1984 By George Orwell Analysis

London as an Underwater Sea Forest

George Orwell in his novel 1984, uses a metaphor to depict London as a sea bottom forest, while the forest itself represents Big Brother through newspeak, doublethink, and the manipulation of the past. Orwell uses this metaphor to illuminate the motifs of complete isolation and hopelessness, of which, Winston feels both well wondering the empty streets of the city. The emphasis on the motif of isolation centers around and is created by theme of Big Brother and the Party being a dictatorship that has utter control because of Newspeak, doublethink, and its ability to manipulate the past. This theme of dictatorship in turn, highlights the motif surrounding Winston’s hopelessness toward rebelling. My surreal depiction of Orwell’s metaphoric representation of London is an image of a city street underwater surrounded by a forest of

Surrealism incorporates the absence of aesthetic consideration toward reason or reality, which was emphasized through my depiction Orwell’s metaphor. The creation of a visual that shows an underwater city with seaweed intertwined behind, and big brothers face watching Winston in the middle, defies reality and reason encompassing surrealism. The underwater seaweed within my image is used to represent the forest in Orwell’s metaphor and envelope an underwater London city street. The head of Big Brother resides in this forest of seaweed to parallel the metaphoric representation of Newspeak, doublethink, and past manipulation, that all stress the thematic dictatorship control and illuminate the motifs of Winston’s isolation and hopelessness. The purposeful use of an empty street and tall dark looming buildings with Big Brother above, create a large discrepancy in proportion to Winston and stress his isolation as well as hopelessness through visual