Orwell's Revenge (40 page)

for the first time in several years:
1984,
p. 38.

The Ministry

That's better, comrade:
1984,
p. 37.

photographs, telescreen broadcasts, and so on:
1984,
p. 40.

really frightening one:
1984,
p. 6.

three hundred meters into the air:
1984,
p. 5.

corresponding ramifications below:
1984,
pp. 5-6.

gets 75 mentions in 1984:
1 include in the count references to “ministries” and also to the shortened names Minitrue, Miniluv, Minipax, and Miniplenty.

a frying-pan which has had fish in it:
“As I Please” (1945),
CEJL,
Vol. 3, p. 329.

is appallingly concentrated:
E.g., Homage to Catalonia,
p. 50. See also “The English People” (1944),
CEJL,
Vol. 3, p. 12: “The much-boasted freedom of the British press is theoretical rather than actual. To begin with the centralised ownership of the press.”

as two-penny postcards:
“The Art of Donald McGill” (1941),
Essays,
I, p. 109.

and Boys' Weeklies:
“Boys' Weeklies”
(1939),
Essays,
I, pp. 280, 281,306.

and most of all, the radio:
“Boys' Weeklies,”
p. 281. Similarly, the military and imperialist middle class have been destroyed by the telegraph, which has created a “narrowing world, more and more governed from Whitehall.” “England, Your England” (1941),
Essays,
I, p. 273.

by a conniving monopolist:
Wigan Pier,
p. 207: “Some years ago someone invented a gramophone needle that would last for decades. One of the big gramophone companies bought up the patent rights, and that was all that was ever heard of it.”

Orwell declares in a 1945 book review:
Review,
A Coat of Many Colours, Occasional Essays,
by Herbert Read (1945),
CEJL,
Vol. 4, p. 49.

some form of collectivism:
Wigan Pier,
p. 188.

vital industries like coal mining:
“London Letter to
Partisan
Review”
(1944),
CEJL,
Vol. 3, p. 125: “It is, in fact, obvious that without centralising the industry it would be impossible to raise the enormous sums needed to bring the mines up to date.”

give claws to the weak:
“You and the Atom Bomb” (1945),
CEJL,
Vol. 4, p. 7. See also Shelden, p. 328, quoting Orwell: “That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy.”

toward collective ones:
As it grows more centralized, civilization grows more vulnerable to outside enemies. “[T]he German bombers,” Orwell gloomily predicts in 1937, “could probably reduce England to chaos and starvation in a few weeks.” “Review,
The Men
I
Killed,
by Brigadier-General F. P Crozier” (1937),
CEJL,
Vol. 1, p. 283.

dividing the world between them:
“You and the Atom Bomb,” p. 8.

in fewer hands than ever before:
“You and the Atom Bomb,” p. 8.

the slave empires of antiquity:
“You and the Atom Bomb,” p. 9.

recent years has accelerated it:
“You and the Atom Bomb,” p. 9.

Chapter 4

flung it at the screen:
1984,
p. 15.

decrepit chair up to his desk:
1984,
p. 38.

like a sucked orange:
“Letter to A. S. F. Gow” (1946),
CEJL,
Vol. 4, p. 146.

due for destruction:
1984,
p. 41.

sharp-faced man:
Orwell has known men who looked like that all his life. In an autobiographical essay about his early years at boarding school, Orwell recounts how he had sneaked off campus to a sweet shop to buy some forbidden candy: “As I came out of the shop I saw on the opposite pavement a small sharp-faced man who seemed to be staring very hard at my school cap. Instantly a horrible fear went through me. There could be no doubt as to who the man was. He was a spy placed there by [the headmaster] Sim! . . . Sim was all powerful, and it was natural that his agents should be everywhere.” “Such, Such Were the Joys” (1947),
Essays,
I, pp. 15-16.

named Connolly:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 254.

hostile flash in Blair's direction:
1984,
p. 42.

at short intervals in every corridor:
1984,
p. 38.

to men like these:
Wigan Pier,
p. 193.

chunk of their consciousness:
Wigan Pier,
p. 197.

nicknamed him in his own mind:
1984,
p. 67.

saving stupidity:
1984,
p. 55.

empirical approaches in these two areas:
1984,
p. 194.

a rubbish heap of detail:
1984,
p. 91.

another species of insect:
1984,
p. 93.

the labyrinthine corridors of Ministries:
1984,
p. 61.

The Enemy

Second Thoughts on James Burnham:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham” (1946),
Essays,
II, p. 335.

technicians, bureaucrats, and soldiers:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” pp. 335-336. Cf.
1984,
p. 206: “The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organisers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians.”

in Europe, Asia, and America:
“Second Thoughts on James Bum-ham,” p. 336. Cf.
1984,
p. 186: “The splitting-up of the world into three great superstates was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century.” “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” p. 336: “These super-states will fight among themselves for possession of the remaining uncaptured portions of the earth, but will probably be unable to conquer one another completely.” Cf.
1984,
p. 188: “It is for the possession of these thickly populated regions, and of the northern ice cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling.”

a mass of semi-slaves at the bottom:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” p. 336. Cf.
1984,
p. 266: “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.”

Orwell summarizing Burnham:
The essay addresses two books by Burnham,
The Managerial Revolution
and
The Machiavellians,
and some of Burnham's other writings, all published between 1940 and 1945.

in Wigan Pier:
Wigan Pier,
p. 231; “Not Counting Niggers” (1939),
CEJL,
Vol 1, p. 398.

Coming Up for Air:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 176.

do not disprove Burnham's theory:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” p. 348.

if human society is to hold together at all:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” pp. 353-354.

tyrannies eventually collapse:
“Review,
Power: A New Social Analysis,
by Bertrand Russell” (1939),
CEJL,
Vol. 1, pp. 375-376.

of motor cars in 1850:
“Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” p. 352.

Orwell had written then:
“Review, The
Calf of Paper,
by Scholem Asch” (1936),
CEJL,
Vol. 1, p. 249.

know how successful it will be:
“Review,
Russia under Soviet Rule,
by N. de Basily,” (1939)
CEJL,
Vol. 1, p. 381. See “Notes on the Way” (1940),
CEJL,
Vol. 2, p. 17: “What we are moving towards at this moment is something more like the Spanish Inquisition, and probably far worse, thanks to the radio and the secret police.”

H. G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes:
Published 1900.

Jack London's The Iron Heel:
Published 1907. London's book does however contain this passage: “We had planned to strike our first blow at the nervous system of the Oligarchy. The latter had remembered the general strike, and had guarded against the defection of the telegraphers by installing wireless stations, in the control of the Mercenaries. We, in turn, had countered this move. When the signal was given, from every refuge, all over the land, and from the cities, and towns, and barracks, devoted comrades were to go forth and blow the wireless stations. Thus at the first shock would the Iron Heel be brought to earth and lie practically dismembered” (p. 195).

Zamyatin's We:
Published 1923. Orwell first read this in the mid-1940s, however. Shelden, p. 434.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World:
Published 1930.

Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon:
Published 1941.

E. M. Forster's “The Machine Stops”:
reprinted in The
Collected Tales of E. M. Forster
(New York: Knopf, 1947), p. 144.
1984
does, however, contain many echoes of Forster's short story. In the
futuristic world Forster describes, people live in absolute, technology-maintained isolation. The central character “knew several thousand people; in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously” (p. 145). People communicate by way of a “round blue plate” (p. 145), a “cinematophote” (p. 157), very much like Orwell's telescreen. One “mustn't say anything against the Machine” (p. 146). There is “the button that produced literature” (p. 150). But there is only one real book left; “[t]his was the Book of the Machine” (p. 151). “The Central Committee published it” (p. 152). In Forster's story, “the Machine hummed eternally” (p. 152). The central character “knew all about the communication-system . . . the universal establishment of the Machine” (p. 153). “[T]hanks to science, the earth was exactly alike all over” (p. 155). Society endures so “that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally” (p. 167). “[T]he only thing that really lives is the Machine. . . . The Machine develops—but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds—but not to our goal” (p. 176). “[T]he Machine is omnipotent, eternal” (p. 184). “Year by year [the Machine] was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence” (p. 185). “[P]rogress had come to mean the progress of the Machine” (p. 186). “The Machine still linked them. Under the seas, beneath the roots of the mountains, ran the wires through which they saw and heard, the enormous eyes and ears that were their heritage, and the hum of many workings clothed their thoughts in one garment of subserviency” (p. 191). The whole thing is run by a “central power station . . . far away in France” (p. 193). It all ends when “the entire communication-system broke down, all over the world” (p. 192). “[B]eautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven” (p. 196).

Orwell was undoubtedly familiar with Forster's story. See Shelden, pp. 177, 342-343, 399. They were contemporaries at the BBC and even collaborated in writing a “Story by Five Authors.” See
Broadcast,
pp. 32, 41.

a voice on the telescreen:
1984,
p. 209.

Chapter 5

carpeted passages in the building:
1984,
p. 168.

a mane of greasy gray hair:
1984,
p. 76.

fifteen minutes to die:
“As I Please” (1946),
CEJL,
Vol. 4, p. 239.

other channels of communication closed:
1984,
p. 207.

from the very moment of his release:
1984,
p. 77.

as a warning to posterity:
1984,
p. 77.

twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police:
1984,
p. 207.

formidable, intelligent face:
1984,
p. 169.

not far from Waterloo bridge:
Down and Out,
pp. 131, 132, 134, 161.

morasses and sickly weeds:
“Review,
Alexander Pope,
by Edith Sitwell” (1930),
CEJL,
Vol. 1, p. 22.

all other channels of communication closed:
1984,
p. 207.

for a half starved people:
Wigan Pier,
p. 90.

that dreaded thing, thought:
“Pleasure Spots” (1946),
CEJL,
Vol. 4, p. 80.

had to be as few as possible:
“Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool” (1947),
Essays,
III, p. 413.

he was hugely fat:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 166.

something very near poetry:
Burmese Days,
p. 14.

Doublethink

against those who know the facts:
“Review,
Power: A New Social Analysis,
by Bertrand Russell” (1939),
CEJL,
Vol. 1, p. 376.

when the Leader says so:
“Review, Power: A
New Social Analysis,
by Bertrand Russell,” p. 376.

asked himself that question many times:
No state can deny the truth “in ways that impair military efficiency. . . . [S]o long as parts of the earth remain unconquered, the liberal tradition can be kept alive.” “Looking Back on the Spanish War” (1943),
Essays,
I, p. 200. See also “The Prevention of Literature” (1946),
Essays,
III, p. 346: “At this stage of history, even the most autocratic ruler is forced to take account of physical reality, partly because of the lingering-on of liberal habits of thought, partly because of the need to
prepare for war. So long as physical reality cannot be altogether ignored, so long as two and two have to make four when you are, for example, drawing the blue-print of an aeroplane, the scientist has his function, and can even be allowed a measure of liberty.”