The Embodiment of Totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty

Key Words：inequality , totalitarianism, interference of the Communist Party, inspanidual freedom

Abstract：George Orwell’s political satire Nineteen Eighty-Four has been regarded as one of the most influential literary works in the twentieth century and it mainly embodies totalitarianism. The reason why totalitarianism comes out is that Orwell left London for Spanish to participate in the Spanish Civil and he witnessed the Spanish Republican Government which made him disllusioned about the future of Communism.He worshipped Marxist in 1936. However, Stalinists started to hunt down Anarchists, and Orwell had to escape with his wife from the chaos. The war made him understand the difficult situation of the Socialisist Movement. On the other hand, in 1939, German invaded Poland and Soviet Union’s policies were bleak. Orwell became even more concerned with the totalitarianist problem. The embodiment of totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four is as follow: Firstly, the Party makes full use of “thought police” and other means to contral people’s freedom and deprive them of what they deserve. Secondly, the Communist Party maintains inequality by maintaining the class distinction .Thirdly, “thought police” and the spying equipment such as “telescreen” is to interfer people’s private lives, for example, the Communist Party tries its best to prevent Winston and Julia from being in love and stop son-mother relationship.The purpose for the embodiment of totalitarianism is to warn the coming totalitarian rather than to predict and it is Orwell’s work Nineteen Eighty-Four that sharpens the reader’s eyes so that they can see these dangers.

论文关键词：不平等；极权主义；共产党的干涉；个人自由

内容摘要：乔治.奥威尔的政治讽刺小说《一九八四》被认为是二十世纪最有影响的文学作品之一。这部小说主要体现的是极权主义思想。极权主义思想之所以在这部小说中得到体现是因为奥威尔亲自参加过西班牙内战，亲眼见到了西班牙共和国的统治，逐步破灭了他对共产主义未来的幻想；另一方面，1936他崇拜马克思主义，但那些斯大林主义者排除异己，奥威尔和他的妻子不得不逃避这场灾难。这场战争使奥威尔意识到社会主义形式的艰难。另一方面，1939年，德国法西斯入侵波兰，苏联的 政治一片黑暗。这些使奥威尔更加关注极权主义问题。极权主义在《一九八四》主要体现在如下几个方面：第一，党充分利用思想警察和其他手段来其他手段来控制人们的自由，剥夺本属于他们的权利；第二，党维持等级差异来维护不平等;第三，思想警察和间谍工具如电视屏幕来干涉人们的私生活，列如，党尽力阻止温斯顿和朱丽的爱情以及温斯顿和他母亲之间的母子情。奥威尔之所以在《一九八四》中体现极权主义是因为他要向世人警告即将到来的极权统治而不是预测。是奥威尔的《一九八四》使读者檫亮眼睛来看清楚所存在的危险。

As Orwell's masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is often termed as the most famous anti-utopian novel in the twentieth century. Published in 1949, the novel was an instant success like Orwell's other famous political fable Animal Farm, for it reveals a serious social problem of that time-he threat of imminent Totalitarianism.

In this anti-utopian novel, Orwell did achieve two major aims: one was to attack the evil of despotism and totalitarianism; the other was to enlighten people's political consciousness. The greatness of Nineteen Eighty-Four lies in the fact that it reminds people of the importance of politics, and it everyone to his or her part in society. As a result it makes us think about what we for granted in our we are responsible not only for our own fate but also for the daily life, be aware fate of the world.

Labeled as one of the three most important "anti-utopian" novels of the twentieth century (the other two are Zamiatin's We and Aldus Huxley's The Brave New World), Nineteen Eighty-Four describes the most horrible future. People tend to ignore the literary achievements in the book due to its strong and stressed political tone and plain language However, in Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell illustrates the subtle change of the protagonist Winston's mentality. And he used the technique of stream-o" f-consciousness in Winston's diary. He also employed suspense to grab reader's interest to make Nineteen Eighty-Four an interesting novel, instead of a "political novel" as people would think. Besides, all the sufferings and torture Winston has gone through, all his vain effort to stay sane in an insane world, and the final tragic ending of the novel give it an aesthetic value of a great literary work. For all these above reasons, Nineteen Eighty-Four is profound not only in political ideas, but also in literary achievements. Orwell perfectly blended his political point of view and modern literary perspectives and techniques into this novel.

Criticisms and literary reviews on Nineteen Eighty-Four fall into many categories according to different angles or approaches. It is impossible to list all of them here.

Firstly, some criticists approach the novel using the archetypal method and Freud's psychoanalysis.

The central conflict of the inspanidual's rebellion against the State reenacts the Christian myth of man's first disobedience, Adam's against God. For in each novel there is a god figure, the embodiment of the State, who demands absolute adoration and obedience. And in each there is an Adam-like protagonist who, for love of an Eve, defies this god by asserting his instinctual freedom and thus "falls" from the utopianistic new Eden. This mythic conflict Adam rebelling against the atavist god figure-is a fictional manifestation of the psychic conflict that Freud posited between the inspanidual and society. This quotation shows that Gorman Beauchamp tries to compare the themes of two dystopian novels by using archetypal criticism. He observes there were a God-like figure and an Adam-like figure in each novel. And he further illustrates the conflict between the two figures as the one between the inspanidual and community by referring to Freud's theory.

Secondly, some criticisms study the novel from the humanist point of view. Canadian Scholar Anthony Stewart writes in his dissertation George Orwell, doubleness and the Value of Decency: Orwell teaches us how to see what is common between us-our common humanity. His instruction is to treat one another decently, as befitting that humanity. In order to accomplish this goal, we must be able to see ourselves doubly, that is, to see ourselves and our own interests but also to see these in relation to the selves and interests of others.…The ability to see the world from other than one's own perspective was for him a crucial and lifelong pursuit and finds expression in much of his writing.[1] In this case, Orwell's major works including Nineteen Eighty-Four are studied from humanistic perspective. Stewart stresses the interpersonal relationships to illustrate the humanist and inspanidualist needs of heroes, like Winston and Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Fourthly, some other criticisms approach the book by comparing contemporary political issues with the social problems reflected in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

As a radical writer, Orwell was deeply influenced by democratic ideas. These ideas are permeated throughout Nineteen Eighty-Four. The criticisms I have read on Nineteen Eighty-Four seem not to have included systematic and thorough study on this aspect of the book. " Thus, it is the purpose of this dissertation to interpret the democratic and humanist views Orwell implied in the book in an attempt to show how a totalitarian reign could harm the welfare of the people in an imagined future world.

Since Orwell himself is considered "one of the foremost commentators on literature and politics in the twentieth century", [3]the present dissertation will be based on many of Orwell's political essays to do an interpretation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, so as to reveal the profound theme of the novel, namely, totalitarianism.

It will be the argument of the present thesis that: Orwell was an idealist, a realist, and a skeptic at the same time. He has sometimes been labeled as anti-communist.But actually he was somewhat paradoxical, for he was on one hand radical but-on the other hand reserved and skeptic of revolution. He sometimes thought revolutions and social reforms were futile since they did not bring equality closer in the society. Thus Orwell was not specifically an anti-communist; he simple was against all the regimes that suppress humanity. Being an idealist and skeptic at the same time, it was all too natural for him to act like that. He never accepted ideas and theories without questioning and scrutinizing. Communism definitely was once ideal if it had not turned out to be the tools of the ruling class in some countries in his time. He criticized many left-wing intelligentsias for he saw through that to carry out such a theory as Communism would mean much more encumbrances in reality than in published writings. A society under the administration of socialist or communist party till faces the old problem: there will always be ruling class and ruled class. The oligarchy of society is almost impossible to be wiped out, no matter who the ruler is.[4]

1. The Background of Totalitarianism

Orwell went through a radical leftist to a rather conservative and neutral humanist during his life time. The embodiment of totalitarianism is closely connected with the events he went though and the socity he grew up in. It will be necessary to study the writer’s life experience and the social condition of the first half of the twentieth century to better understand totalitarianism in the novel.

1.1 Orwell's Life Experience

The life of George Orwell is packed with a wide variety of activities and experiences, which are consciously reflected in Nineteen Eighty-Four

In 1936, Orwell left London for Spain, to participate in the Spanish Civil War. He joined an independent, non-Stalinist, Marxist group. When Stalinists on their own side started to hunt down Anarchists, O" rwell escaped with his wife from the chaos. The war made him understand the difficult situation of Socialist movement. And he tasted cruelty and sordidness of war. But above all, the final defeat of this just war and complicated inner struggles for political power he witnessed in Spanish Republican Government made him disillusioned about the future of Communism. This period was a turning point in his political stance. He wrote in "Why I Write": "The Spanish war and other events in 1936-37 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism." [6 ]This indicates that at the time he might be suspicious of Communism, which is the ultimate version of Socialism. But he still firmly believed in democratic Socialism to be a solution to social injustice and inequality.

In 1939, German's invasion of Poland started World War 1I with the fast approaching of Nazi army and the change of Soviet Union's policies, Orwell became even more concerned with the problem of totalitarianism. He was worried about the future of the world and the fate of human society.

Under the social circumstances of that time, it was nearly impossible to get any publicity in the English press for a truthful account of what was happening in Catalonia. Because it was a time when the intellectuals everywhere were bleating “Stalin good, Hitler bad". When he was struggling to tell the truth and disclose the lies happened in Spain, his fellow people had been used to the corruption of revolutionary ideals and the evil of totalitarian habits of thought. He had no choice but only through the way of political satire to tell the truth and let people know what they should know. This reflects his debts to Swift's political satire Gulliver's Travel. When he first read Gulliver's Travel at the age of eight, he loved it so much that he read it for many times. His two masterpieces Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four just began for him there and then, thanks to his bloody experience in Spain and his reading experience during his childhood.

1.2 The Social Condition in the First Half of Twentieth Century

During the first half of twentieth century, Britain Imperialism was in its decline. The world had been in great turmoil, full of big social upheavals. The First and Second World Wars broke out. After the World War 11, many Western intellectuals went through a period of disillusionment一they lost their ideals and wondered where the society was going. They were disheartened about the reality, and they felt pessimistic about the future. Nevertheless, most of them did not give up their pursuit for better future of human society. There was also the hard time of the Great Depression. Scientific development included the start of women’s participation in political affairs; important ideological movements included Nazi aggression and the Soviet Union’s establishment.

2. The Embodiment of Totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four

When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism one stands amazed at their spanersity.They are all people with something to lose,or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. For Orwell,a hierarchical society was one where the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings was not possible and the totalitarian government try its best to interfere people’s private lives.The embodiment of totalitarianism is exhibited by restricting inspanidual freedom, maintaining inequality and interference of the government into people’s private lives.

For a human being, freedom includes physical freedom and spiritual freedom. The two are limited to an unimaginable terrible extent in .Nineteen Eighty-Four. Totalitarianism goes so far as to intrude people's last and most" freedom-the freedom of thought. To remain as a normal and sane inspanidual is the protagonist Winston's desire. However, under the control of totalitarianism, inspanidual freedom is not possible.

The protagonist Winston does not want to give up his ability of serious thinking. Despite the fact that he is quite clear if he writes a. diary, he will. be considered to have commit "thought crime"; he chooses to do it, which means death sooner or later. Because he knows:

He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote:

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free., when men are different from one another and do not live alone-to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone.

From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink-greetings! [7]

For Winston, the aim of writing a diary is not a revolt in the true sense. He just wants his diary to help him remain sane in a world where: everyone seems insane and out of control. And by staying sane he can carry on "the human heritage", which means men's pursuit of truth during the long human history. The age of Winston is an age of "uniformity" and "solitude", which means everyone should be orthodox under the control of the state and be alienated from each other. Many people have vaporized in Nineteen Eighty-Four, so Winston is alone in trying to be sane. But under the pressure of "thought police", they have no way to unite together. People with sanity will feel as lonely as though they were deserted on a forlorn island.

It is natural and humane that inspaniduals maintain difference from one another and to be emotionally connected with family and friends is of human nature, too; but the totalitarian government has forced people to abandon these natural needs. Party members are treated as parts of a big machine. Deprived of the ability of thinking and judging, they have no dignity of being human. In some aspect, they cannot even enjoy the freedom of a wild animal, since they cannot do what they want and cannot go where they like. They live and breathe for he sake of the Party. To some extent, they are even inferior to domestic animals, for not only the freedom of their action is limited, but also the freedom of their thinking is controlled. What they have is pathetically the deepest part in their mind which can escape from the surveillance of "thought police". The freedom they have has been narrowed to the utmost. Orwell gave us a graphic depiction in the following:

He took a twenty-five cent piece out of his pocket. There, too, in tiny clear lettering, the same slogans were inscribed, and on the other face of the coin the head of Big Brother. Even from the coin the eyes pursued you. On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters, and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet-everywhere always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed-no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.[8]

Here we can also see that Big brother is like a semi-god figure in Oceania. A great amount of propaganda is permeated into people's lives. Personality cult is used as a manipulative method do control people's minds. These were features of the Soviet Union at that time. Orwell saw Russia went further and further away from egalitarian and democratic Socialism as the dictatorship got tighter.

The essential freedom Winston believes in is the freedom of pursuing truth. He writes in his diary: "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows." [9]

The Party is a great liar in the sce" ne that it is determined to deceive people out of what they should enjoy and deprive them of what they deserve. To do this they have to deny truth. When people are still able to struggle for truth, the government is curable and there is still hope for the improvement of society. If people do not have the chance to complain, if they have no rights to say "no" to lies and injustice, there will be no freedom at all.

Equality between people is the most beautiful wish of human beings. Nevertheless, the absolute sense of equality will never be fulfilled. The rule of the reality will always be "Survival of the fittest". Civilization sometimes covers this problem, sometimes amends it, or whitewashes it, but there is no way that we can get rid of it, so long as the world is a spanerse one and. people are doing more and more different jobs as society develops. Nevertheless, the progress of civilization should prove itself a more equal one by narrowing the gaps between people's incomes and their living conditions.

What is humanity? Almost everybody wants to be higher in social status and richer than others. This leads to competitions and fights. To make the majority satisfied, equality is the best way to balance many social conflicts between classes. Thus it is an essential part of the demands of humanity. Human nature is complicated. Selfishness, kindness to others, sympathy, jealousy... are all aspects of humanity. A mature and humane society should at least take some measures to diminish inequality between classes.

The Inner Party of Oceania uses patriotism as an artifice to distract people from focusing on important social problems such as inequality and class-hatred. In Nineteen Eighty-Four the wars between the three great powers are no longer a means to grab interest abroad, but to maintain the class distinction.

In the book that O'Brien gives Winston, it introduces the theory and practice of the oligarchical collectivism in Oceania. The book is assumed to be written by Emmanuel Goldstein, who is the enemy and traitor of the Party, but actually it is written by some Inner Party members and O'Brien is one of the writers. In the book it systematically analyzes the structure of the society. It points out the fact that there have been three classes in the world since a long time ago, and the essential structure of society has always been the High, the Middle and the Low. Revolutions and social changes can not shake this structure. The High and the Middle do not want the world to be an equal one, since it is natural for people to wish to be better off than others. What they try is to stay where they are or climb to higher social status if possible. It is only the wish of the to be equal with the other two classes. But when people are in the bottom of the social structure, the wish to be equal is almost naive, since day and night they go through so much toil that they have no energy and time to dwell on the problem of inequality and how they can shake off the bondage of their bad fate. When opportunity comes, and the Middle class think it is their time to become the High, they will use "liberty" and "justice" as slogans of their revolution to attract the Low to their side. Nevertheless, these are just slogans rather than the true aim of revolution.

The selfish nature of human beings ought to be the cause of the development of totalitarianism. When the elite of the ruling class get to learn the lessons of the previous High class of how they have been overthrown, they will try every means to avoid such mistakes as their predecessors made to remain the higher class. O'Brien is a typical representation of the elite ruling class in Oceania. He and others make a systematic study of the history and laws of social class distinctions and deliberately make efforts to crush the possible dangerous thoughts and deeds. They are very clear about the purpose of their every action. Thus they are stronger and more power" ful than any past rulers. Here Orwell made predictions for the possible directions of the development of totalitarianism. In the following passage from O'Brien's book, Orwell further illustrated the problem of inequality:

Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.

Here we can see that Orwell somewhat pessimistic about the equality problem. He apparently thought that there was not any improvement in equality during the long course of human history. He might attribute this to the selfish nature of human beings. However, he went too far to say there was no improvement at all. "Advance in wealth" will definitely help to improve equality according to Orwell's own belief. If not, the totalitarian government in Oceania would not have to deliberately destroy the superfluous material wealth by having war with other countries, because wealth is a fundamental assurance that the dream of equality can become true.

Having certain privacy in one’s life should be considered a fundamental and self-evident human right. While under totalitarian regime as is described in Nineteen Eighty-Four, privacy is not possible for Party members. And people’s private lives such as relationship’s with family and love between men and women, are all intruded upon by “thought police ”and spying equipment like” telescreen”.

In the novel, all the interpersonal relationships seem abnormal. This is because the intrusion and interference of the government into people's private lives. Through evolution, human beings evolved extremely subtle feelings while retaining some animal's traits. However, the rulers of Oceania adopt some measures such as "Anti-sex League" to control Party members' private lives. Thus, Party members become soul slaves deprived of normal human feelings.

Longing for women's love indicates Winston's animal instinct as well as spiritual need as a normal and self-conscious human being. He and Julia's relationship is going through a process of changing from simple sexual impulse to true love as they see each other more and more. This indicates that as human beings, it is only natural for people to have normal physical desires and need for spiritual communications of a higher level.

Julia's passive revolt deepens the tragic sense of the story-to some extent Winston is all by himself, as he has no one to turn to, and no "comrade". The one who truly understands him is not his lover and accomplice Julia, but his enemy O'Brien. This also shows Orwell’ s limitation in understanding women. Julia's revolt is mostly aroused by oppression of the Party on people's physical liberty.It is somewhat blind. She does not care. about serious and profound questions concerning how are governed, where the world is going and why the society is like this, etc. Nevertheless, she falls asleep while Winston is eagerly reading the book that reveals many essential secrets about how and why they are being oppressed to her. Julia does not bother about caring for other people's fate. She does not take the trouble of thinking about questions concerning the future and the past. Other than instinctively avoiding getting caught by thought police and getting food and shelter that she and Winston need, she does not think about political problems as Winston does. She just has no interest in politics because she fails to" see the close relation between politics and people's welfare.

Winston wants to know not only what Totalitarianism is, but why Totalitarianism came into being. But Julia doesn't give it a second thought. Her simplicity and carelessness showed in the first two parts of the book make her final betrayal of Winston sound only reasonable. O'Brien tells Winston that "She betrayed you, immediately-unreservedly I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly. "[10]

Love is a kind of higher level for human feelings than sex instinct. When Winston finally says "Do it to Julia", it means he has given up his pursuit of love due to his instinct of protecting himself. The Party demands its people to be humans deprived of free thinking, human feelings and physical desires. The Party does not want a society of spanersity. What it wants most is to rule people through obscurantism and coercion and make them serve the needs of the Party. The way the Party rules the people is just like a farmer raises his poultry. He takes out what he needs from his poultry but does not give them what they need like freedom and welfare. The lives of his poultry are only to serve the selfish needs of the farmer.

In Nineteen Eight-Four, when Winston and Julia are faced with choices between giving up or holding their faith, they both eventually make choices that are against their will. People that have grown up under the ruling of the Party do not have the ability to sacrifice. The Party can destroy one's courage to sacrifice oneself by using extremely cruel tortures.

Winston's vague memory about his mother and family shows his gradually deepened understanding of love, which helps him to come to realize that proles are more humane than Party members because they care about each other. Winston's attitude towards proles changes as the novel develops. At the beginning he thinks proles are somewhat inferior to others, owing to their lower social status and poor educational background. However, deprived of human feelings, intelligent people like O'Brien are not worth the title of human. They are just brutal animals.

Winston has a vague feeling that his mother sacrifices for him. The book does not tell us how she does it. However, what Orwell tried to imply here is the contrast between people in the past and people in the present. Such sacrifice just does not exist in the present time.

Winston’s mother is in contrast with Julia and Winston, as a boy, who are selfish for their own needs. But she shares some similarity with the proles. Both she and proles are loyal to private feelings.

The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that impulses, mere feelings, were of no astound, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference. Whatever happened you vanished, and neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history. And yet to the people of only two generations ago this would not have seemed all-important, because they were not attempting to alter history. They were governed by private loyalties which they did not question. [11]

Apparently, Orwell placed love above material things. To sacrifice oneself for truthful feeling is the most heroic expression of one's pursuit of ideal and love, and is the extreme embodiment of humanity for the pursuit of beauty and perfection. However, in Oceania, there is no possibility to sacrifice for one's ideal, no existence of beautiful things. Everywhere was imbued with the triumph of despotism over humanity.

To be cared about and to care about others-to be loved and to love-is most people's wish, thus it should be one aspect of humanity.. It places the love for Big Brother above all the other loves, such as the interpers" onal loves for one's spouse, for family, for friends, and so on. In fact it forbids loves other than the love for Big Brother.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a warning rather than a prediction.[12] Indeed, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a truthful record of the era of postwar austerity, severe rationing, unprepared bomb damage, shabbiness, weariness and shortages of such things as razor blades and cigarettes. It would not have horrified so many people if they had not inwardly agreed that the terrors described in it were possible. The unconventional popularity since its publication also reflects Orwell's profound insight into the postwar world. As a paperback it has sold over ten millions throughout the English-speaking world and exists in twenty-three other languages. All of these prove truth is power.

The bad taste of synthetic food and beverages all with a brand "Victory" described in the novel must have impressed the readers deeply. “He took down the shelf a bottle of colorless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.… The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club.…He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out onto the floor."[13]

The hero of the novel, Winston and his lover Julia work for the Ministry of Truth whose function is to falsify the past in accordance with the needs of present policy. Thus, when Oceania suddenly shifts alliances, becoming the ally of Eurasia and the enemy of Eastasia, with which it has been in alliance against Eurasia, the Ministry of Truth falsifies all past records to show that Oceania has never been an ally of Eastasia and never an enemy of Eurasia. It seems ridiculous, but to people who have suffered from this real kind of propaganda, it is real to them. In 1937, Japan's Fascist military troop invaded the capital of China and massacred over three hundred thousand Chinese civilians and soldiers. But today, Japanese government still refuses to admit the history. In Japanese school textbooks people cannot find the phrase “Nanjing Massacre". Once lies pass into history, the younger generation will easily accept the lies without any suspicion.

In the novel, Julia, more than ten years old younger than Winston, is ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood doesn't seem important to her. When Winston tells Julia that the Party is telling lies to people by saying the Party invents airplane, the fact strikes her as totally uninteresting. He argues with her about the switching of alliance of Oceania. But the issue strikes her as unimportant. "Who cares?" she says impatiently. [15]It seems that the .longer the lies exist and are repeatedly told to people, the more people will accept the lies. The case is true in Japan.

Orwell himself had a taste of political propaganda for he had worked for BBC for two years during the Second World War. He didn't like the job at all and resigned at las" t. He described the BBC atmosphere as "something halfway between a girls' school and a lunatic asylum". [16]What irritated him above all about the BBC was the feeling of frustration engendered by bureaucratic changes of course. “One is constantly putting sheer rubbish on the air because of having talks which sound too intelligent cancelled at the last moment... "[17] The BBC, with its multifarious departments, memos and canteen, where the wartime stew was no doubt thin, may well have served as Orwell's model for the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It is through Or-well's vivid description, vigorous intuition and clear vision that great dangers of totalitarian dictatorship have been exposed. Indeed, these dangers are everywhere. It is his works that sharpen the readers' eyes so that they can see these dangers.

The world has suffered a lot from the rule of totalitarianism. There were two catastrophic world wars in the first half of 20th during which human civilizations declined and decayed. The gloomy reality which Orwell faced forced him to make the nightmare-like warning to stir people up to avoid the abyss in front of them. His profound observations of the first half of the twentieth century and his vivid description in Nineteen Eighty-Four bestow the novel a special kind of fictional-factual style, which makes it the best illustration for the embodiment of totalitarianism.

Although Nineteen Eighty-Four was written more than half a century ago and the present world situation is much more prosperous and peaceful than that time as peace and development has become the main themes of the contemporary world, we have to admit that since 1948 anti-culture and anti-humanism have been gaining ground with a virulence which even Orwell was unable to gauge due to his own historical limitation. Atomic terror has now reached the level of crisis and is threatening not only to destroy our bodies but also to damage our minds. The drastic energy crisis and soaring-up oil prices triggered off undeclared war, whose implications are more than just economic. On the international plane, the wars of liberation from 1948 onward, the decline of the old colonial powers, the establishment of new geopolitical and military hegemonies, the rise of over a hundred new nations and the huge challenges of development are raising formidable problems of justice and even of pure survival for the world community.

Mankind has no choice, from now on it must live with nuclear weapons, an endangered genetic heritage, and a threatened natural environment. Where danger grows, the means of salvation grow as well. Yet, the human history has proved that we have the power to correct misguided development and to test our new approaches. The horrible scenes described in Nineteen Eighty-Four did not become reality in the year of 1984. Never can they be allowed to become reality in the future.

[3] George Orwell.The Complete Works of George Orwell [M].London:Secker and Warburg,1998;54.

[4]周映虹.人性与极权主义的冲突[J].北京：北京语言大学，2006:26.

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