George Orwell's 1984, perhaps one of the most important works of the 20th Century, is also one of the most famous works of both Future History and, thanks to the passage of time, what we might call Honorary Alternate History, as 1984 has come and gone and the world Winston Smith inhabited is not quite what the IOTL 80s turned out to be. Still, the world described, from the dilapidated, grey confines of London and Airstrip One to the farcical nature of world affairs, in which three superpowers which might or might not exist are in a state of permament war against each other, until they suddenly are not, because they have always been at war with the other guys, because such is the same in which the balance of power is maintained in this world.
Leaving aside the ambiguity that permeates throughout the novel, and just how real the stuff Winston reads and learns about are, taken at face value the world is divided between Three Superpowers -Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia-, each with their own off-shoot of Pseudo-Once-Might-Have-Been-Marxist Leninist Theory: English Socialism, Neo-Bolshevism, Olibeteration of the Self.
But, as said before, a big point in the novel is that Winston can never truly grasp the true reality of the world around him, as he's constantly being fed lies and he's constantly plagued by his own biases, amongst other issues.
So it hasn't been uncommon for readers, in particular those with inclinations similar to ours, to question just how real Goldstein's book and IngSoc MiniTru Propaganda can be.
Running them down, the possibilities we have are:
1. Everything is to be taken at face value, Eurasia and Oceania are really sending millions of troops to Africa and shelling each other across the English Channel, until they suddenly get orders to stop and start bombing the Chinese instead. This is done to waste resources and keep the population downtrodden and miserable.
2. Nothing can be trusted, neither Eastasia nor Eurasia are real, and in fact Oceania is the only of the presented nations to exist, either as an isolationist North Korea-like style existing just a couple of miles from a relatively normal Europe, as a last-nation-on-earth type of state which survived a US-Soviet Nuclear Holocaust and is barely holding out, like Britain in Children of Men/V for Vendetta. They might not even hold all of Britain or the British Isles. Of course, it might not even be 1984 at all.
Perhaps the last option is what we're supposed to get out of the whole thing, or perhaps is what readers get in a post-1989 world, in which things like the late Kim Dynasty in North Korea and the proliferation of things like Information Warfare and Fake News have made us realize how thin the layers of reality can be at times.
What do you guys think? What does the world of 1984 really look like? Does it hold up as Future/Honorary Alternate History? Or does it not matter, as Orwell's point goes beyond the world-building and the like?
Leaving aside the ambiguity that permeates throughout the novel, and just how real the stuff Winston reads and learns about are, taken at face value the world is divided between Three Superpowers -Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia-, each with their own off-shoot of Pseudo-Once-Might-Have-Been-Marxist Leninist Theory: English Socialism, Neo-Bolshevism, Olibeteration of the Self.
Oceania is the superstate in which protagonist Winston Smith dwells. It is believed to be composed of the Americas, the British Isles (called "Airstrip One" in the novel), Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and Southern Africa below the River Congo. It also controls, to different degrees and at various times during the course of its perpetual war with either Eurasia or Eastasia, the polar regions, India, Indonesia, and the islands of the Pacific. Oceania lacks a single capital city, but London and apparently New York City may be regional capitals. In the novel, Emmanuel Goldstein, Oceania's declared public enemy number one, describes it in the fictional book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism as a result of the United States having absorbed the British Empire. Goldstein's book also states that Oceania's primary natural barrier is the sea surrounding it.
It is stated that Eurasia was formed when the Soviet Union annexed the rest of Continental Europe, creating a single polity stretching from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Orwell frequently describes the face of the standard Eurasian as "mongolic" in the novel. The only soldiers other than Oceanians to appear in the novel are the Eurasians. When a large number of captured soldiers are executed in Victory Square, some Slavs are mentioned, but the stereotype of the Eurasian maintained by the Party is Mongoloid, like O'Brien's servant, Martin. This implies that the Party uses racism to avert sympathy towards an enemy, selectively parading Central Asian troops in front of the Oceanians.
According to Goldstein's book, Eurasia's main natural defence is its vast territorial extent, while the ruling ideology of Eurasia is identified as "Neo-Bolshevism", a variation of the Oceanian "Ingsoc".
Eastasia's borders are not as clearly defined as those of the other two superstates, but it is known that they encompass most of modern-day Mainland China and Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. Eastasia repeatedly captures and loses Indonesia, New Guinea, and the various Pacific archipelagos. Its political ideology is, according to the novel, "called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-worship, but perhaps better rendered as 'Obliteration of the Self'". Orwell does not appear to have based this on any existing Chinese word or phrase.[2]
Not much information about Eastasia is given in the book. It is known that it is the newest and smallest of the three superstates. According to Goldstein's book, it emerged a decade after the establishment of the other two superstates, placing it somewhere in the 1960s, after years of "confused fighting" among its predecessor nations. It is also said in the book that the industriousness and the fecundity of the people of Eastasia allow them to overcome their territorial inadequacy in comparison to the other two powers.
But, as said before, a big point in the novel is that Winston can never truly grasp the true reality of the world around him, as he's constantly being fed lies and he's constantly plagued by his own biases, amongst other issues.
So it hasn't been uncommon for readers, in particular those with inclinations similar to ours, to question just how real Goldstein's book and IngSoc MiniTru Propaganda can be.
Running them down, the possibilities we have are:
1. Everything is to be taken at face value, Eurasia and Oceania are really sending millions of troops to Africa and shelling each other across the English Channel, until they suddenly get orders to stop and start bombing the Chinese instead. This is done to waste resources and keep the population downtrodden and miserable.
2. Nothing can be trusted, neither Eastasia nor Eurasia are real, and in fact Oceania is the only of the presented nations to exist, either as an isolationist North Korea-like style existing just a couple of miles from a relatively normal Europe, as a last-nation-on-earth type of state which survived a US-Soviet Nuclear Holocaust and is barely holding out, like Britain in Children of Men/V for Vendetta. They might not even hold all of Britain or the British Isles. Of course, it might not even be 1984 at all.
Almost all of the information about the world beyond London is given to the reader through government or Party sources, which, by the very premise of the novel, are unreliable narrators. Specifically, Julia brings up the idea that the war is fictional and that the rocket bombs falling from time to time on London are fired by the government of Oceania itself to maintain the war atmosphere among the population. The protagonists have no means of proving or disproving the theory. Furthermore, during preparations for Hate Week, rocket bombs fall at an increasing rate, hitting places such as playgrounds and crowded theatres, causing mass casualties and increased hysteria and hatred for the Party's enemies. War is also a convenient pretext to maintain a huge military–industrial complex in which the state is committed to developing and acquiring large and expensive weapons systems, which almost immediately become obsolete and require replacement. Finally, according to Goldstein's book, war makes handing over power to a small caste easier and gives the pretext to do so.
Perhaps the last option is what we're supposed to get out of the whole thing, or perhaps is what readers get in a post-1989 world, in which things like the late Kim Dynasty in North Korea and the proliferation of things like Information Warfare and Fake News have made us realize how thin the layers of reality can be at times.
What do you guys think? What does the world of 1984 really look like? Does it hold up as Future/Honorary Alternate History? Or does it not matter, as Orwell's point goes beyond the world-building and the like?