Lee on Literature: 1984

On Dec. 29, 2011, North Korea proclaimed Kim Jong Un as its Supreme Leader. By April 2012, the final and most important of numerous state agencies, the National Defense Commission, was turned over to the 28-year-old’s command.--- Marking this momentous occasion, an $850 million satellite rocket was launched, a “gift” airmailed to Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s divine founder. Despite strong admonition against this “missile testing” from the UN Security Council, China and the United States, the rocket fired on April 13 (the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth), traveled 94 miles into the atmosphere, and broke apart, showering harmlessly into the Yellow Sea. This was a monumental blunder, embarrassment and blow to a North Korean regime that utilizes many of the totalitarian devices first coined in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984.

“Big Brother,” “newspeak,” “memory hole” and “doublethink” were all terms created by Orwell in 1984. “Big Brother” is the divine and godlike supreme leader of a totalitarian state, akin to “Uncle Sam,” an all-knowing, benevolent soul who cares for each individual while simultaneously guiding them to serve the state. Like Mao and Mobutu, Kim Il Sung built a strong Big Brother presence in North Korea, so strong that Kim Jong Il selected his third son (Un) over his second (Chul), because Un looked so much like his grandfather while Chul resembled “a girl.” (His first son, Nam, is under “protection” in China, after a botched attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a false passport.)

“Newspeak” and “memory holes” are two techniques used to control information in the totalitarian regime of “Oceana” in the story 1984. The main character, Winston Smith, works in the Ministry of Truth, trimming, editing and dumbing down official newscasts—in effect, limiting language to such an extent that individuals can no longer articulate dissent (newspeak)—while also completely censoring facts from past texts and historical documents. “Memory holes” are created, along with “doublethink,” the uneasy inner feeling in an individual when they are told to believe utter absurdities by political leaders and none around them strongly object or articulate dissent. Big Brother’s goal is to rewrite history and in many cases forget history, so as to solidify the regimes place at the top of a hierarchy of social power. Resisting this programming caused Winston to go “insane.” He wrote out dissent in personal notebooks and had an unsanctioned affair with Julia (the leader of the Junior Anti-Sex League) before he was discovered and “reprogrammed” to love Big Brother via a face cage of rats (Winston’s deepest fear) in Room 101 of the Ministry of Love. In short, fear and ignorance cement Big Brother’s grip of power upon Winston Smith and Oceana.

The power of information, notable in the cases of North Korea and the Arab Spring, may end a post-World War II pessimism regarding government dystopias and their overthrow. Orwell’s classic 1984 was created right after WWII and published in 1949. Since that time, there has been a proliferation of “dystopia” stories, especially in cinema. A Clockwork Orange (1962), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), The Matrix (1999) and, most recently, The Hunger Games (2012) all tap into a deep, worldwide pessimism regarding the power structures of our societies and governments, and the individual’s place against them. There are few, if any, widely engaged utopian stories after WWII, whereas prior to this watershed event, utopian tales such as The Lost Horizon (1933), Looking Backward (1888), City of the Sun (1623) and Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) were prolific and inspirational. Maybe North Korea’s failed rocket launch has unwittingly ushered a new age, an era when new utopias are conceived, considered and pursued, with an optimism fueled by our information age.