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Exploitation of Language in Orwellian Dystopia
through Foucauldian Power
Majid Jafari Saray
ABSTRACT
This article attempts to
focus on language as a Foucauldian power tool which has mostly been employed by
totalitarian and despotic regimes to dominate their subjects not only
physically using military force but also mentally and even spiritually through
manipulation of their minds and self-policing. The best tool for mental
dominance over the masses in a given society is language which has direct
relationship with the mentality of the individuals and their mental abilities.
George Orwell reiterates this idea which comes in line with Foucauldian power
notion which categorizes language and discourse as one of the power tools.
Analysis of the novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, yields a good
substantiation to claim and supports the hypothesis of this research which
considers language as a sensitive and complicated power tool used in
totalitarian societies.
Keywords:
Orwellian Dystopia, Foucauldian Power tools, Language, Nineteen
Eighty Four, ‘Newspeak’ and ‘Ingsoc’
Exploitation
of Language in Orwellian Dystopia through Foucauldian Power
Introduction
Orwell’s
novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, focuses on Winston Smith, a middle-aged,
Outer Party member working with the Ministry of Truth. Winston is, in effect,
representing “everyman” in the middle social class in Oceania, one of the three
countries that have divided the world among themselves. Winston’s main job is
handling past paper news and adjusting them to the current requirements, thus,
recreating and polishing the “Truth.” He hardly remembers his parents or the
years he is in presently. Oceania, is a name given to one of the three nations
stretching from the Americas to Australia, including the British Isles, which
is under the rule of a mysterious “Big Brother,” a nigh-immortal, formidable,
incredibly rational, wise, omnipresent, and omniscient politico-charismatic
figure, visible to masses and party members merely through his giant posters
gazing from every wall and building.
In
Oceania, simply keeping a journal of events is an unforgivable crime which can lead
to “vaporization” of any of the members, including Winston. Along with the
total surveillance through telescreens, monitoring every action of the people,
the ruling party endeavors to wipe out the historical memory from the mind of
the society, replacing it with the preferred version of the events. However,
throughout the story, Winston’s wish to keep a record of his current days,
remember the truth and transmit it to the future generations turns out to bring
the Party’s judgment and punishment on him in the end. One of the main targets
of the ruling party in Oceania, as it is inferred from the context, in two
other states as well, history and historical interpretations of the past events
and stories are the same.
Power and its Sources
Power, like reality and fiction, is an abstract
phenomenon that cannot be observed directly, therefore, “our evidence is used
in indirect ways to establish [its]
truth” (Morriss 145). As Bertrand Russell defines it, power is the “production
of intended effects,” therefore the effects of power practice are the only
evidences to prove its existence (Clegg et al. 72). For Rescher,
“our observation is limited to performance,
to what a thing (or person) in fact does in specific occasions. Its powers and
their congeners do not lie open to public view” (181). This characteristic
makes it more difficult and complex to give a clear-cut definition, though
numerous definitions have been issued by various people, each depicting their
own perception and understanding of power. Some take it as a solid, fixed,
inflexible and unleashed phenomenon that intrudes into the remotest corners of
the personal or public lives, natural or artificial, and obliges the effected
subject to be driven into the desired way or state. Others see it as a dynamic
and flexible abstract that does not equal the negativity of “force” but rather
it usually plays a neutral role in its effect issuance. In the introduction to
his book, Power: A New Social Analysis, Russell considers power as a
dynamic phenomenon that is free from any kind of limited forms like wealth,
economics, militarism, propaganda. . . . This recognition is similar to
Foucauldian notion of power. Unlike militarists of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries or the economists and socialists like Marx who considered
military forces and economy respectively as the real form of power, Russell
says that power cannot be restricted to any of these forms as its final and
sole form, but rather, power can be witnessed in any of these outfits as its
one form from a group of forms. This group contains pen of writers as one of
the forms power can mold itself into. In this case, using language, a writer
can work on the minds of his readers by influencing them to challenge or admit
the proposed opinions. As stated above, this is one of the reasons that Plato
banned poets from entering into his Republic.
The notion of “modern power” comes into
existence through Foucault who distinguishes the traditional or “sovereign
power” from the “modern” one in terms of some traits. In The Order of Things, Foucault believes that “in classical society
power was fixed, visible, mappable,” however, “in modern society it is
uncontainable, untheorizable, [and] productive” (During 119). Sovereign power
is concentrated to be at the central part of the community where the head of
the society, the king, resides, above whom God stands at the highest. Sovereign
power is perfect at God’s site but decreases gradually descending
hierarchically down through the layers of the society and nullifies at the
outskirts of the communal colony (148-9). In particular, those whom E. J.
Hobsbawm called “social bandits” (and who were to become what Henry Mayhew
called “urban nomads”) lived outside the reach of the sovereign power (149).
While modern power encompasses all the classes and layers of the modern
society, both at the central or marginal positions.
For Foucault power finds meaning and
applicability only within society and penetrates even into the backyards of the
community. Foucault believes that
power relations are rooted deep in the social
nexus, not reconstituted “above” society as a supplementary structure whose
radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in society
is to live in such a way that action upon action is possible and in fact
ongoing. (1982: 222)
Nevertheless, by this statement Foucault does
not mean that power is applicable only to groups and individuals within those
groups nor is available in the group textures. For him power resides within
individuals and focuses on individuals though it gains meaning in the “social
nexus.” It can be used over subjects or groups without being limited to
specific classes or individuals (Brannigan 48). Foucault recognizes that power
is not controlled by individual subjects or groups but rather it is as general
efficacy which is only discernible in particular events and actions. Foucault
does not see power itself as an instrument mastered by individuals or groups.
For Foucault power is capable to create a new order through some tools
available within the society. Some of these tools have been mentioned earlier
in this thesis and will be elaborated more in the following sections. Power for
Foucault is an efficacy which “passes through, rather than emanates from, every
possible relationship” (Brannigan 48). The relationship between a writer and
his readers can also be of the power sources. Writer’s dexterity in
manipulating the language of his narrative helps him to dominate the minds of
his readers according to his reality and mentality. This tool can be a means to
make the storyline and form the reality and identity of the writer and transmit
them onto his readers directly or indirectly, directly through his frank
expressions and debates, or indirectly through the subconscious mind of the
readers by skillful utilization of the medium of communication, language. The
latter method is what Naipaul resorts in his narratives which will be dealt
with in this dissertation.
Much of the realities we hold onto are formed
by writers, politicians, philosophers, theoretical scientists and scholars, who
impose the mentally created and fictionally formulated worlds onto the laymen,
convincing them of the credibility of their ideas. Once man saw the earth as a
flat board and used to live on the flat plateau balanced on the horns of a
bull, with extremes from which he could fall down if he stepped out its
boundaries.[1] Later, he changed his view to
see the same earth as a round ball without any noticeable extremes, floating in
infinite space. Today the same globe is believed to be more oval than globe.
The nature of human being impels him to find comfortable refuge in a discipline
by fictionalizing his world more, like the one we witness in Matrix[2], as John Gray
mentions in his Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions (2004).
Language
as Power Tools in Nineteen Eighty Four
Language
is a power means that plays essential role in building up the mentalities, and
identities of the individuals and communities about the self and Other. All
other tools, such as history, ideology, education, politics and economy, gain
validity through language and history. As Language is able to create the
realities and identities through diction and depiction, history can confirm and
stabilize the created realities and identities as valid and reliable. In George
Orwell’s words, “who controls the past controls the future; who controls the
present controls the past.”[3] And
hence, who controls the language, in this case Newspeak, controls the minds;
who controls the minds controls the masses. Therefore, the modern and
postmodern colonizers have taken up again the cultural elements like language
and history to secure or expand their power positions and dominance over the
subject nations.
In
The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche
argues that the production of the intellect over long periods of time was
“nothing but errors” (169). Benjamin, Marx and Althusser jointly assert that
reality as equal to truth is a “version of events preferred, indeed imposed, by
the dominant or ruling group in society” (Branningan 42). This can be supported
with Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous statement in which he believed that “history
is written by the winners.”[4] By
writing history, the men in authority define reality and truth for their
subjects. Therefore, reality in its philosophically common signification is an
invention of a politically or ideologically dominant group who impose their
preferences on the common classes of the society as the only comprehensive and
sacred order. In order to gain enough validity for the invented reality, the
power controllers turn to revelation to relate their fabrication to the
supernatural and God. This kind of reality is, then, propagated by the dominant
group which is believed to include the ultimate truth and reality; thus attempting
to extrude all the views and news according to the patterns of their own
established dies. While “outside political [and ideological] contest and
competing wills to power” there are “only different versions of events,” which,
in his The Birth of the Clinic, Foucault labels “facts” (126).
Newspeak (Ingsoc)
In the modern world of 1984, what is happening to the language
of Oceania is depicting another facet of the case. Here the Party has launched
a great project in purifying and rectifying the "Old language" into
the "Ingsoc” or “Newspeak". The old words like "freedom",
"individualism", "peace" that have become stale and
pointless and have lost their real meaning, are to be wiped out of the
dictionaries, and consequently all texts in print or in mouths, and substituted
by the newly invented ones like, "facecrime",
"thoughtcrime", "goodthinker", "doublethink" or the words whose
meanings have been intensified or altered like "war",
"ignorance" and "slavery".
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to
provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to
the devotee of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It
was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought__ that is, a thought diverging from the
principles of Ingsoc__ should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as
thought is dependent on the words.
As discussed before there is a direct
link between a language in question, its structure and vocabulary, and the
structure of the mind of its speakers and the thought procedure of its users.
In his "Politics and the English Language", Orwell confirms:
Now, it is clear that the decline of a
language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due
simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect
can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same
effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink
because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely
because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English
language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but
the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish
thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. (Orwell Essays, 156-7)
In Nineteen Eighty Four, the same
thing is happening to the English language. Shortening and limiting the
vocabulary, in the length and meaning and omitting the unwanted words and
redundant grammatical rules is another phase of the project. The outcome, Newspeak,
will be nothing but a defective language with no comprehensive grammar and very
limited vocabulary. By this means, the government will find itself somehow successful
in penning the minds of its subjects to the afore-determined ways of thinking
which is guided and monitored strictly by the rulers.
Orwell adheres this kind of language
abuse mostly to politicians. Since politicians deal with power subject more
than any other classes, and they resort power in entirely different ways that
are generally regarded to be negative, like force, hypocrisy, political lies…
They manipulate language, corrupt it and destroy its beauty by trying to
display their ideals to the people that may never come true. "Political
language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from
Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and
murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind"
(171).
Literature is of no exception. There is a
special department called Fiction Department in which literary books
especially, so-called potboiler novels, are written "on novel-writing
machines" a work that "consisted chiefly in running and servicing a
powerful but tricky electric motor" (130).
By controlling the language and
ultimately controlling the minds of its speakers, the Party will be able to
drive the speakers to lose, after one or two generations, their ability to
speak or even think in a way other than the Party prefers. As a result, the
possibility of any oppositional speaking or problematic thinking will be
thwarted in the bud, and the danger of any kind of revolt or revolutionary
movement will be entirely eliminated.
Conclusion
As Foucault believes,
power cannot be limited to a specific source or usage; it comes from everything
and is applied to anything it includes. Everything is disposed to the various
faces of power it puts itself into. Language, sex and science are three most
common means that are hold of to get to the desired power. Since human being's
first-rate tool for communication is language, in its any form, written, oral,
symbolic, colloquial, poetical . . ., it has always been one of the most
powerful means in the hands of the politicians, scholars and prophets, to
persuade the people, lead them into their preferred paths or stir up their
emotions for their own targets. This manipulation of language as a power tool
is pervasively reflected in the literary, philosophical and scientific works.
As we saw above, in Oceania language is an important tool to control the
thoughts of its speakers, by shortening and limiting the vocabulary range and
deforming the structure of the discourse. We find Orwell's Fiction Department,
in which artificially made novels are churned out for masses, in the libraries
and governmental offices, where they try to fulfill the task of rewriting a new
dictionary to limit the vocabulary of the language and through it the mind of
its speakers. This seems to be the best method in manipulating the mentality
and creeds of the inhabitants of the society.
Taking
the above discussed means of power into
consideration and trying to find evidences of them in Nineteen-Eighty-Four gets one to this conclusion that the author,
Orwell, has had based the tenets of social self-policing trends in a given
society on the management or, in better words, manipulation of the spoken
language of the subjects and ultimately their minds.
References:
Brannigan,
John. New Historicism and Cultural
Materialism. New York: St. Martin's Press Inc., 1998.
Clegg,
Stewart. Power in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,
2006.
During, Simon. Foucault and
Literature. London: Rutledge, 1992.
Foucault,
Michel. Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, The. A.
M. Sheridan Smith (trans.). New York: Pantheon, 1972.
__________.
Birth of Clinic, The. London: Routledge, 2003.
__________.
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Alan Sheridan (trans.).
New York: Vintage, 1997.
__________.
The Order of Things: An Archeology of Human Sciences (Les Mots et Les Choses). Pantheon Books, 1970
(1966).
Gray, John. Heresies: Against Progress and Other
Illusions. London: Granta, 2004.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. Bandits. London: Abacus, 2004.
Mayhem, Henry. London Labour and
the London Poor. London: C. Griffin, [1864?].
Morriss,
Peter. Power: A Philosophical Analysis. Manchester: Manchester Univ.
Press, 2002.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Gay Science, The. Bernard Williams (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Orwell, George. 1984: A Novel.
New York: Signet Classic, 1961.
__________. “Politics and the
English Language.” Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. London:
Harcourt, Brace, 1950.
Rescher, Nicholas. Dialectics.
[n.p.], 1977.
Russell, Bertrand; Brittan, Samuel. Power:
A New Social Analysis. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1938.
[1] The famous “Flat Earth” of Flammarion Woodcut
originates with Flammarion’s 1888 L’Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire
163.
[2] Matrix
(1999) is the title of a famous movie directed by Any Wachowsky and Larry
Wachowsky.
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