Creating Society in Orwell’s 1984: A semiotic analysis of the notion of social transformation

Abstract

In this paper, the idea of constructing a new society in George Orwell’s 1984 is analyzed in the context of the Paris School’s semiotics trajectory. Saussurean legacy, which heavily sheds light on the semiotic conception of the school proposed by Greimas, asserts the significance of dichotomies for signs to gain their meaning. Accordingly, the study is grounded on the desired and non-desired contrariety to make the analysis with the semiotic square meaningful. It is possible to encounter the traces of the proposed idea pertaining to the struggle of forming an ideal society at all levels of meaning, predominantly at the deep level as the proposed idea represents the elementary meaning of the narrative, throughout the text. Considering the approach, desired society gains its meaning in the face of the non-desired one relativistically. Regarding the opposition theory of Saussure, what is good for the Party is not supposed to be good for the Opponents. For this reason, the idea of creating society is on the battleground, as there is an uphill fight between the ruling Party and the Opponents. The formation of desired society is revealed thanks to the semiotic square by focusing on both positive and negative transition processes. The really interesting aspect that we encountered is the vicious unended cycle and the war that will never end between the stated groups within the framework of the ideology/axiology perspective.