George Orwell's Dystopian World. Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Pragmatics of (Mis)Understanding

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature language: English abstract: Occupying a central position in the political inner debate of Winston Smith the main character in Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is the following statement/promise/threat: We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness (25). This cryptic illocutionary speech act is initially heard by Winston in a dream then is distinctly associated with and equivocally reiterated later on in the novel by O'Brien who embodies at the same time the main character's ideological mentor intellectual tormentor and physical torturer.As the story unfolds the initially promising trope the place where there is no darkness becomes more and more of a sibylline utterance representing a locus of (mis)understanding and a space of radical misreading. The representation of this place is stripped of its dream-like metaphorical significance and reveals a dark deictic and literal meaning. [T]he place where there is no darkness turns out the infamous Room 101 which is precisely the opposite of what it initially passes for that is a 'utopian' space of enlightenment. On the contrary Room 101 is a 'dystopian' place in the novel where the light is deliberately never switched off as a torture inflicted upon political dissidents like Winston Smith. Likewise the story line seems to operate a series of ironical degradations such as utopia becoming dystopia; metaphor dwindling into synecdoche; and euphemism signalling a glaring statement (25) charged with a sense of utter (mis)understanding foreboding and warning culminating in the irreversible destruction of the main character. Winston's revolutionary dream of a better world turns into a horrible nightmare full of equivocation and despair. The mutual (mis)understanding between Winston and O'Brien leads to complete brainwash and emasculation of the former. Winston's p