He loved Big brother Winston's movement

1. “HE LOVED BIG BROTHER”: WINSTON’S MOVEMENT TOWARDS
A POSTRUCTURALIST DISCOURSE IN GEORGE ORWELL’S 1984
Master’s Degree in Literary and Cultural Studies in Great Britain and
Anglophone Countries
Lucía Sánchez-Valdepeñas Hernández
Lectura, discurso, práctica.
Academic year 2017-2018
25th
May 2018

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ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to analyse the change Winston’s discourse in the novel 1984.
From a struturalist discourse, focused on binary oppositions and placed essentially on
the realm of the “signifier”, Winston will eventually embrace the poststructuralist (and
postmodern) discourse of the Party. The multiplicity of signification and its focus on the
“signified”, on the invisible, on the mind will define this new approach to discourse,
along with its relation to power.
Key words: discourse, structuralism, poststructuralism, power
INTRODUCTION
Published in 1949, the novel 1984 remains one of Orwell’s most important creations.
Lately, which the growing political instability, the novel has suffered a Renaissance, and
has become once again, a best-seller. The topic this novel deals with —an authoritarian
regime which controls both the mind and the body of its citizens— seems to reflect the
socio-political reality of our times.
Set in the dystopian state of Oceania where Ingsoc is the dominant ideology, 1984
narrates the sufferings of Winston, a worker for the Party who opposes the system. In his
resistance, Winston seems to have understood where the only possible solution for the
fall of the regime resides: in the proletariat, the “proles”. He believes he has the answer,
the understanding necessary to put an end to the control of Ingsoc. As it will be developed
later on, we can see Winston developing a sort of structuralist reading of the political
situation: he has understood the structure of the “tale”, the proletarians will eventually
defeat the oppressing power and regain their rights.
Nonetheless, as the story advances and he is tortured for his treacherous actions,
we perceive a change in his discourse. As he fully grasps the inner workings of Ingsoc
and enters their understanding of the world, he accepts a poststructuralist discourse
(which will also be linked to postmodernism): he embraces the dualisms and
contradictions of the Ingsoc discourse and use of history.
The statement of this paper, that Winston suffers a transition from a structuralist
discourse to a poststructuralist one, will be supported by different secondary sources.
Mainly, I will be using Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse and power and Fredric
Jameson’s approach to postmodernism, along with Raman Selden’s guide to literary
theory.

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Ferdinand de Saussure, the originator of the structuralist movement, made a fundamental
contribution to the linguistic field. Through his division between langue and parole, and
signifier and signified, he drew attention to the existence of a definable system through
which language was organised. He defined the understanding of this system as
“something our minds can satisfactorily grasp” (25). This is essentially what Winston
tries to do in his rebellion against the Ingsoc: he has only understood the basic working
of the regime, but he feels the need to go beyond as he writes: “I understand HOW: I do
not understand WHY” (Orwell 83). Winston’s main goal during the novel will be to take
down the system, but to do that he must get to understand its workings first.
When applied to narratology, structuralists focused on trying to unveil the basic
structures of literature. Several structuralist theorists placed their focus on language in
order to develop which were the main grammatical structures that lay under literary
structure. In this sense, the structuralist will analyse the language used in the text in order
to come up with the main principles that control the plot of the story. Winston also
develops a sort of structuralist reading of the situation he is living in as he shows a Marxist
reading of how the Ingsoc system will finish:
If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming
disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to
destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from
within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even
of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just
possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in
larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an
inflexion of the voice, at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles,
if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have
no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a
horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow
morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet——!
(Orwell 72)
In his use of language and his understanding of how the story will develop we can
perceive his structuralist analysis. I do not mean to imply that Marxism is a structuralist
movement, but rather, that Winston’s idea of how his own story should develops mimics
the Marxist doctrine —the proletariat eventually taking over the system. Even the text’s
own structure resembles this reading. Winston is presented as a sort of hero, the holder of
the truth, who will eventually, through the reading of Goldstein’s book, participate in the
destruction of the corrupted and oppressive society he lives in

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In his reading of History (a key element for the proper function of the Ingsoc),
Winston understands it as the system upon which everything rests: he refuses to accept
the Party’s incongruences: as structuralists did, Winston also understands the “underlying
structures as timeless and self-regulating” (Selden 104). Following the structuralist
tendency towards binary oppositions, Winston presents himself as the only person who
has noticed the changes in History, as opposed to the rest of the population. His interest
in preserving History as the stable entity it is supposed to be resembles the structuralist
approach to language in a pseudo-scientific way, analysing the system and the norms that
control this. Therefore for Winston, the disruption of this system implies that: “History
has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right”
(Orwell 162).
During the first two parts of the novel, Winston remains in the realm of the
“signifier”. In his theory, de Saussure established the distinction between “signifier” and
“signified”, the two parts of the linguistic sing. The “signifier” refers to the written or
spoken word; the “signified” relates to the concept —as Selden explains it, “what is
‘thought’ when the mark is made” (67). Winston’s main concern is that his treachery will
be discovered through his actions, rather than through his thoughts. For example, his
writing of the diary is identified as the actual crime, rather than the actual thought of hate
against the party: “It seemed to him that it was only now, when he had begun to be able
to formulate his thoughts, that he had taken the decisive step. The consequences of every
act are included in the act itself” (Orwell 30).
Nonetheless, as de Saussure pointed out, “the link between signal and signification
is arbitrary” (78). For Winston, there is no clear link between the actions of treachery
(what we can understands as the “signifier”) and the actual consequences. Even those
who do not commit clear acts against the Party are in risk of being vaporised —the
character of Syme, described as a very orthodox member of the Party, is as suitable for
disappearance as Winston himself: “One of these days, thought Winston with sudden
deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and
speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is
written in his face.” (Orwell 56).
In his interest for the “signifier”, Winston believes that the main truth will be
found in Goldstein’s book. His relationship with this book is the summary of all of

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Winston’s structuralist discourse: for him, the written words on the text will take him
directly towards the “signified” of the system of the Party —the book would represent de
Saussure’s linguistic sign, the symbiosis of “signifier” and “signified”. Furthermore, this
texts serves Winston to reinforce his Marxist interpretation: “Without having read to the
end of the book, he knew that that must be Goldstein’s final message. The future belonged
to the proles” (Orwell 229). Essentially, Winston is worried about his visual productions,
about the “signifiers” that he produces that can be identified with treason, rather than with
the fact that in his mind, the “signified” has already been produced.
At the beginning of the third part of the novel, Winston will be tortured by the
Party in order to change his mind. This process will be understood as a challenge to
Winston’s discourse —he will be obliged to accept the Party’s use of language, whose
main focus is placed on the “signified”, on what cannot be seen, on thought.
Poststructuralist theories were a step beyond what structuralism had proposed to
the linguistic field. They switched their interest, and focused mainly on the “signified” —
this side of the linguistic sign is more abstract, related to the invisible meaning. This void,
or absence is understood as the place where fiction resides, as the imaginary space. As
we will analyse in the following pages, poststructuralist theories can be applied to the
discourse of the Party and its three main elements, namely Newspeak, doublethink, and
the mutability of the past.
Where structuralism believed in the stability of meaning thanks to the underlying
structures that controlled language, poststructuralist acknowledge that the creation of
meaning has an unstable nature (Selden 151): there is no greater order of signification,
meaning is not a stable entity that we can rely on. We can perceive this notion in the
concept of doublethink or “reality control”:
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled
out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic
against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that
democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to
forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again
at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and
above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate
subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become
unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand
the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink. (Orwell 37)

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For the Party, meaning has no real importance. Doublethink would then be the
embodiment of the multiplicity of meaning that poststructuralism advocated for. To
analyse the two other principles of the Ingsoc (Newspeak and the mutability of the past),
we need to introduce Michel Foucault’s theories on discourse and power, for it is in this
relationship that the Party is able to develop its control over society.
Foucault revised the concept of “discourse” and used it as basis for his theories.
According to Alec McHoul, Foucault’s idea of discourse “moves away from something
to do with language (in the sense of a linguistic sense or grammar) and closer towards the
concept of discipline” (26). Applying this line of thought, we can analyse the Party’s
discourse, its control of history and creation of a new language, not as simple means of
challenging meaning, but to impose their discipline.
Regarding the issue of Newspeak, the changes carried out in language are not just
interesting from a purely linguistic point of view, but in the social consequences it
implies. This new language is not simply a linguistic reduction —rather, its main goal is
to “narrow the range of thought” (Orwell 55). Following the poststructuralist focus on the
invisible (the mind, meaning) the Party’s control of society is carried out by reducing the
capacity of thought through language. Concepts such as “freedom”, then, will become
unthinkable, and therefore revolution against the Party impossible. It is in this interest in
the mind that “orthodoxy means not thinking —not needing to think. Orthodoxy is
unconsciousness” (Orwell 56).
The issue of the discontinuities in History was also addressed by Foucault.
According to him, history must be detached from the image which society has of it, and
we must acknowledge that history is abundant with discontinuities (Archaeology 7-8).
For the Party, History is as unstable as meaning: the past is alterable, and it is changed
for the discipline matters that the Party’s discourse requires. Nonetheless, this alteration
of the past is never admitted as openly as the reduction of language is —the past has
become a political tool, a way to control society:
‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls
the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable,
never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to
everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of
victories over your own memory. (Orwell 37)

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Winston’s opposition against these principles is the reason for his torture and subsequent
surrender. The pain inflicted by O’Brien as the objective, not of killing Winston (which
would make him a martyr), but rather, make him refuse his previous discourse and
embrace the poststructuralist discourse of the Party. Through the Party’s discourse,
Winston is considered to be insane. According to Foucault, the concept of madness is
created through the system’s ideology and power —those who are “mad” are condemned
to silence, their only solution is to be reabsorbed by the dominant ideology; they can only
be “tamed or trained” (Madness 149). This is why O’Brien’s main goal is Winston’s
mind:
Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is
something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the
nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you
see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I
tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind,
and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in
any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and
immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to
see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that
you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of
the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.’ (Orwell 261)
It is not a coincidence then that the torture takes place in the depths of the Ministry of
Love, a building whose interior is a mystery. The fact that the Room 101, the horrible
room where prisoners are taken for the ultimate torture is “many metres underground, as
deep down as it was possible to go” (Orwell 296). The situation of the room seems to
resemble the main goal of its function: to get into the profundities of Winston’s mind, to
move into the realm of the “signified”.
Winston’s location inside the building is only approximate, as he seems unable to
completely locate himself in space. The Ministry of Love becomes a symbol for the
postmodernist architecture that Fredric Jameson closely analysed in his writings: a
hyperspace that “has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual
human body to locate itself . . . and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external
world” (39). In this building, Winston is completely immersed in the imaginary space that
resides in the “signified” —he is then unable to find a “signifier”, a reference in the
discourse he used to know.
Therefore, Winston’s ultimate betrayal is not a physical, not even political action,
but a mental betrayal. Once this happens, once the Party has been able to fully control his

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mind, the void that poststructuralists pursued, he is absorbed by the system’s discourse.
The last pages of the novel show a wasted Winston, a man who has been stripped from
his individual discourse and pushed into the multiplicities of meanings of the Party’s
discourse. In his embrace of this poststructuralist discourse, unable to hold to a stable
meaning, he accepts the discontinuities in History, embraces doublethink and participates
in the creation of a Newspeak dictionary. He no longer questions the deep structure of the
Party, which moves for the sake of pure power only —he loves Big Brother.
In conclusion, I believe that we can see a transition in Winston’s discourse that
can be analysed using structuralist and poststructuralist theories. From a discourse based
on trying to understand a deeper structure, on the performance of specific “signifiers”,
and on the belief that there is a distinct order that organises literature, Winston moves to
a completely different realm. The poststructuralist discourse of the Party follows
Foucault’s most basic theories on discourse: it is a tool for power, used to impose a certain
discipline and reject those who do not adapt to the norm. Their main focus is on the mind
of the people, rather on their actual actions —eventually, Winston will adapt to this
discourse, entering the space of the “signified”, approaching reality accepting the
discontinuities created by the Party.

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WORKS CITED
de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics, translated by Roy Harris,
Bloomsbury, 2013.
Foucault, Michel. History of Madness, Taylor & Francis, 2006.
---------------------. The Archaeology of Knowledge, Routledge Classics, 2003.
Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Duke
University Press Durham, 1997.
McHoul, Alec and Wendy Grace. A Foucault Primer: Discourse, power and the subject,
New York University Press, 1997.
Orwell, George. 1984, Penguin Books, 2008.
Selden, Raman. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Theory, Prentice Hall-Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1997.