Subject: (urth) Orwellian geography

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 13:44:09 +0000

Josh Geller wrote:
>And, in fact, Oceania is Great Britain/America in the 1984 world, and
>Ascia is North America to the Commonwealth's South America on Urth.

In general, yes.

But in details, hmmm.

I have this theory that most published pieces on NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (and
many readers) see its geopolitical set up as being "World War Two carried
on for decades" and basically the USA is the location of the
command/control structure, or "America is on top, just like during the Cold
War era."  (Not that Josh Geller has said this, mind you -- just that this
is one of those things that I've been mulling over for years now.)

While there are threads of textual truth to this viewpoint, still it is
clear to me that: North America is scarred by the atomic war to a degree
greater than Europe was scarred by WWII; the name "Oceania" is not a poetic
one (for a sea power superstate) is a geographical one (like the names of
the other two superstates) that in this case describes the area of
Australia, New Zeland, and islands around there -- Australasia -- and this
is the location of the command/control structure.

The former USA is a battered, poisoned province, less well off than
Airstrip One.

And Big Brother is an Aussie.

=mantis=

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:37:54 +0000

> And Big Brother is an Aussie.

I don't think so; "the book" says that "With the absorption of Europe by
Russia and _the British Empire by the United States_ [my emphasis], two of
the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in
being." (Part Two, Chapter IX; p. 153 of the Signet Classic paperback).  But
I'd be interested to hear your reasons.

--Adam

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:22:28 +0000

>I'd be interested to hear your reasons.

But Adam, the passage you quote refers quite specifically to 1949!  The
sentence before says before mid-century; the sentence after says that
Eastasia only emerged after another decade of fighting (i.e., 1959); the
next paragraph says that these three superstates have been fighting for 25
years (1984-1959 = 25 years).

The atomic war was in the 1950s and left scars that had still not been
cleaned up in 1984. Presumably this war was between the two superstates
(i.e., exactly like the Cold War situation of US/USSR).

Again, my main argument is one of the geographical terms: Eurasia,
Eastasia, and Oceania.

Another point, tangential and interpretive: Airstrip One, bedraggled,
rationed, WWII-era Airstrip One, is nevertheless the third most populous of
the provinces of Oceania (p. 7).  (If we use 1950 population numbers for
England/Wales, that is 44 million.)  How would you interpret that, given
that the other provinces include North America, South America, Western
Africa and Southern Africa (but nothing in geographical Oceania, since
that, I argue, is the core area)?  Personally I think it tricky to envision
entire continents as "provinces," but that might be an easy solution: North
America as most populous (1950 around 200 million), South America as second
most populous (1950 around 135 million), and then Airstrip One.  But if the
provinces are smaller, and realistically closer to national boundaries (or
fractions of former nations), I think it gets more difficult unless, say,
full scale atomic war has run its truly awful course and caused serious
population decreases in the bombed areas.

=mantis=

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