He Sees You When You're Sleeping...(Metonymy)

“ ‘Does Big Brother exist?’

‘Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.’

‘Does he exist in the same way as I exist?’

‘You do not exist,’ said O’Brien.”

-p 259

I thought that I should take the opportunity presented in this passage to discuss a rather obvious utilization of metonymy in Orwell’s 1984. This case of metonymy, which uses the figure of Big Brother as equivalent with the Party and its ideals, is different from most cases, however. Normally with metonymy, the object which is being used in lieu of the original object is actually real. As this passage hints at, however, Big Brother is not, in fact, real. While O’Brien does not actually state that there is no living Big Brother, his way of automatically equating Big Brother’s existence with the existence of the Party indicates that O’Brien knows Big Brother as a person does not actually exist. Yet despite this, in many ways O’Brien is correct in saying that Big Brother exists. Big Brother is, as O’Brien says, “the embodiment of the Party;” he is the personification of the Party, the figure which all people both fear and adore. That fear and adoration is frighteningly real. Those emotions expressed toward Big Brother—toward the party—are very much real. In this sense, Big Brother is real, as the Party has caused such strong emotions toward Big Brother that he might as well be real. As the Party philosophy likes to muse, the people believe Big Brother exists; therefore, Big Brother is in their midst.