George Orwell’s Social Vision in Nineteen Eighty-Four

Abstract

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel published in 1949 by English author George Orwell. The novel is set in Airstrip One, formerly Great Britain, a province of the super state Oceania, whose residents are victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. Oceania's political ideology, euphemistically named English Socialism (shortened to "Ingsoc" in Newspeak, the government's invented language that will replace English or Old speak is enforced by the privileged, elite Inner Party. Via the "Thought Police", the Inner Party persecutes individualism and independent thinking, which are regarded as "Thought Crimes".