Rose Baker - The Poetic in 1984

     In 1984, the novel addresses the weight of meaning that a word accumulates through continued cultural use, and the way that, when using an existing word, you open your usage up to scrutiny. Most words in the dictionary have two, three, and often more, applications. While thematically similar, they remain distinct in practice. However, the repeated reuse and evolution of a word allow for a deeper conception of the symbolic intent behind the action it names. These subtle layers of meaning, learned through a lifetime of exposure and varied applications, contribute directly to the potential for poetic expression. Language enables us not only to exchange information but to sense what is suggested, implied, or left unsaid, communicating on a level far beyond mere factual discourse.

    When a word is shortened or abbreviated, it becomes a new word in a sense. The abbreviation is distinct from its original source, shedding layers of inherited meaning and history. This linguistic shift is part of why real-world political parties cycle through some terminology while discarding others, seeking fresh emotional resonance or detachment from past associations.

    Under the Party's totalitarian regime in 1984, this manipulation is weaponized. The Party actively destroys societal myth-making, rewriting history—the very foundation of cultural narrative—and redefining language through Newspeak. Words like "freedom" and "truth" are stripped down until they barely carry any of their former richness, making rebellion not just illegal but nearly unthinkable. For example, the concept of "ownlife," meaning individualism, is condemned by the Party simply through the negative framing of the word itself. By controlling the evolution of language, the Party severs citizens from the poetic, the symbolic, and the imaginative, the spaces where true resistance might once have been born.