Home Creating Society in Orwell’s 1984
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Creating Society in Orwell’s 1984

A semiotic analysis of the notion of social transformation
  • Murat Kalelioğlu

    Murat Kalelioğlu (b. 1971) is an Assistant Professor at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey. His research interests include language and literature, textual analysis and interpretation, semiotics, and semiotic literary criticism. His publications include “The theory of signification: Semiotic criticism and literature” (2017); “Analysis of Duha Koca Oğlu Deli Dumrul narrative within the framework of literary semiotics” (2018).

    EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 10, 2018
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

In this paper, the idea of constructing a new society in George Orwell’s 1984 is analyzed in the context of the Paris School’s semiotics trajectory. Saussurean legacy, which heavily sheds light on the semiotic conception of the school proposed by Greimas, asserts the significance of dichotomies for signs to gain their meaning. Accordingly, the study is grounded on the desired and non-desired contrariety to make the analysis with the semiotic square meaningful. It is possible to encounter the traces of the proposed idea pertaining to the struggle of forming an ideal society at all levels of meaning, predominantly at the deep level as the proposed idea represents the elementary meaning of the narrative, throughout the text. Considering the approach, desired society gains its meaning in the face of the non-desired one relativistically. Regarding the opposition theory of Saussure, what is good for the Party is not supposed to be good for the Opponents. For this reason, the idea of creating society is on the battleground, as there is an uphill fight between the ruling Party and the Opponents. The formation of desired society is revealed thanks to the semiotic square by focusing on both positive and negative transition processes. The really interesting aspect that we encountered is the vicious unended cycle and the war that will never end between the stated groups within the framework of the ideology/axiology perspective.


1 This article is produced from the doctoral dissertation entitled Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four narrative within the framework of literary semiotics theory submitted by the author in February 2018 at İstanbul Aydın University, Institute of Social Sciences, English Language and Literature Program.


About the author

Murat Kalelioğlu

Murat Kalelioğlu (b. 1971) is an Assistant Professor at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey. His research interests include language and literature, textual analysis and interpretation, semiotics, and semiotic literary criticism. His publications include “The theory of signification: Semiotic criticism and literature” (2017); “Analysis of Duha Koca Oğlu Deli Dumrul narrative within the framework of literary semiotics” (2018).

References

Arendt, Hannah. 2004. The origins of totalitarianism New edn. Introduction by Samantha Power. New York: Schocken Books.Search in Google Scholar

Becnel, E. Kim. 2011. Bloom’s how to write about George Orwell Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Danesi, Marcel. 2004. Messages, signs and meanings: A basic textbook in semiotics and communication theory 3rd edn. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.Search in Google Scholar

De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1959. Course in general linguistics Translation by Wade Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library.Search in Google Scholar

Decker, M. James. 2007. George Orwell’s 1984 and political ideology. In Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s modern critical views: George Orwell updated edn., 133–144. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.Search in Google Scholar

Dorfman, Ariel. 2014. Repression by any other name. Guernica February 3. https://www.guernicamag.com/repression-by-any-other-name/ (accessed 15 January 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Duvall, N. John. 1982. Using Greimas’ narrative semiotics: Signification in Faulkner’s The Old People. College Literature 9(3). 192–206.Search in Google Scholar

Fontanille, Jacques. 2006. The semiotics of discourse Translation by Heidi Bostik. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Giroux A. Henry. 2015. Totalitarian paranoia in the post-Orwellian surveillance state. Cultural Studies 29(2). 108–140.10.1080/09502386.2014.917118Search in Google Scholar

Gottlieb, Erika. 2007. George Orwell: A bibliographic essay. In John Rodden (ed.), The Cambridge companion to George Orwell 190–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CCOL0521858429.015Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. Julien. 1988. Maupassant: The semiotics of text: Practical exercises Translation by Paul Perron. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/sc.1Search in Google Scholar

Greimas, A. Julien. 1971. Narrative grammar: Units and levels. MLN 86(6). 793–806.10.2307/2907443Search in Google Scholar

Günay, V. Doğan. 2013. Metin Bilgisi [Text analysis]. 4th edn. İstanbul: Papatya Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Gwyneth, Roberts. 1983. Introduction to “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell. http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/eint_gr (accessed 25 December 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Hébert, Louis. 2011. Tools for text and image analysis: An introduction to applied semiotics. Translation by Julie Tabler (version 3). Texto! Textes et Cultures 3. www.signosemio.com/documents/Louis-Hebert-Tools-for-Texts-and-Images.pdf (accessed 12 February 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Kalelioğlu, Murat. 2017. The theory of signification: Semiotic criticism and literature. IJLA 5(8). http://dx.doi.org/10.18033/ijla.3809 (accessed 22 December 2017).10.18033/ijla.3809Search in Google Scholar

Kalelioğlu, Murat. 2018. Analysis of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four narrative within the framework of literary semiotics theory İstanbul: İstanbul Aydın University, Institute of Social Sciences, Doctoral Dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Martin, Bronwen & Felizitas Ringham. 2000. Dictionary of semiotics London: Cassell.Search in Google Scholar

Orwell, George. 1968. Politics and the English language. In Sonia Orwell & Ian Angos (eds.), The collected essays, journalism and letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose 1945–1950 127–140. London: Secker & Warburg.Search in Google Scholar

Orwell, George. 2013. Nineteen Eighty-Four Annotated edn. U.K.: Penguin Modern Classics.Search in Google Scholar

Quinn, Edward. 2009. Critical companion to George Orwell: A literary reference to his life and work New York: Facts on File Infobase Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Propp, Vladimir. 2009. Morphology of the folktale 2nd edn. Revised and edited by Louis A. Wagner. Austin: University of Texas Press.Search in Google Scholar

Power, J. Daniel. 2016. “Big Brother” can watch us. Journal of Decision Systems 25(1). 578–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/12460125.2016.1187420 (accessed 11 March 2018).10.1080/12460125.2016.1187420Search in Google Scholar

Rodden, John. 2006. Every intellectual’s Big Brother: George Orwell’s literary siblings Austin: University of Texas Press.10.7560/713086Search in Google Scholar

Saunders, Loraine. 2008. The unsung artistry of George Orwell: The novels from Burmese Days to Nineteen Eighty-Four Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited.Search in Google Scholar

Spender, Stephen. 2004. On morality in the novel. In Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s guides: George Orwell’s 1984 43–44. New York: Chelsea House Infobase Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Yıldız Uzdu, Funda & Günay V. Doğan. 2011. Yazınsal Söylemin İdeolojik Boyutu [Ideological dimension of literary discourse], Synergies Turquie 4. 153–167. https://gerflint.fr/Base/Turquie4/yildiz.pdf (accessed 25 March 2018).Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2018-11-10
Published in Print: 2018-11-27

© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 23.11.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/css-2018-0027/html
Scroll to top button