Two Minutes Hate: An Interpretive Analysis
By: Skylar Murphy
The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is a great political satire that contains numerous illustrations of George Orwell’s masterful use of complex metaphors. While using extreme care in the wording of his novel, Orwell cunningly joins metaphors with biblical subtexts to show an example of how absolute power corrupts in every facet imaginable. Orwell employs familiar and easily relatable illustrations within this same text to help his readers recognize the plausibility of these appalling circumstances, and further articulates the probability of them actually occurring in the non-fictional realm.
Orwell’s writing demonstrates fairly informed understanding of the power religion has on a society’s social ties to its community. Orwell utilizes that power in order to build a bond between his reader and his novel’s message. According to Samuel Stroope, “Networks within religious groups may be particularly important because social relations and roles in the group become infused with a moral force or solidarity that takes on otherworldly significance.” (Stroope 274) Orwell alerts his readers to this solidarity early on by his introduction of Oceania’s “Two Minutes Hate.” (Orwell 35) He demonstrates, through many specific depictions, the presence of modern-day Christian metaphors in a society where religion is punishable by death. It is through the main character’s descriptions of that mandated event that the reader is first introduced to Orwell’s religious undertones, and in this, the seriousness of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s cause. The members of the Outer Party are forced to bond over their hatred of the devil that the Inner Party is portrays through the use of Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston, the main character, later describes these people’s, along with his own, engagement in a “rhythmic chanting.” (Orwell 51) This is similar to the hymns that early marks would chant to grow closer to God and increase their brotherhood bond. Orwell creates a world in Nineteen Eighty-Four that rejects religion while extensively including a biblically enriched text that portrays a political agenda, especially when dealing with the Christ-figure Emmanuel Goldstein.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Emmanuel Goldstein is the only person who rebels against the Inner Party. This Inner Party has created a long list of grievances the greatest infraction being one centered around depriving the Outer Party of Oceania its liberties, in order to maintain its powerful hold on the people of Oceania. Goldstein battles the Inner Party at every front imaginable, and those battles are shown during the Two Minutes Hate. (Orwell 40) Goldstein fights for his life and for Oceania’s liberties, the likes of which are simply given to Americans under the First Amendment of the United States’ Bill of Rights. Orwell writes that Goldstein fights the Inner Party for each of the freedoms listed in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights except, ironically enough, the Freedom of religion. (Orwell 40) It should be noted that the Freedom of Religion is in fact listed as the first line of the entire Bill of Rights, ascertaining that it was perhaps at the forefront of the minds of the Founding Father as they created this national document; “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (Madison, James; Congress of the United States Amendment 1) Jesus, the Christian hero within the Bible is the one that rebels against the governing body of the temples referred to as “The Pharisees”. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 12:1-8) Jesus attacks many of the laws that these Pharisees have with his action in the name of the law of God’s Word. These actions, like Emmanuel Goldstein’s, are the initial causality for each of their respective groups of corrupted leadership, the ones whose top mission is to conspire for each hero to meet their demise. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 12:14) (Orwell 38-41) This important initial line from the Bill of Rights, which was so evidently left out of Orwell’s publication, seems to reason that there can only be one religion. If there is to be only one religion, it would make sense to place this prospective source of power in the hands of the people who are constantly aspiring to ascertain it, the Inner Party.
Perhaps one of the most effortlessly recognizable similarities between Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Bible is the name given to the men that are supposed foes of their respective groups of power. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Inner Party’s dissentient is named Emmanuel Goldstein. This surname is distinct to a racial-religious group of people known as Jews, and accordingly he is in fact of Jewish descent. (Orwell 40)In early Christian days, hymns helped Christians, as with many other faiths, remember stories and tales. One such Hymn includes the name of their Savior from its Hebrew origin, and includes what that name, Emmanuel, means translated from the ancestral Hebrew texts; “God with us, revealed in us.” (McGee 204) According to the Bible, Emmanuel is synonymous with Jesus Christ, who was the Son of God and a direct descendant of King David from the tribe of Judah. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 1:1, John 1:11-12) Though they share ethnic origins and even similar namesakes, both these men are documented as existing, yet neither are capable of being absolutely proven in their worlds by even the most knowledgeable authorities.
Tying Oceania’s “Enemy of the People” with the Christian Savior is not a path that Orwell treads lightly; he pursues it with full force to guarantee there is no doubt for his readers who the protagonist truly is. (Orwell 38) In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell has Winston describe the face of Goldstein and his followers during the Two Minutes Hate. Goldstein first is described as having a “lean Jewish face,” and then as having a personifying resemblance to “the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had sheeplike quality.” (Orwell 40) The men behind him are described as having similar qualities to their leader. Jesus, as discussed earlier, was also of Jewish descent. He was often times called The Lamb of God, because he was God’s sacrifice for the sins of the world, in doing so, saving the world. In Genesis, the sheep are believed the truest and most pure animals on the earth and it is because of this they are the perfect sacrifice to please the Christian God. (Holman Bible Staff 22:2-13) It can be derived from this correlation to his sheep-like voice and looks that Goldstein is the truest part of the entire Two Minutes Hate. Granted the reader could easily understand that the tales of his evil and his numbers are likely fabricated, but his rebellion serves as a beacon of pure truth to the path that will set them, the people of the Outer Party, free. (Orwell 40) Orwell’s imagery of innocence when it comes to Goldstein gives his readers the idea that his cause is an admirable one, much like those of Jesus, despite the Inner Party’s portrayal of his actions.
In Nineteen Eighty-four, Winston tells the reader of Goldstein’s “terrible book” during the Two Minutes Hate. (Orwell 43) It was a book that he is drawn to, believing it to be a pathway to freedom. Later on, Winston and the reader find out that the Inner Party is the creator of this book. The words that were supposed to be liberating are the ones that seem to be what leads Winston to become tortured towards the end of the book. A similar parallel can be found with the teaching of the Bible. The early Christians had the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus to follow. (Holman Bible Staff Exodus 20:1-17) Christians were persecuted and tortured according to Christian tradition, many dying for their beliefs. Orwell uses this parallel to show the sacrificial price one must be willing to pay to obtain salvation.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, that salvation never comes for Winston. Instead, he learns that he must completely lose himself to become the citizen the Inner Party wants. (Orwell 586) For Christians, they were asked to die to themselves as a way to let God have claim to their souls. (Holman Bible Staff Luke 14:33) This along with all of the connections previously introduced leaves to question whether or not the Inner Party was imposing a religion with absolute power, simply under the guise of being a government entity, instead of being a government intolerant of basic civil and religious liberties. The Inner Party tells them what purchases are unlawful and which are forgivable, just as the Bible teaches what is and what is not an action of sin. (Holman Bible Staff Isaiah 59:2) Each has their followers beg for forgiveness before allowing them to be integrated into their special populations. (Holman Bible Staff Acts 3:19) (Orwell 585-587)
Orwell floods his text Nineteen Eighty-Four with metaphors that are drenched in Biblical subtexts. He shows his readers an interpretation of his dystopian society as more than just a totalitarian government in control of all aspects of life within Oceania. Orwell gives his reigning group of leadership, the Inner Party, an absolute power that even encompasses a religion, despite the way they condemn its practice, which this governing party vehemently enforces and reinforces on its oppressed subjects. Orwell draws on Christian influence which helps his reader relate to the horrors that occur within Oceania, and in doing so, invites his reader’s imagination to implore the possibility of the Inner Party becoming a real-life political party of their non-fictional world.
References:
Holman Bible Staff, The, ed. Holman Christian Standard Bible. Burgundy Bonded Leather Edition. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003. 2014 April 30.
Madison, James; Congress of the United States. "The Bill of Rights." 4 March 1789. National Archives and Records Administration. Ed. Charters of Freedom Publishers. The Charters of Freedom. Transcript. 2014 April 30. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html>.
McGee, Bob. "Emanuel, Emanuel." Church, The United Methodist. The United Methodist Hymnal: Book of United Methodist Worship. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989. 204. Leather Bound Book. 30 April 2014.
Orwell, George. "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in the Complete Works of George Orwell Series. Ed. Peter Davidson. New York: Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1989. Amazon Kindle. 30 April 2014. <https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B003JTHWKU>.
Stroope, Samuel. "Social Networks and Religion: The Role of Congregational Social Embeddedness in Religious Belief and Practice." Sociology of Religion 73.3 (2012): 273-298. Document. 30 April 2014.
The novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is a great political satire that contains numerous illustrations of George Orwell’s masterful use of complex metaphors. While using extreme care in the wording of his novel, Orwell cunningly joins metaphors with biblical subtexts to show an example of how absolute power corrupts in every facet imaginable. Orwell employs familiar and easily relatable illustrations within this same text to help his readers recognize the plausibility of these appalling circumstances, and further articulates the probability of them actually occurring in the non-fictional realm.
Orwell’s writing demonstrates fairly informed understanding of the power religion has on a society’s social ties to its community. Orwell utilizes that power in order to build a bond between his reader and his novel’s message. According to Samuel Stroope, “Networks within religious groups may be particularly important because social relations and roles in the group become infused with a moral force or solidarity that takes on otherworldly significance.” (Stroope 274) Orwell alerts his readers to this solidarity early on by his introduction of Oceania’s “Two Minutes Hate.” (Orwell 35) He demonstrates, through many specific depictions, the presence of modern-day Christian metaphors in a society where religion is punishable by death. It is through the main character’s descriptions of that mandated event that the reader is first introduced to Orwell’s religious undertones, and in this, the seriousness of Nineteen Eighty-Four’s cause. The members of the Outer Party are forced to bond over their hatred of the devil that the Inner Party is portrays through the use of Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston, the main character, later describes these people’s, along with his own, engagement in a “rhythmic chanting.” (Orwell 51) This is similar to the hymns that early marks would chant to grow closer to God and increase their brotherhood bond. Orwell creates a world in Nineteen Eighty-Four that rejects religion while extensively including a biblically enriched text that portrays a political agenda, especially when dealing with the Christ-figure Emmanuel Goldstein.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Emmanuel Goldstein is the only person who rebels against the Inner Party. This Inner Party has created a long list of grievances the greatest infraction being one centered around depriving the Outer Party of Oceania its liberties, in order to maintain its powerful hold on the people of Oceania. Goldstein battles the Inner Party at every front imaginable, and those battles are shown during the Two Minutes Hate. (Orwell 40) Goldstein fights for his life and for Oceania’s liberties, the likes of which are simply given to Americans under the First Amendment of the United States’ Bill of Rights. Orwell writes that Goldstein fights the Inner Party for each of the freedoms listed in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights except, ironically enough, the Freedom of religion. (Orwell 40) It should be noted that the Freedom of Religion is in fact listed as the first line of the entire Bill of Rights, ascertaining that it was perhaps at the forefront of the minds of the Founding Father as they created this national document; “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (Madison, James; Congress of the United States Amendment 1) Jesus, the Christian hero within the Bible is the one that rebels against the governing body of the temples referred to as “The Pharisees”. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 12:1-8) Jesus attacks many of the laws that these Pharisees have with his action in the name of the law of God’s Word. These actions, like Emmanuel Goldstein’s, are the initial causality for each of their respective groups of corrupted leadership, the ones whose top mission is to conspire for each hero to meet their demise. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 12:14) (Orwell 38-41) This important initial line from the Bill of Rights, which was so evidently left out of Orwell’s publication, seems to reason that there can only be one religion. If there is to be only one religion, it would make sense to place this prospective source of power in the hands of the people who are constantly aspiring to ascertain it, the Inner Party.
Perhaps one of the most effortlessly recognizable similarities between Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Bible is the name given to the men that are supposed foes of their respective groups of power. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Inner Party’s dissentient is named Emmanuel Goldstein. This surname is distinct to a racial-religious group of people known as Jews, and accordingly he is in fact of Jewish descent. (Orwell 40)In early Christian days, hymns helped Christians, as with many other faiths, remember stories and tales. One such Hymn includes the name of their Savior from its Hebrew origin, and includes what that name, Emmanuel, means translated from the ancestral Hebrew texts; “God with us, revealed in us.” (McGee 204) According to the Bible, Emmanuel is synonymous with Jesus Christ, who was the Son of God and a direct descendant of King David from the tribe of Judah. (Holman Bible Staff Matthew 1:1, John 1:11-12) Though they share ethnic origins and even similar namesakes, both these men are documented as existing, yet neither are capable of being absolutely proven in their worlds by even the most knowledgeable authorities.
Tying Oceania’s “Enemy of the People” with the Christian Savior is not a path that Orwell treads lightly; he pursues it with full force to guarantee there is no doubt for his readers who the protagonist truly is. (Orwell 38) In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell has Winston describe the face of Goldstein and his followers during the Two Minutes Hate. Goldstein first is described as having a “lean Jewish face,” and then as having a personifying resemblance to “the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had sheeplike quality.” (Orwell 40) The men behind him are described as having similar qualities to their leader. Jesus, as discussed earlier, was also of Jewish descent. He was often times called The Lamb of God, because he was God’s sacrifice for the sins of the world, in doing so, saving the world. In Genesis, the sheep are believed the truest and most pure animals on the earth and it is because of this they are the perfect sacrifice to please the Christian God. (Holman Bible Staff 22:2-13) It can be derived from this correlation to his sheep-like voice and looks that Goldstein is the truest part of the entire Two Minutes Hate. Granted the reader could easily understand that the tales of his evil and his numbers are likely fabricated, but his rebellion serves as a beacon of pure truth to the path that will set them, the people of the Outer Party, free. (Orwell 40) Orwell’s imagery of innocence when it comes to Goldstein gives his readers the idea that his cause is an admirable one, much like those of Jesus, despite the Inner Party’s portrayal of his actions.
In Nineteen Eighty-four, Winston tells the reader of Goldstein’s “terrible book” during the Two Minutes Hate. (Orwell 43) It was a book that he is drawn to, believing it to be a pathway to freedom. Later on, Winston and the reader find out that the Inner Party is the creator of this book. The words that were supposed to be liberating are the ones that seem to be what leads Winston to become tortured towards the end of the book. A similar parallel can be found with the teaching of the Bible. The early Christians had the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus to follow. (Holman Bible Staff Exodus 20:1-17) Christians were persecuted and tortured according to Christian tradition, many dying for their beliefs. Orwell uses this parallel to show the sacrificial price one must be willing to pay to obtain salvation.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, that salvation never comes for Winston. Instead, he learns that he must completely lose himself to become the citizen the Inner Party wants. (Orwell 586) For Christians, they were asked to die to themselves as a way to let God have claim to their souls. (Holman Bible Staff Luke 14:33) This along with all of the connections previously introduced leaves to question whether or not the Inner Party was imposing a religion with absolute power, simply under the guise of being a government entity, instead of being a government intolerant of basic civil and religious liberties. The Inner Party tells them what purchases are unlawful and which are forgivable, just as the Bible teaches what is and what is not an action of sin. (Holman Bible Staff Isaiah 59:2) Each has their followers beg for forgiveness before allowing them to be integrated into their special populations. (Holman Bible Staff Acts 3:19) (Orwell 585-587)
Orwell floods his text Nineteen Eighty-Four with metaphors that are drenched in Biblical subtexts. He shows his readers an interpretation of his dystopian society as more than just a totalitarian government in control of all aspects of life within Oceania. Orwell gives his reigning group of leadership, the Inner Party, an absolute power that even encompasses a religion, despite the way they condemn its practice, which this governing party vehemently enforces and reinforces on its oppressed subjects. Orwell draws on Christian influence which helps his reader relate to the horrors that occur within Oceania, and in doing so, invites his reader’s imagination to implore the possibility of the Inner Party becoming a real-life political party of their non-fictional world.
References:
Holman Bible Staff, The, ed. Holman Christian Standard Bible. Burgundy Bonded Leather Edition. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003. 2014 April 30.
Madison, James; Congress of the United States. "The Bill of Rights." 4 March 1789. National Archives and Records Administration. Ed. Charters of Freedom Publishers. The Charters of Freedom. Transcript. 2014 April 30. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html>.
McGee, Bob. "Emanuel, Emanuel." Church, The United Methodist. The United Methodist Hymnal: Book of United Methodist Worship. Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989. 204. Leather Bound Book. 30 April 2014.
Orwell, George. "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in the Complete Works of George Orwell Series. Ed. Peter Davidson. New York: Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1989. Amazon Kindle. 30 April 2014. <https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B003JTHWKU>.
Stroope, Samuel. "Social Networks and Religion: The Role of Congregational Social Embeddedness in Religious Belief and Practice." Sociology of Religion 73.3 (2012): 273-298. Document. 30 April 2014.