It's 1984 in the Third Age

[alatar]

Every year or so I reread 1984 by George Orwell. The book always bothers me, and maybe for that reason alone I continue to go back. There seems to be something that's missing, just on the tip of my brain, that would refute that Big Brother and his Party would live forever. Think that it's biology-related, but that might just be my own bias.

Anyway, in this rereading I noted these passages that struck a new chord:

Originally Posted by Winston Smith in 1984, observing life

He looked round the canteen. A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy from the contact of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables and chairs, placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching; bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy, grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin and bad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in your stomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a feeling that you had been cheated of something that you had a right to. It was true that he had no memories of anything greatly different. In any time that he could accurately remember, there had never been quite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had always been battered and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces, bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting, cigarettes insufficient -- nothing cheap and plentiful except synthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse as one's body aged, was it not a sign that this was not the natural order of things, if one's heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt and scarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one's socks, the lifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, the cigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes? Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?

Originally Posted by O'Brien, in 1984, ranting on about 'how does one man assert his power over another?'

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'

Wasn't this the exact world that Sauron, Saruman, and possibly the Mouth of Sauron, wished to create? The ill-favored Southerner, the Uruks, the orcs, the Hillmen, the deception, the deprivation, the torture of being in the presence of the all seeing Eye, the environment of and around Mordor, etc, all seem to be in the world in which Winston Smith inhabits. Didn't Gandalf make some remark about Sauron not needing Hobbits as slaves, but would not allow them to remain free and/or happy out of spite? Take away some of the politics, and in 1984 you may have Middle Earth if Sauron would have reclaimed his One Ring.

Tolkien saw much of the same world as George Orwell, yet in Middle Earth we see that humanity and love prevail, unlike the hate found in Oceania. Is there some link between their writings, as I believe noted by T. Shippey?

I found this a helpful start. Thoughts?

[Raynor]

I think that the paralels run very deep. There would be two things I would have problems with: that there would be no science in Sauron's world (well, at least science as Machine) and that the world would revolve around the intoxication of power (as I doubt Sauron would breed his servants to desire power - rather to be servile).

[Boromir88]

I've always loved George Orwell. I haven't read 1984 in quite a while, there are a few things I remember about it. I also would suggest Orwell's book Animal Farm. It's a bit 'different' and 'out there,' so to say, but certainly another great read.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe the symbol of Big Brother is an Eye as well? Billboards and ads and such just have the 'Eye' on them as an overpowering will that controls and 'sees all'. Which is definitely the same as Tolkien talking about the 'Eye' of Sauron:

"It is true, of course, that Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom, for in their corruption they had almost lost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did the pressure on them become ere Angband fell that, if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his ’eye’ wherever they might be....this servitude to a central will that reduced the Orcs to an almost ant-like life was seen even more plainly in the Second and Third Age under the tyranny of Sauron, Morgoth’s chief Lieutenant."~Home X: Morgoth's Ring, Myths Transformed

'The Eye' is first attributed to Morgoth by Tolkien...and it serves as kind of like a reminder to the Orcs and his servants the power and domination of Morgoth over them. The orcs were held in thraldom and even ant-like state, always conscious of it (Morgoth's power) wherever they were.
Here is an old thread I did about George Orwell and JRR Tolkien. It didn't seem to amount to much, but you may find it interesting or useful.

It's quite obvious after reading stories such as Farmer Giles of Ham and Leaf by Niggle (as well as Orwell's novels) that both Tolkien and Orwell were satiric writers and you could probably spot several parallels in their writing.

The symbol of the 'Eye' can be dated back to several cultures and beliefs. For example the Freemasons used the 'Eye of Providence' (or the Eye of God) to show that everything they did was under God's watch/jurisdiction. Also, in Egyptian mythology the Eye of Horus goes to symbolize protection and power.

[Lalwendë]

It's a long time since I've read 1984 now too. To understand that sense of greasy, dingy despair it's useful to read The Road To Wigan Pier and its depiction of the abject poverty of the 1930s, the greasy, dingy digs that Orwell found himself living in, the soot-grimed streets of Wigan and Sheffield, scenes of people scrabbling for remnants of coal on dangerous slag heaps, existing hand to mouth on the dole. 1984 was also written following the war and the realisation of how extreme regimes both left and right were dehumanising, reducing people to mere cogs in the machine. And the final influence I think that's important is wartime Britain with its directives (to be fair, such directives were probably necessary during war), propaganda, identity cards, drudgery, and the misery of rationing, which went on into the 50s and was actually worse and more restrictive after the war.

Engels and Marx believed that the British people were ripe for revolution but in contrast Orwell saw that British people were more than willing to submit to being oppressed and subject to punitive laws. Personally I think there's a bit of both, and Orwell may have seen that in having Winston rebel. The Orcs are like that. When the two Orcs are discussing 'retiring' they are letting their inner rebels show through; in front of the boss and their charges they are part of the machine, but underneath these Orcs lies a love of freedom. I often wonder how Sauron would have managed the peoples of Middle-earth had he gained total control, as if even in Orcs there was the need for some liberty, how would Sauron have controlled all these other people?

That's at the root of dystopian fiction - stories always focus around a person or a few people who for some reason rebel. 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World etc, of course there would be no story if someone did not rebel, but what writers are doing is showing that people are individuals and simply cannot be part of a machine. There are stories set in ostensibly 'perfect' worlds, and ones set in grimy worlds, but all of them share this sense that the individual is greater than the machine.

Tolkien's work is well placed in comparison to novels such as 1984 and the Time Machine (especially with its Morlocks and Eloi - Orcs and Elves?), note how when Aragorn comes to power there is acknowledgement of the other realms and he will leave them to rule independently, and there is acknowledgement that the Fourth Age simply will not be 'perfect', that other evils will come and go. Tolkien even gives us a hint of the dystopian 'perfect' world that could arise when he shows us how dreadful it would be if Galadriel got hold of the One Ring; she might rule over a beautiful world, but the power she possessed would be terrible enough to ruin it.

[Raynor]

Sauron is certainly capable of commanding certain people (or even armies, as seen in the last battle) - that is, if he focuses on them. In Myths Transformed, Tolkien talks about orcs starting fights among themselves when Morgoth is not around, thus acting against his will and plans - and we certainly see this in the fights of the Cirith Ungol tower, or the fight between the sniffer orc and his companion who came about Frodo and Sam. I doubt that, even with the help of the one ring, Sauron can eradicate permanently the free will of all his subjects.

[littlemanpoet]

Tolkien repeatedly wrote to his son Christopher about the "orcs on both sides" during World War 2. It seems to me that there's some kind of connection between this sense of Tolkien's and the dystopias of Orwell and others.