That's Amore

“Eight minutes had gone by. He readjusted his spectacles on his nose, sighed, and drew the next batch of work toward him, with the scrap of paper on top of it. He flattened it out. On it was written, in a large unformed handwriting: I love you.”

--p 108

Well, this is a rather interesting plot twist, eh? Personally, I was more than a bit surprised when Winston read the note and discovered those three little words. Like Winston, I was expecting the note to entail details about where Winston could meet with a Brotherhood operative, or even with Goldstein himself. I thought that Orwell’s main focus in this book involved Winston’s attempt to rebel against Big Brother. Now, however, I have a feeling that Orwell’s plot is not as grandiose as I believed. Perhaps Orwell’s tale will turn out to be a romance story amid a harsh, unaccepting society (unlikely). Perhaps the tale is simply supposed to be that of a regular man in his futile life within an oppressive government. This possibility seems rather likely. I now doubt that Orwell’s intent is to write of Winston’s endeavor to bring down Big Brother; after all, Orwell’s intent in writing 1984 was not to teach how to overcome socialism, but rather to warn against accepting socialism before it is implemented.

Things Are Looking Doubleplusungood (Vernacular)

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words….Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well—better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning, or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still…In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words—in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?”

--p 51

This rather frustrating passage summarizes the entire concept behind Ingsoc’s vernacular, known as Newspeak. The interesting aspect of Orwell’s usage of a vernacular is that not only does he use it, but he explains it. If Orwell had simply written in the vernacular, including words such as “ungood” and “doubleplusgood”, the reader would infer that Big Brother has dumbed down society, creating a stupid—and almost illiterate of sorts—mass of citizens to obey them. By explaining why citizens speak in Newspeak, however, Orwell sends an even more frightening message. Big Brother has created Newspeak not to make it easier to express ideas, but actually to make it harder. By limiting people’s power of expression, Big Brother limits their power to think independently. The whole point of an expanding language is to accommodate for new ideas, opinions, and beliefs. By shrinking the language, Big Brother slowly but surely inhibits these ideas and opinions, getting a firmer grip on the minds of its subjects over time. Orwell explains his vernacular to emphasize the implications of “benevolent control.”