superstate Oceania and was created to replace Oldspeak (Standard English).

What are some examples of Newspeak in 1984 ?

Some example words of Newspeak in 1984  include:

• Thoughtcrime
• Doubleplusgood

How does Newspeak control society?

One of the main aims of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought of the general public. By restricting the vocabulary and reducing complex thoughts to short terms, Newspeak encourages its users not to think too much, making them vulnerable to oppressors. 

What are the three levels of Newspeak?

The vocabulary of Newspeak is divided into three classes; class A, B, and C.

• Class A contains everyday words.
• Class B contains words that promote the INGSOC party's ideology.
• Class C contains scientific vocabulary. 

What is the aim of Newspeak?

Arguably, the main aim of Newspeak is to create a subservient general public that accepts the ruling party's ideology.  

Test your knowledge with multiple choice flashcards

Join the Vaia App and learn efficiently with millions of flashcards and more!

Keep learning, you are doing great.

Discover learning materials with the free Vaia app

Vaia is a globally recognized educational technology company, offering a holistic learning platform designed for students of all ages and educational levels. Our platform provides learning support for a wide range of subjects, including STEM, Social Sciences, and Languages and also helps students to successfully master various tests and exams worldwide, such as GCSE, A Level, SAT, ACT, Abitur, and more. We offer an extensive library of learning materials, including interactive flashcards, comprehensive textbook solutions, and detailed explanations. The cutting-edge technology and tools we provide help students create their own learning materials. StudySmarter’s content is not only expert-verified but also regularly updated to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Vaia Editorial Team

Team English Teachers

• 12 minutes reading time
• Checked by Vaia Editorial Team

Study anywhere. Anytime.Across all devices.

Create a free account to save this explanation..

Save explanations to your personalised space and access them anytime, anywhere!

By signing up, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy of Vaia.

Sign up to highlight and take notes. It’s 100% free.

Join over 22 million students in learning with our Vaia App

The first learning app that truly has everything you need to ace your exams in one place

• Flashcards & Quizzes
• AI Study Assistant
• Study Planner
• Smart Note-Taking

Privacy Overview

Get unlimited access with a free vaia account..

• Instant access to millions of learning materials.
• Flashcards, notes, mock-exams, AI tools and more.
• Everything you need to ace your exams.