Aim: How do the historical allusions and connections in 1984 contribute
to the meaning of the work as a whole?
Do Now: TURN AND TALK
Why do new and different ideas often provoke fear?
New and different ideas often provoke fear due to the fact that they are relatively unknown; therefore, people aren’t necessarily sure how to properly respond to exposure of new stimuli and thus end up reacting in rather aggressive or fearful ways as an attempt to protect themselves from injury (although many times such actions are unwarranted, especially towards others in today’s society)
Is Julia good for Winston?
Julia is relatively a positive impact on Winston
He is happier overall, with less pain with his ulcers and has less drinking issues as compared to before having Julia.
What are Allusions?
Allusion: (N) Is a brief and indirect reference within a literary work to a historical, literary, or biblical character, place or event, which is NOT explained.
They are NOT explained because writers intend the audience will recognize and understand them, through prior experience.
They can help to create the mood or can contribute to the theme.
Example was the “Family Guy” Allusion which referenced the Sound of Music, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, Salvador Dali, and Harry Potter
Types of Allusions:
Biblical: referring to the Bible or a religious work
Classical: referring to Classical Literature
Literary: referring to another literary work
Historical: referring to an event in history
Examples of Allusions in 1984
Proles
The proles in 1984 are Orwell’s satirical take on the proletariat, the industrial working class in whose interest is often left for dead as they work tirelessly but receive little to no return
Ingsoc’s social class system [English Socialism – as originated by Goldstein and Big Brother]
It is meant to represent English Socialism, which was internationally only about class, not nationality, and how it was used by the Nazi’s to cater to the working class
In that regard it is similar to a British inspired Nazi socialism
Big Brother
Upper class/aristocracy
Hitler/Stalin
Emmanuel Goldstein
Trotsky/domination/control/scapegoat
Jewish people
The Telescreens
Censorship
Propaganda
Security System
Russian abuse of technology
Junior Spies
Youths indoctrinated to be secret police
Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford
Enemy of the government
Leon Trotsky/Lev Kamenev, and Grigori Zinoviev
Three questions:
Write about what you learned in your online English lessons.
During my online english lessons, I learned the proper usage and mentality behind allusions and how to make the proper contextualization related to such allusions. Additionally, I was able to find out how allusions can, in essence, serve as the very baselines for stories as which they are retold. Through the usage of allusions, we are able to further characterize the stories or matters at which they are done.
What are you learning about your world/community based on the reactions?
Based on the reactions of the public during a global crisis of both health and civil rights, I find that people may turn extremely savage in support of their beliefs, while those against certain beliefs fear what they don’t know. Additionally, I have come to greatly realize the bias within society towards a certain demographic of non minority groups in comparison to larger populations. People with privilege grow weary of staying home, while others without it merely fear for their lives. The extreme juxtaposition of the two shows how innate the tendency of humans to only pay attention to their particular needs is, despite ignoring even more elementary rights of a group of people in terror. Besides for this, I have learned how far the government is willing to go to cover its own tracks at the expense of the general public, and how the ability to wreak havoc among those in society leads to unsurmountable desire for fairly malicious acts within those who are supposed to protect us, such as police or politicians.
Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.
Generally speaking, the thoughts and feelings regarding the current situations of the world, such as COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Protests, give me, based off what I am exposed to daily both on social media and on the news, extreme distrust of the government and the information I receive. From both sides, it is extremely difficult to see honesty as both will attempt to manipulate facts or simply be misinformed and thus cause mass hysteria (such as hysterical accusations and cover ups by the media. In addition to this, another example of why I have grown distrustful of the media is due to the legitimization of the group ANTIFA, which is believed to be a national terrorist organization, despite the fact that the masses online completely disagree with the existence of such a group. In fact, they go as far as accusing the very government who legitimized it as fabricating the entire story. Due to such conflicting information, I have grown distrustful of most things I hear, and tend to, although shamefully, uphold my place as a stereotypical complacent Asian who doesn’t necessarily care for the world around me unless it involves my home country (or that’s what people want you to believe). Although unbeknownst to many, we actually do care about the world around us and advocate both for the livelihoods of our lives and others, and are more than the model minority stereotype at which we are portrayed to be. The only difference is that people are discriminatory against us, but it doesn’t pick up much heat outside of Asia due to our “model minority status,” where we have low crime rates and high paying jobs and incomes (even though we have the lowest rate of hire). It is because of such things that we have no voice, as people tend to call us pushovers who are quite often pitted against other minorities, which ultimately results in inadvertent racism on both sides of the spectrum (whereupon Asians are racist and receive racism from others)
Reflection:
During today’s lesson, I learned about the importance of allusions both in the writings/works of creators and how it could be effectively implemented within my own writing to enhance the message or story behind it. I also learned about the several types of allusions, including biblical (referring to the Bible or a religious work), classical (referring to Classical Literature), literary (referring to another literary work), and historical (referring to an event in history). Through these various types, it is evidently conceivable how one could properly use allusions as symbols with greater impacts upon which characters and storylines can be built, such as the case was in 1984 among other works. For example, today we discussed how major figures such as the proles and Big Brother were all allusions for various social classes such as the proletariat working class (that receives much exploitation) and the aristocracy, respectively. We learned such things in order to successfully enhance our analytical and writing skills, as well as to provide more insight into the story at which we are reading. It is because of the allusions that we see that we are able to work even the most whimsical thoughts into our minds through the use of relevant pop culture or basic knowledge, which gives an idea of what exactly the author has decided to write about and how his or her inspirations has impacted their piece.
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