The room above the junkshop in nineteen eighty-four : an approach from non-places theory and a deconstructive analysis

Abstract

George Orwell is most popularly known because of his novels dealing with the issue of totalitarian governments or states: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The former, deals with the topic by means of satire; while the latter, deals with it by means of a dystopia. Orwell‟s dystopia, which is the novel to be studied in this graduate thesis paper, is set in London, in the year 1984. It has been more than twenty-five years form that date, however the threats of a state of that kind and, the worst all, the many reflections of the novel in our society have not disappeared, nor, perhaps, diminished. In the following work, I will study the issue of places and non-places in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Evidently, it is not my intention to analyse all places and non-places present in this novel but mainly one, which is, from my perspective, the room Winston rents to the fake antique dealer. For this purpose, I will analyse selected passages and episodes from the object novel of this thesis, Orwell‟s Nineteen Eighty-Four, especially those that relate with Winston‟s experiences in the city and the room.