Newspeak as a medium

How do Orwell's and McLuhan's essays relate to or describe the society presented in the novel 1984? 

     In all three texts studied, there are several common aspects the biggest relation being the use of media and language as a means of changing the means of human expression and communication.

     George Orwell, in his essay Politics and the English Language, talks about how the overuse of words or expressions causes them to lose their meaning. They become irrelevant or tired.  He specifically attacks communist propaganda as guilty of this; using the same language in the 1940's as was used in the original communist manifesto, published in 1848. 

     The reader notices in 1984 a lot of similar ideas being parroted about. The Party’s messages all consist of lauding Big Brother and attacking whatever current enemy Oceania is fighting. Several times, Winston remarks just how similar are all the Party newsflashes.

Winston’s wife, briefly discussed, is perceived by Winston to be vapid, thoughtless, accepting all of the Party’s sayings as truth. She is seen as a victim of Party belief, the perfect member. She has no original thought; all in the same overused Party terminology.

     McLuhan specifically says that media affects how one thinks, that it is impossible to be unaffected by the environment and the messages one is bombarded with every day. The primary media is the language of Newspeak, its message being one of limiting creative thought. The purpose of Newspeak, one could say, in inherently bad, as it has been created to destroy individuality and free thought, the medium is the language and its forced use in society. No one is immune to it: as McLuhan says, the things in which you are immersed become part of your society, culture, and way of thinking.

In 1984's society, one can see the effects of Orwell's nightmare come to pass: beauty and expression in language has been all but eradicated, the "Newspeak" has destroyed poetic creativity. The medium of language as a tool for thought has been eradicated and replaced by language as a tool for limiting any free and original thought.

McLuhen, agree or disagree?

            McLuhan makes an impressive smack down of General David Sarnoff's statement that "The products of modern science are neither good nor bad, it is how they are used that determines their value". McLuhan states that "There is simply nothing in the Sarnoff statement that will bear scrutiny, for it ignores the nature of the medium, of any and all media in the true Narcissus style of one hypnotized by the amputation and extension of his own being in a new technical form."

            I must agree with McLuhan’s point. The nature of the medium, what the product was intended for, is what determines its value. To put it another way, the use of the product is a secondary consideration to the use for which it was created.

People tend ignore the purposes of certain objects (i.e. guns, bombs, any sort of weaponry) in light of how they are used. The crimes that are committed using these weapons are blamed on the use and the wielder instead of the existence of the object itself. Oftentimes we do not realize the social implication of having these things at our disposal. The gun culture of the States, for example, has had significant impact on the events in the past century. A significant amount of people from the states fight vehemently for the right to bear arms, despite what has happened with guns to civilian populations.

            To elaborate this idea further, another technology impacting society today is green energy and the harnessing of renewable resources. Because of the ease with which the general populace can access green energy, there has been a movement towards sustainable living, moving away from oil and coal and towards solar and wind energy. If these technologies were not at our disposal, there would be no interest in ecologically friendly power.

The reason for green energy’s existence is to conserve our resources, to become more self-sufficient and help slow the release of carbon into the atmosphere. By these standards, the medium is “good”

            If these mediums were not at our disposal, the shape and form of society would be significantly different. The medium is intertwined with its purpose and its impact on society, not merely the way in which it is used. 

Media questions

Media:

How much information should be made available for public consumption?

            We live in an age of information. Research has never been easier to access, and as such the level of education among the general public has risen substantially. However, there are limits as to what one can aces using modern media. There is always the question asked: how much should people be allowed to know? Some information is available that has no concern to us, and some information that should be readily available is not. What should be disclosed?

            My answer is: anything relevant or useful. The public should have access to information that concerns them, their heath, security, or their education. The information needed for a project, scientific research, political truths, these should all be freely available for public consumption.

 

            An example of a situation today where information needs to be made available for the public: The Canada-China free trade agreement. The governments of both countries are not making the details of the agreement known to the public. The document was signed in secret, in Russia, and the only people to view the document prior to signing (from the Canadian side) were six of the Conservative cabinet ministers. All protests from the Canadian populace have been ignored.

(Note: there is also a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States. However, the entire document was made public, can be annulled within 6 months’ notice, and was voted on by the citizens of both countries).

            Information that should not be available to people is stuff that isn’t of any concern. The private details of celebrities, for example, should not be flaunted for public display. It has nothing to do with us and does not affect our lives at all. Anyone’s personal or private information should be kept that way.

A thousand splendid suns, post 2

In his novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, Khaled Hosseini shows a frank and dismal portrayal of the human condition. His portrait of life in Kabul is unflattering at best, and at worst outright terrifying. The amount of cruelty that Hosseini exhibits is a true portrayal of the amount of violence we are capable of subjecting to other human beings.

 

            Hosseini shows how a person is shaped, by their backgrounds and the life they lead. Mariam leads a life of relative misery, growing up in a small hut and living in shame of her heritage. Her life with Rasheed, the amount of abuse she suffers, and the loneliness of her world does form her into a sad and isolated creature. Laila, on the other hand, grows up in a family where she is loved and valued. She has good friends and a lover who support her in her endeavors. The death of her family in the missile attack changes her life drastically. She comes to live with Rasheed and Mariam, bringing with her companionship for Mariam and a joy in life that can only come from having known love in her childhood.

 

            Khaled Hosseini, who is himself and Afghani, was clearly shaped by his times. He knows firsthand the tragedies that can be daily occurrences in Kabul. His novel was inspired by his own times and the plight of the women around him,.

 

            This novel is quite true, in that is has the possibility of being a real story. The events occurring on a national level were all set appropriately with the lives of the characters. The events that befall them are all within the realm of possibility. This simple truth makes the story all the more tragic in its telling.

A thousand splendid suns, post 1

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, is a novel about the condition of Afghanistan over the past 30 years. The story follows the lives of two Afghani women. Mariam, the elder, is the bastard daughter of a housemaid and a Herat dignitary. In order to save face, the dignitary (Jalil) casts out the mother and child, and builds them a small hut in the country outside of Herat. This is where Mariam spends the first 15 years of her life, receiving occasional visits from her father, until one day she ventures into town to try and find her father’s house. He refuses to see her, and Mariam returns to the hut in misery. She finds there that her mother has commit suicide in her absence, leaving Mariam with little hope. Her father briefly takes her in, only to send her to Kabul shortly after to be wed to Rasheed, an older widower. He is initially quite kind and gentle to her, but after several miscarriages, he begins to show his true colours as an abusive, violent, and cruel man. Mariam is often horrendously beaten and cannot go outside, is often forbidden to speak with the other women in her neighborhood.

Laila is just an infant when Mariam arrives in Kabul. She lives with her parents and two brothers a short ways down the street from Rasheed and Mariam. She is a best friend of a young boy named Tariq, who lost one leg to a landmine. Her father is a teacher, and lover of literature. Laila is taught by him from an early age to be passionate about learning and encourages her ambitions. During the communist time in Afghanistan, her father is quite excited by Laila’s prospects. However, the civil war and the inherent impositions on education result in Laila having to abandon her learning. Laila’s brothers are killed in this war, and her mother becomes very depressed. After a long while of withstanding the bombings and disputing warlords, Laila’s family elects to leave Afghanistan, long after several people (including Tariq) have left the country. Just as they are leaving, however, a missile strikes their house. Laila is the only survivor, and Rasheed and Mariam take her in. Laila, who is currently pregnant with Tariq’s child, has to marry Rasheed to keep her dignity. Once again, the cycle of abuse is started, with a new victim as the bearer of Rasheed’s rage.

This story is a stark portrayal of a woman’s life in Afghanistan, set against the backdrop of the Taliban invasion, the civil war, and the communist era. The plight of the main characters is unadulterated and heart wrenching. There is no happy ending for them, no joy other than that brought by Laila’s children.

As a girl, I cannot imagine living a life like this, with such rampant inequality. I cannot imagine living in a society that will not employ women, which will not let them leave an abusive spouse, take care of their own children. I sympathize with them in complete befuddlement, for there is no parallel between our lives aside from our common sex.

The Book Thief, post 2

The Book Thief is written from the perspective of Death. Death, the Grim Reaper, Stealer of Souls, and as such is written in quite an alternative and fanciful manner. The narrator makes

BULLETIN BOARD ANNOUNCEMENTS, LIKE THIS

throughout the story to introduce plot points or draw attention to certain key facts. He also focuses on coulors and their attached sensations - such as the taste of the chocolate coloured sky.

            The author makes use of this narrator for several reasons, one of which is to draw attention to the manifold horrors and atrocities of the Nazi Germany.   The narrator will occasionally lapse into brief side stories about the concentration camp “showers” in which thousands of Jews died. Death speaks of finding them all crammed together in a single stall, loosening their souls from their prison of flesh, and taking them away – to where, we do not know.

            With Death as the narrator, the author also has a lot more artistic freedom. He breaks several conventional rules, such as revealing the ending of the story midway through the book. He also makes several unusual metaphors, such as “The world was sagging… under the weight of all that snow” and “Smoke was leaking from both {of the plane’s] lungs”. When Liesel and her friend Rudy start thieving, he refers to them as “debutants”. Debutant apple thieves!

This artistic liberty makes the story a lot more interesting to read, because many conventional literary rules were smashed to pieces. The book was refreshing and different with this alternative narration.

            

The Book Thief, post 1

For my winter break reading assignment, I have chosen to read two fantastic and incredibly depressing novels: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

            The cover of The Book Thief is a sepia image, displaying a long white finger about to push over a long line of dominos that trails into the background. The title of the book is written in stenciled capital letters, white ink on black background. The author’s name is written in the same font, smaller and in red – not so coincidentally, the colours of the Nazi flag.

            On the back cover is written an excerpt of dialogue between the main character, Liesel Meminger, and her best friend Rudy Steiner. They are talking about the sensation of stealing books, why it is so important, why they are stealing them “back”. From what, or whom, remains to be discovered throughout the entire story.

            The Book Thief is a chronicle set in World War II Germany, in a poor district of Munich. The story follows the life of a young girl, Liesel Meminger. When she is first introduced, she is nine years old. She, her mother and her brother are on the train to Munich where Liesel and her brother Werner are to be taken in by a foster family. We are first introduced at the point where her brother has died, presumably of pneumonia. She and her mother are briefly allowed to disembark in order to bury him. At his burial, Liesel finds a book in the snow – The Gravedigger’s Handbook. This is, as the narrator says, her first act of book thievery. With this book as her inspiration, and the help of her foster father Hans Hubberman, Liesel is taught how to read. 

            Thus, the central character’s drive is unleashed. Books (and especially the acquisition of) become the main focus of the story. Throughout the entire book, all the main events are interspersed with her acts of book thievery from Nazi book burnings, even the mayor’s library. She cannot simply buy the books, as the Hubbermans are not rich enough to afford many luxuries, books included.