1984, Blog log 3 - The environment

To begin with, 1984 is taking place in London, which is the chief city of Airstrip One. Winston Smith, the main character, is convinced that people, including himself, is living in some kind of dystopia, even though many aren’t aware of that.

George Orwell is mostly using a language that is easy to understand with just enough adjectives when describing persons and buildings to invite the reader to freely envision those, as well as making the differences between different objects and persons clear. At times we are even told which smell that dominates a scene. The following quotation shows us a example of a description of a person Winston saw in a café.

He was a monstrous man, with a mane of greasy greyhair, his face pouched and seamed, with thick negroid lips. At one time he musthave been immensely strong; now his great body was sagging, sloping, bulging,falling away in every direction. He seemed to be breaking up before one’s eyes,like a mountain crumbling.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 44)

In general Orwell only describes the most important buildings and persons, while he just mentions the common look of everything else in that area or on that office. For example, he describes the view from Winston's window as cold and colorless, despite the fact that the sky was intensely blue and the sun shining. This gives the reader the feeling of a city without life and hope. The mentioning of that the world looked cold adds a sightly creepy character to the story, especially during the night hours.

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Downin the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals,and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to beno colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere.(1984, 1949. George Orwell, P. 1)

What we get to know is what Winston sees, feels and thinks. The number of descriptive words are not few, but not that many either. Orwell might have chosen to limit the descriptive words in order to make his story apply to as many societies as possible. If the goal was to make people aware of possible future conflicts between interest groups, such as governments, and ordinary people, one can say he has done a good job describing the environment.