Consider Beecher's words in light of Ninety Eighty-Four. What role does language play in Orwell's dystopia? You will want to think (and write) about Newspeak as well as Syme and his work on the Eleventh Edition ... "'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words'" (54). Also consider the following: memory, history, and love. You should be familiar with and prepared to talk about concepts such as doublethink and facecrimes. Our goal for tomorrow's class and for your comments/posts is to be precise and to make specific references to the novel; our discussion on Monday was a bit fuzzy for my tastes. A reminder, participating in the blog is a requirement of the course. It is NOT optional!
And now for a dose of trivia ... Henry Ward Beecher was born in what picturesque, might I say quintessential, New England town?
Language has a specific role in the dystopia George Orwell has shaped in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Language is used to limit the opinions people have on certain ideas.
ReplyDeleteFor this, Orwell introduced the idea of Newspeak to the novel, which consists of a language that will not include of words that would be able to contradict/oppose anything the Party is doing. It was created to “diminish the range of thought” (Orwell, 313). This would therefore give it more power (leading to absolute), since nobody could contradict them. They would have no obstacles, they would be united, and stronger fighting and believing in the same cause. This relates back to the slogan we were introduced to earlier on in the novel.
Syme is a character in the novel that works with Winston in the Ministry of Truth. He is described as working on language for the Newspeak’ Eleventh Edition Dictionary. When Winston was describing Syme, he did not seem to think that Syme should continue working to make the Party more powerful than it already is.
The Newspeak would therefore erase any memory the people had of other words and terms, and history would no longer be told, so it would be forgotten. All of the focus would be on the future. If we use the slogan to determine what the words might mean, we could think of the words changing to be something like “history is the future” or “love is hate.” As stated in the book on page 54, the antonyms of words would be destroyed and several things could not be communicated, erasing memory, history, and love since it cannot be communicated or wanted due to the propaganda.
Henry Ward Beecher was born in Lichfield, Connecticut. He had several siblings and his family was found to be religious. Lichfield was a town that became the leading commercial, social, cultural, and legal center of Northwestern Connecticut in the late 1700s. However, it later on lost some of its wealth.
I just wanted to comment on your description of Syme, since I personally don't think Winston wants Syme to stop working for the Party. Winston is just explaining to us, the readers, that Syme is too smart. Even for the Party. The Part maybe needs smart people to set up their new language, ''Newspeak'', but they don't need someone who tells them what to do. This is the reason why Winston things that Syme will be vaporized. Just because he's too smart, and that he knows too much. And people that know too much can hurt the Party, the Party knows that. So basically, they are exploiting people because of their knowledge, and when they are done they want to ''get rid of them'', which means that they will be vaporized.
DeleteSo in simple words, the Party only wants dumb people in order to follow their slogans. However they need smart people in order to gain their ideas and to exploit people because of their knowledge. However, these people can not keep on living, just because they know too much. They know the system, they know how the Party thinks.
Helen, the Party seems to have a problem. As you point out, it needs intelligent workers to edit history and the news (think of the creativity and problem-solving skills required of Wilson when he creates Comrade Ogilvy in order to deal with the Withers problem), but intelligence is potentially dangerous. I keep asking myself how an intelligent individual, let alone a group of intelligent individuals, can continue to accept the Party's bald-faced lies and obfuscations and NOT go insane. Again and again, I return to the constantly changing information about the chocolate ration. I don't live in Winston's world, but I feel a little insane just imagining it.
DeleteThe dictionary-editing "friend" of Winston, shows the power of language, or rather the manipulation of language. The ultimate deception caused by the transmitters and the silent acceptance of receivers. Not only are certain words such as "Truth" and "Love" and the words in the slogans severely paradoxical and mean what we normally think of as normal, but Syme shows that when oldspeak disappears, only newspeak will remain.
ReplyDeleteNewspeak will mean, old literature will be abolished. Newspeak will destroy such concepts such as freedom, because in newspeak such things do not exist. The dictionary editing job effectively dimishes the vocabulary of newspeak and what the people become capable to conceive and to know. Because thoughts can be formed in one's mind without actual words, to express this and to spread this to a wider public, language is the tool that people need, and if this language is becoming more and more limited, and eventually arrives a moment that there are no words for the concept formed in the head, then that concept is futile. And if this situation, continues then people will become incapable of imagining what freedom is, due to the fact that there are no words no longer associated with it, and without the language to represent it, freedom will "vanish".
The eradication of words such as splendid and excellent in favour of double good or double plus good, minimalizes language to its less beautiful extent. Such thing as poetry and literature will only become reduced to political propaganda that only aims to express the most concise with only double and plusses.
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ReplyDeleteTrivia Answer: Litchfield, CT!!!
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