Self and space, resistance and discipline: a Foucauldian reading of George Orwell's 1984

Abstract

The novel 1984, George Orwell's nightmarish vision of totalitarianism published after the Second World War, remains relevant in the twenty‐first century. Orwell's concerns regarding the abuse of power, the denial of self, and the eradication of both past and future continue to resonate in contemporary discussions of politics and society. Geographers, however, have directed minimal attention to the spatiality embedded within 1984. Accordingly, in this paper I examine the theoretical implications of space, resistance and discipline as manifest in the novel. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, I detail how the spatial and temporal control of everyday activities serves to discipline spaces within a totalitarian society. Moreover, I suggest that 1984 illustrates how the production of knowledge through the act of writing may forge spaces of resistance within disciplined spaces. This paper contributes, therefore, in two areas, these being resistance geographies and fictive geographies.

Keywords:

• resistance
• discipline
• George Orwell
• literature

Notes

George Orwell is the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair. The son of a minor British official, Orwell was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India. Much of his early childhood, however, was spent in England with his mother (his father stayed in South Asia till 1912). As a child, he attended St Cyprian's preparatory school and, later, Eton College. Throughout his life Orwell worked in an assortment of jobs, most related to journalism and literature. His first work, though, was as an Assistant Superintendent of Police in Burma from 1922 to 1928. Later, he taught at a small private school in Middlesex; fought in the Spanish Civil War; worked for the BBC disseminating propaganda to British Colonies in India and South‐East Asia; and as literary editor for The Tribune. He died of tuberculosis in 1950.

Minor references to public executions are in evidence in 1984, an observation that seemingly contradicts Winston's statement that public purges are unusual. We are left with two possible explanations for these seemingly contradictory statements. First, biographers have noted that Orwell, given his declining health, was not able to re‐read his novel and correct certain inconsistencies. These statements, therefore, may simply be read as errors made by Orwell in his writing. A second interpretation, however, is that, while unusual, Winston does not say that all executions were conducted in private. It may be that certain criminals—particularly prisoners of war—were more likely to be publically executed, whereas prisoners of the state were simply made to ‘vanish’.

Not all critics are in agreement that Julia's sexuality is a form of resistance. Strachey (1971), for example, contends that Julia is no romantic revolutionary nor intellectual; rather, she ‘just wants some hearty sex, normally mingled with tender emotion.’ Strachey, though, misses the argument that within Oceania sex is a punishable offence. I an indebted to one reviewer who, in newspeak, comments that ‘“just want[ing] some hearty sex, normally mingled with tender emotions” in Airstrip One is revolutionful praxis of doubleplusunnormal crimethink’.

Scholars have also noted that the tortures Winston would endure in the novel mirror the medical treatments Orwell endured during his hospital stays. During the interrogation scene, for example, O'Brien says to Winston: ‘You are the last man … You are the guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as you are’ (Orwell 1983: 241). At that moment, Winston is ordered to undress and look upon his body in the mirror: ‘Winston undid the bit of string that held his overalls together … [On looking at his body], its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself … The creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage. A forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crooked nose and battered‐looking cheekbones above which the eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn‐in look … He had gone partially bald … Except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was gray all over with ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peeling off. But the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton; the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the thighs … The curvature of the spine was astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull’ (Orwell 1983: 241–242). In this passage, Orwell is apparently describing himself via the character of Winston. As one reviewer commented, however, we may not want to accept this comparison between Orwell and Winston too easily.