The Dangers of Totalitarianism
A period marked by two World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War, resulted in an unstable society oppressed by horror and despair. In the midst of chaos Europe’s dilapidated cities, ruptured economies, and tyrannical governments, became the catalyst for the Modernist movement. During the early half of the 1940s, editiors’ Jame G. Ryan and Leonard Schlup explain in Historical Dictionary of the 1940s, Modern Europe had been heavily subjected to Stalinism, as well as Nazism, in which “patterns of totalitarianism—the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the science, and the church to support autocratic authority” had prevented the Europe from maintaining peace, …show more content…
Throughout the novel Orwell informs the reader of the manipulation that occurs in a totalitarian political system, using the example of the government’s ability to control its public by molding language into propaganda in order to control how they think. In his book review, published by the New York Times, author Mark Schorer explicates Orwell’s concept of a tyrannical system, insisting that the book is “a work of pure horror,” though “ no other work of this generation has made us desire freedom more earnestly or loathe tyranny with such fullness” (Schorer, “When Newspeak Was New”). It becomes clear to Schorer that Nineteen Eighty-Four serves to criticize totalitarianism, as Orwell creates terms used to represent the limitation of thought, such as Newspeak, doublethink, and Thought Police, to demonstrate how the political system impedes on human rights. In Jeffrey Meyers’ George Orwell: The Criticial Heritage, critic Philip Rahv reviews Nineteen Eighty-Four and asserts that Orwell’s “attachment to the primary traditions of the British empirical mind has apparently rendered him immune to dogmatism” (267). Orwell’s awareness of the totalitarian opinion asserted as truths, that is, the dogmatism of totalitarianism has prevented him from falling into the chaos of a disoriented state in which many modernists find themselves. Ultimately, Orwell’s experiences throughout his life have contributed to his awareness of tyrannical
A period marked by two World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War, resulted in an unstable society oppressed by horror and despair. In the midst of chaos Europe’s dilapidated cities, ruptured economies, and tyrannical governments, became the catalyst for the Modernist movement. During the early half of the 1940s, editiors’ Jame G. Ryan and Leonard Schlup explain in Historical Dictionary of the 1940s, Modern Europe had been heavily subjected to Stalinism, as well as Nazism, in which “patterns of totalitarianism—the single political party, the control of schools, press, radio, the arts, the science, and the church to support autocratic authority” had prevented the Europe from maintaining peace, …show more content…
Throughout the novel Orwell informs the reader of the manipulation that occurs in a totalitarian political system, using the example of the government’s ability to control its public by molding language into propaganda in order to control how they think. In his book review, published by the New York Times, author Mark Schorer explicates Orwell’s concept of a tyrannical system, insisting that the book is “a work of pure horror,” though “ no other work of this generation has made us desire freedom more earnestly or loathe tyranny with such fullness” (Schorer, “When Newspeak Was New”). It becomes clear to Schorer that Nineteen Eighty-Four serves to criticize totalitarianism, as Orwell creates terms used to represent the limitation of thought, such as Newspeak, doublethink, and Thought Police, to demonstrate how the political system impedes on human rights. In Jeffrey Meyers’ George Orwell: The Criticial Heritage, critic Philip Rahv reviews Nineteen Eighty-Four and asserts that Orwell’s “attachment to the primary traditions of the British empirical mind has apparently rendered him immune to dogmatism” (267). Orwell’s awareness of the totalitarian opinion asserted as truths, that is, the dogmatism of totalitarianism has prevented him from falling into the chaos of a disoriented state in which many modernists find themselves. Ultimately, Orwell’s experiences throughout his life have contributed to his awareness of tyrannical