The never ending revolution

The universe presented by Orwell in “1984” is a dystopia. Utopia and dystopia are polar opposites: On the one hand, Utopia would be a perfect society in terms of politics, laws, customs and conditions. On the other hand, dystopia would be the illusion of a perfect society based on oppressive control.

In this dystopia, we find the party with the big brother at the top of the pyramid. On the other side of the coin, we find the public enemy number one: Emmanuel Goldstein, the leader of “The brotherhood”, which is the enemy of “The party”. Two crucial characters in “1984” that people have only seen on a screen.

Big brother and Emmanuel Goldstein are 2 symbols used to intimidate society in order to maintain it under control.

Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity (Orwell, 15-16)

So here we have the enemy, someone people should hate. But, do we have more evidence than just the two minutes of hate of Goldstein’s existence? Goldstein is almost a ghost, just a face that people HAVE TO hate because “The party” says it. We will never know if Goldstein is real or not, but his present is tremendously convenient as an image to hate and, as proposed by “Goldstein: Real or Not Real?”, the fount of a never ending revolution (par.5).

Why never ending revolution? Assuming that “The party” created Goldstein, and probably the picture that people see is an actor, Goldstein becomes a symbol. A symbol by itself is almost impossible to destroy, because this “man” is meant to be a ghost, an entity of chaos. If it does not exist, it cannot be killed.

Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization (Orwell, 19)

Big brother is omnipresent and invisible, he has never made a personal appearance, he looks down on you everywhere, in public and private (Tucker, 8). The ministry of truth and big brother give the impression to the world that the order present in society is the correct one and it is the best for everybody:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell, 6)

What Big brother produces in society is a sense of security because he has the truth and wants the best for everybody. People feel that if they follow Big brother they are going to be okey and they are not going to go to prison. The thing is that nobody has seen Big Brother in person; he is also a ghost, just like Goldstein. Nobody can confirm the existence of both characters. This may make us question ourselves if both characters are real or just a creation of “The party”. These symbols cannot be destroyed because they go beyond a person; they are not going to die.

All in all, you cannot kill what you cannot see. What I want to say is that based on the evidence stated before and because both characters are physically just an image in a screen, it is not crazy to believe that both character were created by “The party” in order to maintain this submissive society to keep the established order, which suit perfect for the inner party.

References

“1984” by George Orwell (Dropbox version)

Goldstein: Real or Not Real?

http://19843bugs.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/goldstein-real-or-not-real/

Robert C. Tucker

http://sharepoint.svsd410.org/mshs/roremb/Literature%20%20Communications/Does%20Big%20Brother%20Exist%20Article.pdf