Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) : Analysis 1. What Was The State of Nature?
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Jamiah HulipasNineteen Eighty-Four (1984) : Analysis 1. What Was The State of Nature?
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Jamiah HulipasPS 112: Modern and Contemporary Political Theory
Instructor: Fritz Krieg Allawey
NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1984): ANALYSIS
1. What was the state of nature?
A utopia is an imaginary place where the government, laws, and social state
affairs are faultless. Dystopia, on the other hand, is the exact contradictory of it. It is
frequently viewed as coercion, subjugation, repression, desolation, and often a
totalitarian form of government that attempts to tramp out individual liberties and self-
determinations in favour of the state’s absolute power. Oftentimes, the frontrunners of
dystopian societies try to persuade their citizens that they are well off and well favoured
for by the government. And this is the state of nature in Orwell’s 1984.
The state of nature of the film can also be professed by determining the human
nature during that time. The government (headed by Big Brother) was feared by the
people. More so, the people are compelled and coerced to follow the Party members
without much resistance. And so, the state of nature can also be addressed as a state of
war where individuals are in a “bellum omnium contra omnes” or war of all against all.
In the movie, a fictional totalitarian state was shaped and produced which allows
the populaces to discern that they could be surveyed and observed any time. There are
television screens ubiquitously, through which the higher ranking Party members can
watch and record the people’s activities. As to Big Brother‒the spearhead of the Party,
this surveillance is for the advancement and progress of the social order as a whole,
and citizens who resist or defy are branded as defectors and conspirators and soon be
vanished in the social order.
To explain it further, the people frequently see Big Brother’s face plastered on
prints that paper the streets and on their television screens. These are relentless notice
that the citizens are being observed, and all of their whereabouts are theoretically
subject to disciplinary action. As though perceived, the people do not know when
exactly does the Party members watched them, but still, fear and obedience come hand
in hand.
2. What are the reasons of revolution?
From infantile to maturity, the citizens of Oceania were proselytized with deceits
and falsehoods that equal truth, lethal doublespeak, no room to express their
observances, and barely have no place to advance their cognizance, perpetual
surveillance to guarantee their obedience in all aspect of their life. There are several
reasons why they start a revolution. First, the Party members coerced them to be
obedient to Big Brother at all times, that if they violated or act against the will of the
perpetrator, they will be punished. They cannot even go with the system and just have
a rebellion that exists only in their mind because they were surveyed by the Thought
Police. More so, there are also daily rituals that are acted upon and become a part of
the person without thought, hence, they do what they are told without deviation.
Second, every rebellious citizen that they break through torture, they learn all of the
ways on how to circumnavigate the system and can lay traps for the suspecting agents.
In addition, the government have agents hidden throughout society disguised as others
or just finding someone who is knowledgeable and someone who will not use its brain to
turn you and manipulate you into revealing yourself and other rebels seems pretty
impossible. Third, it is really difficult to find a situation where rebel isn’t already
screwed, and the odds are stacked against the government. Oceania is a society where
sex is monitored and approved by the government. This is a society where only the
PS 112: Modern and Contemporary Political Theory
Instructor: Fritz Krieg Allawey
3. Describe the social contract. Use/Cite philosophers/theorist to support your
answer.
What was the main objective of the film?
The main objective of the film is to educate the people on the disadvantages of a
posing totalitarian government in the society.
