Sentence ideas for 1984 and Stasiland:
The spectacular size of the buildings in both texts are a metaphor for the control the citizens of both countries have over their own lives, that each individual is being ‘observed, manipulated and sometimes ruined’ but the huge power and force the political figures have over them.
Orwell adopts a more oppressed depiction, illustrating Oceania as a world that ‘looked cold’ where even the sky was ‘harsh blue’ in colour.
Orwell’s towering grey ministries accentuate the physical oppression that the rulers exert overits subjects.
Orwell and Funder both use setting and architecture to reflect political control. This is expressed through the colour imagery parallels between the two texts, especially the references to “grey buildings, grey earth grey birds, grey trees”, which are utilized by the authors to illustrate the cultural uniformity in the “bureaucracy metastasised” of their two separate worlds. Fundercomments on “grey concrete designed to make people feel small” in the “land gone wrong” to symbolize the oppression that the people faced under the Stasi. The buildings represent the all-consuming power held by the Stasi, as they loomed over the people stuck in the “walled in garden” of East Berlin. Similarly, in 1984, Winston notes the “vast and white” towers “above the grimy landscape”, which represent the “enormous power arrayed against him”, as well as the juxtaposition between those in the inner party’s clean and enriched life style, compared to the life of those below them who live in filth and grime. In this way, the two authors use the “damp and bureaucratic” buildings that their characters inhabit to represent how the leaders of the totalitarian states towered over the people, seeing and controlling all, as well as the dull colour theme repeated throughout to reflect the oppressive nature of their control.
Orwell establishes the pervuasiveness of surveillance in1984, describing the “enormous” posters of Big Brother who “is watching you” constantly. By repeatedly referring to the “eyes that follow you when you move” in the posters that are “plastered everywhere” on “every commanding corner” Orwell is illustrating the imposing of propaganda and fear in the strange world of Oceania in 1984. Similarly, in Stasiland, Funder communicates the absurd measures the “internal army” of the Stasi went to observe the citizens of East Germany.
Orwell contrasts the “glittering white concrete, [buildings] soaring up... into the air” guarded by “barbed wire” and “machine gun nests” with the helplessness of the “vistas of rotting. houses” to emphasise the extent of INGSOC’s powerful control over the citizens who live in these “chicken houses”. Similarly, Funder describes an oppressed environment of “tumbledown houses”…
The constant surveillance of the “dark eyes” of “BIG BROTHER” challenges the freedom and human rights of the inhabitants of Oceania.
Orwell’s colour palette includes deep greys with brown, no signs of individuality and expression of personality.
Funder investigates the “land gone wrong” and the Stasi Security tactics used to learn “everything about anyone”.
Orwell evokesan image of a society in which the influence of the government is reflected in the colour palate of the architecture and its surrounds. Through the ‘grimy landscape’ and the lack of colour in anything ‘except posters’ which serve as propaganda, Orwell demonstrates the government’s ability to diminish creativity and individualism. Similarly, in Anna Funder’s ‘Stasiland’ we see a world in which the obvious colours are at the ‘grey end of the spectrum, grey buildings, grey earth, grey birds, grey trees”.
Political control is reflected in setting and architecture of both texts through consistently grey landscapes and large symbols of propaganda representing the omnipresent totalitarianism that is each text’s government.
Orwell explores the idea of a higher power, “Big Brother”, exerting total control over the thoughts and actions of its people and enforced through physical torture, “two minutes hate” and constant state of physical surveillance.
The grey colours tones of both texts highlightthe lack of individuality in these world and the government oppression.
Everything becomes obsolete except for this common mindset and rules one must obey under these oppressive regimes.
Buildings and landscapes reflect the oppression of individuality and the extent of total control exerted by the governments.