1984 / Brave New World

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Big Brother is watching you.

Read the handout.

4E

Final test on Monday 8 April

Draw parallels between a current news and the book.

• 100 minutes
• 450 words 
• weighs 3

Apply Quotes from “1984” to news items today

1. Big Brother is watching you.
2. Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
3. Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
4. But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. 

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4B

Final test on Wednesday 17/04

Draw parallels between a current news and the book 1984 or Brave New World.

• 100 minutes
• 450 words 
• weighs 3

Knowledge Organiser

Literary terms

1. Protagonists

2. Setting

3. Plot

4. Themes

5. Fatal flaw

Topics

• Utopia vs Dystopia
• Geopolitical, technological and economic context (1940s Britain) in which the book was written.

Utopia vs Dystopia

Dystopia: an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. 

Utopia: an imagined place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions.

What is the world coming to?

• The big question of dystopian literature.
• Reaction to and criticism of your current societies & politics, and where it might be headed in the future.
• A dystopian work is a reflection of the society/political situation at the time of writing. A book from the 1950s can be radically different from a work of the 2010s.
• Older works focused more on public mistrust and suspicion, a police state, & oppression by a 1 party government. 
• Modern works focus more on global warming, social media, inequalities (wealth, race, sex), religious extremism, pandemics,  & government power.
• Yet some works written over half a century ago are still relevant today, such as 1984  or Brave New World. 

1984

Brave New World

Connect the quote to right book.

But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.

You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.

Click: Brave New World vs. 1984

Find recent news items to connect to themes in each book.

Work in pairs

Consider that a foreign, totalitarian power has invaded the Netherlands and has taken control. 

 Consider how your lives would be changed by such a take over and how you would respond to those things you can and cannot control.

• Give a description of the type of regime which has invaded the Netherlands in your scenario.

• List, in order of the most to the least, ten things that would affect your life if a foreign, totalitarian power should take over our country. These may be the things that you do or do not have control over. 
• Think about possessions, abilities, freedoms, situations, and circumstances.

• List, in order of the most to the least, six things that you could afford to lose, if that foreign power took over, and not have your lifestyle change much.
• What would your reaction be and what action might you take? Explain and be real about your answers.

Use of language in 1984

Visualize a willow.

Describe it. Sketch it.

• How does this affect the way you perceive the world?

Newspeak

• language used by the people and enforced by the government in 1984. 
• based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. 
• make any alternative thinking impossible (thoughtcrime, or crimethink in the newest edition of Newspeak dictionary)
• removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on.

Creating Newspeak Words Using Prefixes

• Really good would be turned into plusgood by adding the prefix plus the base word good.
  
• Incredibly good could be turned into doubleplusgood by adding the prefix double to plusgood.
• Boring  could be turned into unfun by adding the prefix un to the base word fun.

Using the method above create Newspeak words out of the words listed below.

• scared

• incredibly hilarious

• extremely sad

• mean

• wonderfully nice

•  excruciatingly stupid

Click on the link: Newspeak dictionary

Find out what these words mean:

• joycamp
• oldspeak
• prolefeed
• ownlife
• goodsex

The most famous example of Newspeak is the term big brother.
What do you notice about the choice of words in Newspeak? Use the term big brother to explain your answer.

How would you characterize Winston?

Do you remember what he is doing at the beginning of the book?

Moodle: reader 1984/Brave New World

• Start reading from page 21: 1984 Part 2, Chapter 8

• Add 'newspeak', 'Inner Party', 'telescreen'  and other relevant words that you come across to the key vocabulary in your knowledge organiser. 

telescreen

Inner Party

Outer Party

speakwrite

newspeak

thoughtcrime

crimethink

INGSOC

thought police

The Brotherhood

Winston

Julia

O'Brien

Emmanuel Goldstein

Mr Charrington

I know the meaning of these terms by the end of class:

• Room 101 
• doublethink (examples?)
• thought police
• memory hole
• Ministry of Truth (minitrue)
• Ministry of Love (miniluv)

Winston

Julia

O'Brien

Emmanuel Goldstein

Mr Charrington

Discuss in groups

• It is vitally important to the Inner Party that the people of Oceania be kept in a perpetual state of paranoia. Discuss how this is achieved and, most importantly, why it is so important to the party’s system of control. 

• Discuss the use of technology to control public and private behavior in 1984.
  

• How does Newspeak enable the Party to control thought and limit emotion? How important is Newspeak in the plan for perpetual Party power?

• Would you rather be a prole or a Party member in 1984? Why or why not? Provide examples from the novel to support your argument.

Why does it matter who has control over language and information?

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

Practise with connecting 1984 to today

1. Meet the Big Brother Screening Your Social Media for Employers

2. What the bunker mentality really means

Deportation and re-education: life in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine