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Little Known Facts About 1984
- 2. Orwell almost called his novel The Last Man in Europe. In a letter to his literary agent, he wrote, "I have not definitely decided on the title. I am inclined to call it either Nineteen Eighty-Four or The Last Man in Europe, but I might just possibly think of something else in the next week or two."
- 3. Before there was 1984's Thought Crime, there was Japan's Kempeitai. Orwell based his Thought Crime motif on the Imperial Japanese Army's military police arm. Operating from 1881 to 1945, this secretive police force had the power to arrest people for "unpatriotic" thoughts.
- 4. Room 101 was real—and Orwell lived through it. Of course, instead of a torture room filled with nightmares, the room Orwell had to sit in was an office at the BBC Broadcasting House. He worked here during his stint as a propagandist, and you can see how his Room 101 probably looked here.
- 5. Big Brother was watching Orwell while he wrote 1984. Thanks to a research trip in 1936 that included a stay at an apartment "arranged by the local Communist party," the government put Orwell on a special watch list. He was kept under tight surveillance for more than 12 years, but our favorite snippet from the reports is this incriminating observation: "Dresses in a bohemian fashion."
- 6. "2 + 2 = 5" was a real slogan of the Communist Party. A harrowing example of false dogma in 1984, "2 + 2 = 5" really did make sense to someone in the real world—and that someone was Joseph Stalin (or more specifically his propagandist, Iakov Guminer). Two years after launching a five-year economic plan, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union announced that the plan would be completed a year early. In their campaign's own words, "2 + 2 = 5: Arithmetic of a counter-plan plus the enthusiasm of the workers."