Criticism > Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism > Special Commissioned Entry on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, W. Scott Lucas - Themes

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THEMES

In his study of The Great Gatsby, Roger Lathbury notes, “Novelists do not, as a general rule, start out writing about ideas. They begin with incident or mood.”¹ Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is an exception to that general rule. The novel starts from the concept of “the last man in Europe” moving from acquiescence to questioning to rebellion against the power of the State and Party. While the novel begins with the mood of natural—“vile wind,” “gritty dust” (743)—as well as man-made oppression, this is used to establish immediately the image of a beaten-down man in a giant, unfeeling system.

Orwell's ideas are never far from the surface of the text. At some point, they are the text, as in his reproduction of Goldstein's analysis of politics, society, and the Party or his presentation of the Appendix on Newspeak. In other passages, the political statement suddenly appears in Winston's personal...

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1. Introduction
2. Evolution Of Nineteen Eighty-Four
3. On Nineteen Eighty-Four
4. Themes
5. Critical Summary
6. Nineteen Eighty-Four In History
7. Adaptations
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four As Studied
9. Further Reading
10. Copyright

1. George Orwell