Example of Marxist Analysis

What does the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four tell us about George Orwell?

• Society is class-based
• Public is easily manipulated
• People at the top have more money and power than they should have
• Regulations about language are a means of imposing social control.

STATEMENT: George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four proposes that language can be used to influence the actions and thoughts of people.

EXAMPLE: In the novel, Orwell has the Party develop a newly revised language called “Newspeak” wherein “The whole aim […] is to narrow the range of thought”, indeed Syme, one of the characters whose responsibility was to develop this new language, described the process as “cutting the language down to the bone”. He goes on to suggest that “In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

EXPLAIN: Like many Marxists, Orwell appears to be proposing to us that language can be used to manipulate society in order to place them under the control of the ruling powers.