The Concept of Power in the Totalitarian System of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell's ineteen Eighty-Four is a post-second world war literary work in which hehas portrayed the totalitariansystems. George Orwell was a political writer who was interested in the political questions of his time and he wanted to present these ideas in his novels. In his essay,Why I Write (1946), Orwell clearly explains that all the serious work he had written since the Spanish Civil War in 1936 was directly or indirectly against totalitarianism. This essay intended to explore the main theme of Orwell's novel that is the danger of totalitarianism. Therefore, at first, the characteristics of totalitarianism was discussed and then such a system was analyzed in the novel to see to what extent Orwell has been successful in depicting it in his novel. Also, the concept of 'power' as an underlying factor for the totalitarian regimeswas analyzed. To analyze power, the author applied Michael Foucault's and Jeremy Bentham's ideas on the novel. Power is a major source of social discipline and conformity according to Foucault and his idea is related to Jeremy Bentham's concept of 'panopticon'. To maintain order in a totalitarian system, it is enough to make the individuals believe that any person could be controlled at any time. Such a panoptical structure would ensure that the people would soon internalize the rules of the system and therefore they police themselves. These ideas could be applied to Orwell's novel to see the distribution of power in the novels' society in which every action of the individuals (such as Winston, the protagonist of the novel) would be under the surveillance by the Party. Therefore, the idea of 'power' in the world Orwell has depicted wasanalyzed to show how the totalitarian governments oppress their people by using every tool at their disposal.

Keywords:

Power , Totalitarian System , Michael Foucault , George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four