Month: September 2022

In continuance of my recent trend of reviewing dystopian novels, for this week I will be reviewing another one of Orwell’s great works, Animal Farm. Animal Farm complements Orwell’s overall message in 1984 regarding the dangers of totalitarianism and its potential consequences for society, but its structure and nature as a work of fiction is entirely different. Namely, Animal Farm is a satirical allegory that personifies animals overthrowing their human owners on a farm  to mirror the events of the Bolshevik Revolution.  After this revolution, the quasi-government that the animals establish quickly descends from collectivism to despotism. The initial principles of animalism that inspired the spirit of fraternity and solidarity are abandoned by Napoleon — the pig that ascends to leader of the farm– who favors using power to enrich himself. The story ends with the pigs, the elite class, behaving more and more like humans as they abandon all that they promised when they began to take power.

Orwell’s significant accomplishment through this novel was utilizing a simple story with events that are easily understood to act as symbols for something less understood by most people, communism. When considering the historical context that Orwell likely intend for the novel to reflect, the group of barn animals represent the Bolsheviks revolting against “Manor Farm” or tsarist Russia. The presence of animalism as a guiding ideology, that advocates above all for the equality of all animals, is most closely related to the Bolshevik devotion to Marxist-communism. Later in the revolution, we can see Napoleon emerging as the singular leader of the communist state, similar to the historical figures of Stalin and Lenin. Snowball, his main opposition, is symbolic of Leo Trotsky, Lenin’s main rival. The pig’s themselves, as an elite class, are like the “vanguard of the revolution” that Lenin imagined would be necessary to ensure the revolution took place before “real communism” could take over. However, just as is historical fact, the concentrated power is never forfeited by the communist leaders and instead simply enhances the status of the ruling class. There is also the presence of “purges” in Animal Farm, representative of the actual political purges that took place under Lenin and Stalin.

Despite its short length, Animal Farm is another novel that remains as important as 1984 in establishing Orwell as master of dystopian novels. For those unfamiliar with communism or its general historical failure as an ideology to achieve its said ends, reading Animal Farm is a great way to get a close understanding to the real history without going too deep in the mud (get my pun?). Additionally, as with 1984, Animal Farm remains a stark political prophecy that highlights the subtlety by which totalitarianism can infuse a society and even by the best intentions.

After reviewing Brave New World in my last blog post, I found it fitting to analyze a more well known and iconic dystopian novel this week: 1984 by George Orwell. In this novel, Orwell depicts a more traditional representation of what one would think when they imagine a totalitarian regime, somewhat along the lines of an exaggerated version of today’s North Korea. The regime of Oceania is cruel, oppressive, and seemingly omnipotent; it demands its citizens to display unfailing reverence to the ubiquitous symbol of the regime, “Big Brother”. However, one citizen, named Winston Smith, devotes his life to small acts of rebellion against the party in hopes of being apart of a movement that will eventually bring the party down. His defiance is ultimately unsuccessful, and he undergoes severe torture under the supervision of top party officials to ensure he is converted back to political orthodoxy. Regardless of its unsavory ending, this novel is one that has drastically shaped our society; namely, it has shaped the way we collectively thinks about government, censorship, democracy, and even objective truth. Hence, my short review will seek to demonstrate how Orwell crafted a novel whose message reverberates as an eternal truth by focusing on his use of irony and the motif of suppression of civil liberties.

Irony, or the prevalence of contradictions is a major strategy of the regime in 1984 as it gives them a monopoly upon language and truth. A political regime that can control the language to mean whatever it wants can have complete control over what the society believes. This is evident from the novel’s beginning, where Orwell illustrates irony in the party’s central slogan “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”. While such a slogan seems nonsensical as it literally equates antonyms, it demonstrates that the party has crafted the language in a way that serves their interests.  The importance of language is further emphasized in the linguistic mission of the regime to create an entirely new language named  “Newspeak”. Orwell hones in on language to convey the importance of sharing a common understanding of truth in a society and prophesizes that a nation divided upon something as basic as language will not preserve a prosperous and self-governing society, but will crumble into authoritarianism.

The suppression of civil liberties is a widespread motif throughout 1984 that illustrates Orwell’s belief in the importance of them to a functioning democracy and how their absence breeds despotism. Citizens in Oceania, for example, certainly have no protection of any fundamental rights such as religion, press, speech, fair trial, or participation in the political process. Rather each of these “rights” are considered disloyal against the regime. For instance, speech is encouraged to be strictly orthodox, any organized religion is forbbiden, and the enforcement of crime itself is completely partial and only serves to eliminate political threats to the regime’s stability.

While there are countless things about 1984 that I did not mention in this short review, it remains that this novel portrays one of the greatest political prophecies in modern history. I would suggest that if there is any one singular book that every citizen ought to read as an indirect guide for preserving democracy against totalitarianism, it would be 1984.

Recently, I finished re-reading one of my new favorite novels, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. From the beginning pages to the end, the reader is immersed in a dystopian future that exaggerates the potential of genetic engineering, medicine, and mass production to cultivate a society that is “always happy”, but at the same time enslaved. While similar in nature to 1984 in the sense that it depicts a perceivably irremovable totalitarian regime, the tactics of each regime are entirely different. While the Oceanic government in 1984 is brutal and oppressive, the government in Brave New World encourages indulgence and vice as a way to control the population by their base appetites. Namely, Huxley develops the idea of controlling and enslaving citizens through their passions and instincts.

One major motif in Brave New World that conveys how human desire can be used as a method of control is the consumption of Soma, a euphoric and hallucinogenic drug. The ubiquitous substance is given to workers in daily rations that can either be used manufacture a slight high or a “holiday”, where one is only semi-conscious for an extended period of time. Soma is uniformly considered an immediate cure for any problem one may face, or a way to enhance one of the many recreational activities the population is encouraged to engage in. Ironically, it is the use of this drug that “the Savage”, a character from a tribal reservation that is brought back to “civilization” in the name of scientific experimentation, takes the biggest problem with. His mother Linda becomes addicted to the euphoria of the drug when taken back to “civilization” and is allowed to essentially overdose by her doctor. Even while the use of Soma does not result in an overdose for most people in the society, it represents how their sense of pleasure and happiness has been confined to a substance that they are reliant upon.

Another major motif in Brave New World that connects control with allowing the indulgence of passions is in the encouragement of promiscuity and prohibiting monogamy. The employment of genetic engineering in Brave New World, which applies Henry Ford’s mass production techniques to biological reproduction, excludes the need for sex as a means of reproduction. Marriage and childbearing are hence considered taboo, as well as real relationships and romanticism. Promiscuity is not only a social suggestion but also strictly enforced, as those with too few partners or those who sleep with the same person for a while may fall under the suspicion of the government. Similar to Soma, this aspect of “civilization” is heavily scrutinized by “the Savage” who desires marriage with Lenina, a girl he is heavily attracted to. His intention to develop a real relationship with her and avoid fornication confuses her, and eventually leads him to be fully ostracized by those around him. Widespread promiscuity keeps the population complacent to their desires and ensures the success of the genetic engineering apparatus, but it prevents them form experiencing any of the true happiness associate with marriage and real relationship.

One interest I have, that I believe would make a good topic for my blog, is reviewing and analyzing books that I am either reading or have previously read. I thoroughly enjoy reading good books and especially classics such as “Great Gatsby”, “1984”, “Brave New World”, and “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I also enjoy reading a broad variety of nonfiction books covering topics from finance to religion. I think that a blog where I dove deeper into the motifs, themes, and applications of some of these books I enjoyed would allow me to not only strengthen my own perspective of what I believe the author was conveying, but also share this view with others.

Another possible topic for my blog would be to write about gymnastics. As a gymnast at Penn State, I have years of experience in training, competition, and watching/analyzing gymnastics. It is a major passion of mine and it could be interesting for me to share some of my knowledge about a sport that generally most people know very little about. While gymnastics itself is a very broad topic, I could do posts such as explaining how I learned a certain skill, explaining how the scoring system works, or reflecting on the results of a recent important competition.