Melvin: There is a very strong theme in this book about questions about mind control and technology, which are not just happening in a kind of dystopian future. And how the scene in Room 101 mimics electroconvulsive therapy, which is something that was coming to the fore in the 1940s. Melvin: The appendix on NewSpeak at the end may be some hope in the book. It's written in normal English, and it focuses all the world's worries about the strange things that can be done to language.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's (1903-1950) final novel, published in 1949, set in a dystopian London which is now found in Airstrip One, part of the totalitarian superstate of Oceania which is always at war and where the protagonist, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth as a rewriter of history: 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' The influence of Orwell's novel is immeasurable, highlighting threats to personal freedom with concepts he named such as doublespeak, thoughtcrime, Room 101, Big Brother, memory hole and thought police.
With
David Dwan
Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Oxford
Lisa Mullen
Teaching Associate in Modern Contemporary Literature at the University of Cambridge
And
John Bowen
Professor of English Literature at the University of York
Producer: Simon Tillotson