1984 GCSE Revision: U2 Tuition Revision Guide

1984 Revision Guide: Key Characters, Themes and More

1984 is a challenging text that deals with complex political themes and is strongly influenced by recent contemporary history and events. It has influenced culture pervasively today with terms such as Big Brother and Doublespeak becoming part of everyday language. Our 1984 Revision Guide is here to help you understand the text, including key characters and themes and help you form more complex analysis in order to meet the requirements of your GCSE exam board and score top grades.

1984 Characters: Key Characters and Analysis

  • Winston: Winston, the protagonist of "1984," is not the story’s narrator but he is experienced through a third-person limited point of view that reveals his thoughts to us, the reader. His intellectual rebellion against the Party, including acts like writing “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” and having an affair with Julia, ultimately proves futile, as he is forced to accept the Party's power and ironically ends up loving Big Brother just before his execution.

  • Julia: Julia, Winston's lover, represents a rare symbol of rebellion and hope in a society that suppresses genuine human connection. However, their relationship, driven more by defiance than true love, ultimately collapses under the Party's oppression, revealing the superficiality of personal bonds in such a repressive regime.

  • O’Brien: O’Brien, a high-ranking member of the Inner Party at the Ministry of Truth, is characterized by Orwell through his imposing physical presence and complex demeanor. Despite his “formidable” and “brutal” appearance, O’Brien's “urbane manner” and deceptive charm lead Winston to mistakenly believe he is an ally against the Party, drawing him into a trap where he pledges loyalty to the seemingly rebellious Brotherhood.

  • Mr Charrington: Mr. Charrington, who owns the second-hand shop where Winston and Julia meet, appears to support Winston’s rebellion but is later revealed to be a member of the Thought Police, embodying Winston’s justified paranoia and the omnipresence of the Party’s surveillance.

  • Big Brother: Big Brother is the omnipresent figurehead of the Party in Oceania, used to instill fear and enforce loyalty, but his actual existence is left ambiguous to maintain his god-like control. Instead of being a real person, Big Brother symbolizes the Party's totalitarian ideology and the way citizens, by accepting and enforcing it, become their own oppressors.

When you write about characters in the exam, make sure you back up your views with direct quotation and evidence from the text.

U2 Tuition Tip: As part of your revision, make a mind map for each key character and write down a few key scenes and relevant quotations that encapsulate their significance in the text so you can memorise these for the exam.

Photo of a surveillance camera, symbolising totalitarian control, a 1984 GCSE key theme

1984 Key Themes

1984 is a novel fundamentally interested in exploring absolute power and state control. These themes are central to the novel and strongly influenced by the context of when Orwell wrote. Published in 1949, following the collapse of the Nazi Empire and the downfall of Fascism in contemporary Europe, this context clearly inspires Orwell’s discussions of tyranny, dictatorship and power and his exploration of how totalitarianism affects independent thought.

Graphic of a man turned into a puppet, demonstrating how the Party controls civilians in 1984, a key theme of the 1984 GCSE Revision Guide

Power

In 1984, George Orwell imagines a dictatorship where absolute control is achieved primarily through psychological, rather than physical means. Big Brother’s hold on Oceania is so strong that any form of resistance seems unimaginable. The Party represents a totalitarian government, where the government has total control over every aspect of people's lives, often using fear, propaganda, and repression to maintain power. In 1984, we are told that the Party is “interested solely in power, pure power”.

Who is Big Brother?

This is a bit of a trick question. Big Brother’s presence is felt everywhere in the novel but at the same time, like the citizens of Oceania, we are not allowed to learn anything about him. Rather than a real person, he seems to be an unknowable political construct. This adds to the regime’s absolute power. If Big Brother cannot be pinned down, understood or identified, then he cannot be criticised or dismantled.

Useful Context:

In 1984, the Party wields absolute power over the citizens of Oceania through surveillance, propaganda, and repression. Similarly, in Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs, particularly Napoleon, gradually consolidate power after the Rebellion by manipulating language, spreading propaganda, and using fear to control the other animals — all similar tactics to the Party. Think about how Orwell explores and develops some of the same ideas from Animal Farm in 1984.

Surveillance, Censorship and Propaganda

In 1984, pervasive surveillance and censorship are employed by the totalitarian regime to control and manipulate not just what citizens do but how they think. The Ministry of Truth has a central role in creating the official narrative of history and global affairs. By modifying public archives and rewriting history, “the past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”

Central to this is the notion of doublethink. Doublethink is the ability to hold multiple contradictory beliefs in your mind at once (otherwise known as cognitive dissonance). It is “To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies,”

Doublethink allows the Party to create Newspeak, a constantly changing subjective version of reality presented as objective fact. This is a key way in which Oceania’s citizens are brainwashed.

What other symbols of Big Brother’s absolute control are there in 1984?

 
    • the giant telescreens in every room

    • the two minutes hate

    • continual threat of arrest

    • Re-education

Love

In 1984 love is depersonalised and removed from everyday life. Winston’s marriage to his wife is without any affection and even his affair with Julia is repeatedly undermined. When Julia and Winston have sex it is described as “a blow struck against the Party”, an act of political rebellion rather than emotional intimacy. Love and relationships are an expression of individuality and a commitment to something other than the Party’s wishes. Love is therefore something dangerous that needs to be repressed. Arguably, as demonstrated by the two minutes’ hate, one of the central aims of the Party is to replace the human instinct for love and kindness, with mistrust, resentment and hatred, for all except Big Brother.

1984 GCSE Questions to Practise

  • How is the relationship between Julia and Winston presented in 1984?

    • think about whether their relationship is ultimately more political or individual, about a common goal or about reciprocal love

  • In 1984, is hate, or love, the more powerful emotion?

    • What examples of each do you find in the text? What tone does the novel end on?

  • “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Analyse with relation to the concept of Doublethink in 1984.

    • Make sure you give a definition of Doublethink in your answer

    • Contextualise the quote: who says it? when? do you see evidence of this in the text?

Looking for more help with 1984 GCSE Revision or preparing for your English Literature GCSE?

If you found this guide helpful, you might like to have a look at our full 1984 GCSE Revision guide. It contains much more detailed information on key themes and characters, offering more direct quotations for you to memorise for your English Literature GCSE exam as well as helpful analysis of literary and historical context and other key terms so you can excel in your answers. You will also find an in-depth 1984 GCSE model answer which teaches you exam technique and offers useful close analysis, as well as a bank of further questions so you can get more practise.

If you’d like personalised support with your GCSE revision for 1984 or other English Literature topics, our team of Oxbridge English graduate tutors are here to assist. We offer tailored GCSE English tuition to help you confidently prepare for your exams, enabling you to excel and overcome challenges with specialist attention. A tutor can reinforce your learning, clarify difficult topics, and improve your exam technique, including providing additional GCSE English Literature questions and feedback.


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