Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Doublethink
The idea of “doublethink” emerges as an important consequence
of the Party’s massive campaign of large-scale psychological manipulation.
Simply put, doublethink is the ability to hold two contradictory
ideas in one’s mind at the same time. As the Party’s mind-control
techniques break down an individual’s capacity for independent thought,
it becomes possible for that individual to believe anything that
the Party tells them, even while possessing information that runs
counter to what they are being told. At the Hate Week rally, for
instance, the Party shifts its diplomatic allegiance, so the nation
it has been at war with suddenly becomes its ally, and its former
ally becomes its new enemy. When the Party speaker suddenly changes
the nation he refers to as an enemy in the middle of his speech,
the crowd accepts his words immediately, and is ashamed to find
that it has made the wrong signs for the event. In the same way, people
are able to accept the Party ministries’ names, though they contradict
their functions: the Ministry of Plenty oversees economic shortages,
the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth conducts
propaganda and historical revisionism, and the Ministry of Love
is the center of the Party’s operations of torture and punishment.
Urban Decay
Urban decay proves a pervasive motif in 1984. The
London that Winston Smith calls home is a dilapidated, rundown city
in which buildings are crumbling, conveniences such as elevators
never work, and necessities such as electricity and plumbing are
extremely unreliable. Though Orwell never discusses the theme openly,
it is clear that the shoddy disintegration of London, just like
the widespread hunger and poverty of its inhabitants, is due to
the Party’s mismanagement and incompetence. One of the themes of 1984, inspired
by the history of twentieth-century communism, is that totalitarian regimes
are viciously effective at enhancing their own power and miserably
incompetent at providing for their citizens. The grimy urban decay
in London is an important visual reminder of this idea, and offers
insight into the Party’s priorities through its contrast to the
immense technology the Party develops to spy on its citizens.
