Writing in response to Orwell (Due: Monday, February 23, 2009)

Yesterday we took some time in class to talk through some possible approaches you might take as you write in response to Orwell's Ninety Eighty-Four.

For this one-page post, you might draw from the questions, connections, quotations, themes, ideas/interpretations that you voiced during your reading of Orwell or from his essay "Why I Write" as jumping off points for talking about his text. You might write a journalistic article, a letter, poetry, or a mixture of text genres in response to Orwell's novel.

For those of you who would like a bit more structured guidance with this piece, check out the following prompts I've written up in the past. Feel free to respond directly to one of these or to modify it to fit your goals as a writer.

1. Orwell presents four "great motives" for writing in his essay. Trace one or more of these motives through Nineteen Eighty-Four. You might consider which motives seem to hold the most importance in his writing.

2. Examine how the poem that Orwell includes in 'Why I Write' might connect to his novel. You may choose to identify and discuss a) stylistic similarities (choice of diction and literary/ rhetorical elements) and the effects he creates through these; b) images, ideas, tone, and mood.

3. Discuss the psychological and behavioral effects that various aspects of Orwell’s dystopian society have on its citizens. Through your analysis you might consider any of the following: a) the overall structure of the society; b) the daily lives of its people; c) the manipulation of information (reality control/doublethink); and d) the development of Newspeak.

4. In the first eight chapters of Part II, Orwell deals extensively with the relationship between Winston and Julia. Consider the following excerpt taken from p.122 of 1984. Discuss how this moment works within the larger context of these chapters.

“He turned over toward the light and lay gazing into the glass paperweight. The inexhaustibly interest-ing thing was not the fragment of coral but the interior or the glass itself. There was such a depth of it, and yet it was almost as transparent as air. It was as though the surface of the glass had been the arch of the sky, enclosing a tiny world with its atmosphere complete. He had the feeling that he could get inside it, along with the mahogany bed and the gateleg table and the clock and the steel engraving and the paperweight itself. The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia’s life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.”

5. Goldstein’s The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism clarifies the system that governs the three super powers of world (Oceania, Eastasia, and Eurasia). Through these political writings Orwell details the development of this system of government and the economic, political, socio-cultural, and psychological requirements needed to protect its interests. Why might have Orwell have included this section in the novel? What purpose does it serve?