1984 Group

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cvw
cvw
Student
Community / Jr. College

Who is Emmanuel Goldstein and how is he presented to the people of Oceania? What is the probable significance of using the obviously Jewish name?

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Posted by cvw on Monday March 9, 2009 at 3:23 PM and tagged with 1984, characters, plot, theme.

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  1. danylyshen Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Emmanuel Goldstein is the fictional creation of Big Brother and the party. Goldstein was created to be the symbolic enemy of the party and they use his image during the two-minute hate to channel and project all the feelings of hatred, frustration, and other toxic emotions. Goldstein might have an historical correlation also. Enotes criticism states that

    Goldstein is reminiscent of Leon Trotsky the great enemy of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin who led an unsuccessful revolt and was later brutally murdered by Stalin’s men. It is no accident that he is a Jewish intellectual because dictators Stalin and Adolf Hitler deeply feared and hated the Jewish intelligentsia. (source)

    Goldstein is another tool amongst many in Big Brothers' array of manipulation. In making a psuedo-communistic state in Oceania, Orwell is implicitly suggesting that communist Russia at the time of writing, was some sort of real life Oceania.

     

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/1984/characters

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    Posted by danylyshen on Tuesday March 10, 2009 at 8:25 AM