George Orwell’s 1984, language manipulation and the Lacanian Materialism

Authors

  • Erica Fernandes Alves Universidade Estadual de Maringá - UEM
  • Geniane Diamante Ferreira Universidade Estadual de Maringá
Supporting Agencies

Keywords:

Newspeak, big Other, Symbolic, Language.

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze language manipulation in literature considering George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. The totalitarian party in the novel, the Ingsoc, tries to manipulate the reality of Oceania society by creating a new language, the Newspeak, which widely spreads the political views established by the party. This ceaseless attempt to manipulate the language is characterized as one of several strategies imputed by the political apparatus to watch over and control the citizens, especially the members of the party, so that they cannot articulate dissenting thoughts to the dominant political ideology. Based on theories by Žižek on the Symbolic and big Other concepts, found in Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis, the results show that the interference in the Symbolic instance via language is harmful since it alters the way subjects conceive the reality, depriving them of their ability to distinguish the sensor imposed by the totalitarian politics in the novel, as well as their ability to strike back. Conversely, however, language interference reveals some flaws within the party, given that the need for investment in the creation of yet another mechanism of thought control - language - denotes that the party is not, in fact, completely effective in what it intends to do.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Erica Fernandes Alves, Universidade Estadual de Maringá - UEM

Professora adjunta do Departamento de Letras Modernas - UEM

Geniane Diamante Ferreira, Universidade Estadual de Maringá

Professora Assistente do Departamento de Letras Modernas/UEM - Doutoranda em Estudos Literários PLE/UEM.

References

FOWLER, Roger. Newspeak and the Language of the Party. IN: BLOOM. Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: 1984, Updated Edition. New York: Infobase publishing, 2007. p. 93-108.

LERRO, Alessio. Lacan, Orwell, and the Illusion of the Big Br-Other (2014). Disponível em: https://alessiolerro.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/lacan-orwell-and-the-illusion-of-the-big-br-other/#more-100 Acesso em: Jul. 2018.

LIBBRECHT, Katrien. Symbolic. In: GLOWINSKI, Huguette et. al (orgs). A Compendium of Lacanian Terms. London: Free Association Books, 2001. p. 198-203.

ORWELL, George. 1984. Tradução Alexandre Hubner e Heloisa Jahn. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2013.

SILVA, Marisa Corrêa. Materialismo Lacaniano. In: BONNICI, Thomas; ZOLIN, Lúcia Osana. Teoria literária: abordagens históricas e tendências contemporâneas. Maringá: Eduem, 2013. p. 211-216.

STEINER, George. Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters (1968) Review. IN: MEYERS, Jeffrey (editor). George Orwell: the critical heritage. London/New York: Routledge, 2002. p. 363-372.

TIAGO, Héllen Nívia. “Poder Por Amor ao Poder”: Uma Análise Discursiva das Relações de Poder em 1984, de George Orwell. 2015. 144 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estudos da Linguagem), Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Catalão.

ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. The parallax view. Cambridge: MIT press, 2006.

ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. Como ler Lacan. Tradução Maria Luiza X. de A. Borges. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2010.

ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. Bem-vindos ao deserto do Real! Cinco Ensaios sobre o 11 de Setembro e Datas Relacionadas. Tradução Paulo Cezar Castanheira. São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial, 2011a.

ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. Em defesa das causas perdidas. Tradução Maria Beatriz de Medina. São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial, 2011b.

ŽIŽEK, Slavoj. Problema no Paraíso. Tradução Carlos Alberto Medeiros. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2015.

Downloads

Published

29-08-2018

How to Cite

ALVES, E. F.; FERREIRA, G. D. George Orwell’s 1984, language manipulation and the Lacanian Materialism. Travessias, Cascavel, v. 12, n. 2, p. e20068, 2018. Disponível em: https://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/travessias/article/view/20068. Acesso em: 16 jul. 2024.

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2018)

Section

[DT] AS RESSONÂNCIAS DO PENSAMENTO DE ZIZEK PARA CULTURA E LITERATURA

License

Creative Copyright Notice

Policy for Free Access Journals

Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors keep the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the  Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows sharing the trial with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Authors are authorized to take additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the work version, published in this journal (eg publish in institutional repository or as a book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.

3. Authors are allowed and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (eg in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this can generate productive changes, as well as increase both impact and citation of the published trial (See The Effect of Free Access).

 

 

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial-shareaswell 4.0 International License, which allows you to share, copy, distribute, display, reproduce, completely or part of the work, since there is no commercial purpose, and authors and source are cited.