Utopia and Dystopia in George Orwell's 1984: Part II: Chapters 5-10
At its most basic level, a utopian society is a perfect society, the best of all possible worlds, envisioned by a person in the present, looking into a future which is hopefully better than today. A dystopian society is a society that has all of the bad elements of the present, only worse, as envisioned by a contemporary observer projecting his insights into the future. The society of 1984, as portrayed by George Orwell, has both of these elements. The present seems evil in the eyes of the contemporary reader, but given what the characters have suffered in the past, the society has utopian elements as well.On one hand, the society of the novel is profoundly dystopian, because it rests upon lies. The government lies about the fact it is at war, simply to keep the people frightened, as Julia sniffs in Chapter 5. When the government decides: "Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia," even though this is not true, it becomes 'true' in the propaganda and the past must be officially forgotten as it is
A government advocate might point out that in his previous lifetime, Winston stole chocolate from his sister and fled from his mother, and behaved, because of the environment of the times, just as badly as the overly controlled children of the present, who are willing to turn in their own parents because of their loyalty to the government. For example, his mother: "she had possessed a kind of nobility, a kind of purity, simply because the standards that she obeyed were private ones. However, as awful as these past times may have been, Winston sees his childhood existence as better. The utopia of freedom, of nostalgia envisioned by Winston and Julia, viewed in light of Winston's own memories may be false, and more like a dystopia than the characters would like to admit. When Winston and Julia finally meet and speak freely with O'Brien, they toast the past, to Goldstein, with an old beverage: "'It is called wine,' said O'Brien with a faint smile: 'You will have read about it in books, no doubt'" (Chapter 9) In true dystopian spirit, the characters salute the past and hate the present, but it is hard to tell if the hated former revolutionary demonized by the government is really good, simply because his enemies are bad. Perhaps, if not from Winston's point of view, than the point of view of some residents, the current controlled existence, when there is a reliable if dull source of food and employment, provided a citizen follows the rules and does not think too much, seems utopian. Unlike the fake, harmless propaganda war, this war was apparently bloody and real, and the current totalitarian government has at very least liberated people from a state of anarchy, hunger, and a constant sense of danger. On the other hand, it is possible that Winston is just nostalgic, and the past looks more like a golden utopia in his eyes because of the unhappiness of the present. The people accept this, because they have no choice, anyone who shows any individualism becomes like Syme, a nonperson. The world speaks Newspeak, a language allegedly better than standardized English, but in reality a language entirely drained of all humanity, carefully policed and edited by the government. Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside" (Chapter 7). However, even before the government came into being, life was hardly perfect. On one hand, this strikes the reader as profoundly true, because it resonates with the reader's own sense of belief in freedom and individuality that is very different from the controlled and dystopian environment of Orwell's novel. Instead, a different type of horror existed: "He [Winston] remembered better the rackety, uneasy circumstances of the time: the periodical panics about air-raids and the sheltering in Tube stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same color, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent machine-gun fire in the distance-above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat" (Chapter 7).
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