Nineteen Eighty-Four

Orwell's dystopia of surveillance, Newspeak, and the party that owns truth itself.

Specifications & Metrics

author

George Orwell

type

Dystopian novel

era

Late modernism (1949)

language

English

setting

Airstrip One (London), Oceania

parts

3 parts

Relative Scale in Novels

Core Principles & Analysis

• Published in June 1949, a year before Orwell's death.
• Its terms — Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Room 101 — entered everyday English.
• The appendix on Newspeak reads as a study in how language limits thought.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Nineteen Eighty-Four